How much do you spend on a day trip to the beach?

[HighSea]

Thinking a head to the summer holidays and always see the beach recommended as a cheap day out. So realistically when it’s not during a holiday or a special day out how much do you budget for a day trip to the beach? This is assuming you take a picnic, drinks and sand toys from home.

We live quite close and my parents live within walking distance. We can spend nothing or more than £50. We tend not to have to pay parking. An after school trip might involve chips or donuts.

A summer holiday day out might involve fairground rides. 2 x DC and it soon adds up

Petrol - varies
Parking - £3-5
Ice creams - £10-15 - sometimes

That's it. We take bodyboards, ball, frisbee etc and a picnic. If we go in the evening/after 4pm the parking is free & we take a little camping cooker & have macaroni cheese, rolls, noodles, hot chocolate, biscuits etc

Our favourite beach has nothing around it really so no where to spend money.

I live at the coast, 5 mins from the beach so I'm there twice a day, every day, to walk my dog.
We have the tourist beach, where a day's parking could be £6-10, then money for shops, arcades, rides, cafes etc.
Two miles further along from the tourist part is where I go, free car parking and absolutely no facilities- literally just beach and sea, so nothing to spend money on!

Even near the tourist part you can save money if necessary. Five minutes walk would get you to a Sainsbury's or Co-op where you can buy sandwiches and a box of ice-creams, much cheaper than the beachfront kiosks.

When we do arcades we mainly stick to the 2p machines.
You can have quite a lot of fun for £2 each.

Ah, well you went on a day out to the seaside, not a trip to the beach. To me a trip to the beach = sitting & playing on the beach and paddling so none of the extra entertainment costs are incurred.

Your entertainment costs are pretty high though, I generally give 50ps worth of 2ps for amusements & we get discounted tickets to the rides. Also if I did rides, that would be it for the day, wouldn’t be going to other entertainment too.

I do live close to a seaside resort however so it is more frequent and less extravagant. Perfectly possible.

Nothing, live 2 mins away, over the wall and I'm there. Have a half moon tent and beach chair so they cost about £70 outlay but have got them now, take drinks and snacks so I guess about £1 for those.
Don't call it a glamour beach, nowhere to spend money bunt a chip shop and corner shop 5 mins away should I feel the need.
Lucky I know, try an unpopolour beach, still has water and stones/ sand🤔

Ah, well you went on a day out to the seaside, not a trip to the beach.

yep-this!

I just wondered if it’s realistic just keeping it to parking, ice cream for kids, Costa for adults?

as long as you don’t have the sort of child who will assume that because you did all this:-

ice creams x5 @ £4.50 each
£10 per child in the arcade £30
£30 on amusement rides
£25 for a round of mini golf
£20 on a cuddly octopus that turns inside to change colour
£20 on rocks and dummy sweets
£10 Costa
£5 full day parking

plus dinner out, then that’s what ‘going to the beach’ looks like every time!

Popped down yesterday with my youngest, at 4pm we just thought 'yeah let's do it'

Fish and chips with a drink x2 £22
Ice cream x2 £5
2hrs parking £4
Petrol 1hr each way £20 ish

So call it £50 for a late afternoon / early evening spur of the moment summer treat.

Ah ok, I was picturing a therms a lot more narrower than that.

Yeah, I should have written food thermos.. 🙂

What the hell did you spend £150 on?!!

Surely you must know that what you spent is way more than the average 'regular family day at the beach'.

Very few families could afford a day out like that every week.

Of course its fine to just stick to an ice cream, parking and coffee. Thats probably far more typical of what people spend when they go regularly.

We buy fish and chips, icecream or coffee, and pay for parking. If we took a picnic it would be just icecream and parking. Neither me nor the teen have any interest in arcades or similar and they were completely out of budget when DS was young.

A day at the beach can be really cheap. It depends on what your expectations are and how old the children are. The type of beach too. If you’re on sand and there’s plenty of space, we take a cricket or boules set. Rocky beaches we’d take snorkels. Beaches with a bit of surf, body boards. Beachcombing or beach cleaning is a good thing to do as well, and the new identification apps make it easier to identify any unknown shellfish or plants. We like using the Shipfinder website to identify any ships out at sea. We always have a pack of cards and uno in the car just in case.

A paddle board or kayak experience can be lovely and memorable at the right beach and your children are old enough. If you have such a decent budget for a day out it might make more sense to hire these for a half day and have an adventure, whilst saving money on the other more ordinary stuff. A good hire place should give you a safety briefing before you go as you do need to watch winds and tides.

I always take a flask of decent coffee for the adults (nicer than Costa) and a picnic. You could scoop ice cream into a wide necked food flask I guess, although I have never done this.

Just parking and possibly an ice cream. Take food and drink with us.

We take a picnic lunch, park on a side street, so no parking costs.

But we always buy an ice cream each, and often get fish and chips for tea so we can stay later and make a full day of it, as it’s a fairly long journey. We’d probably share two fish and chips (and peas) between 4 of us. We might get a soft drink or two as a treat.

We might do an activity like crazy golf, or Dc might go on trampolines or a pedalo or something.

The seaside place we tend to visit charges 20p for the toilets too.

So £10 on ice creams, £20-25 or so on tea in the evening, up to £15 on activities. £1.60 on the toilet.
Sometimes we go by train instead of car, which ramps the price up a lot.

Parking and icecream here. Usually take sandwiches, crisps and fruit. Not sure how much things cost on a pier, but if there's one check out costs beforehand and tell the family there's a limit of so much per head.

Obviously you know it's more than possible to go to the beach without spending upwards of£200.

Parking, sometimes an icecream and/or tea.

I grew up by the seaside though, that was completely free - we had a short walk to the beach and only rarely would have an icecream.

Gosh OP you went all out!
When mine were small we chose beaches that had no arcades/ amusements etc;
We sometimes uses to take a disposal bbq and make hot dogs . Good times.

While I think the OPs day out was a bit OTT drop do regularly, a day trip to the beach from the midlands is a different proposition to a day at the beach if you live on or near the coast.
We went on the pier infrequently when I was growing up (and not sure I ever went into the amusement arcades!) - a day on the beach was a day on the beach. Swimming, sandcastles, shell collection, crabbing from the groyne, that sort of thing.

A trip to the beach is to me is to an undeveloped area so it's the cost of food- picnic or barbecue or fish and chips, an ice cream, and either parking or train fares,

I'd describe your day as trip to the seaside and much more expensive because your spending the above plus arcades, donuts, rides, coffees, a wander round the shops usually leads to buying bits and bobs. We went on cable cars last time that were expensive.

Live near the beach anyway ,but sometimes go to a well known beauty spot about 40 mins drive .So Fuel ,parking (around 10 quid per day) a couple of ices .and some fish and chips .Sometimes gift shop but they bring own money for this . About 50/60 quid I guess

We live near the sea so go a lot. We also have a parking permit so it works out a couple of quid per trip including beach walks in the winter with the dog.

We take food and drink usually so the most we'll buy is ice creams. Sometimes chips if we're there into the evening.

We do occasionally hire loungers and a brolly which is lovely but not every time.

£150 is a huge amount and although it adds up quickly, that would be a once a summer type trip.