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.

It's a 5 hour round trip for us so we spend all day there to make it worth it. So a chip lunch and then dinner, parking charges, coffee. Usually about £80.

Let's hope you haven't raised expectations and have sorted things with the neighbour.

We live minutes from the beach and typical spend would be say 2.50 each for an ice cream, couple of quid for books or whatever in a charity shop and that's it.

Local beach! Is National trust and I'm a member purely for the car park. Rearely have a full day at the beach! But £4.50 past £2.50 for a coffee or ice cream. Local car parks range for £3-£8

Wow! £150, well

you spent £240, not including your picnic and you are asking if it’s realistic to do it on less? Is it like a stealth gloat thread about how much money you spent cheering up your kid? You must have done days out before, you no it’s possible and perfectly acceptable. Your day out was a big day out, not a beach trip, next time take buckets and spades and just play on the beach and im
sure theyl enjoy it just as much!

This !
Living in the Midlands, a trip to the beach is exciting enough to spend the day there. When my dc were children a trip to the beach was just that - digging in the sand; paddling / swimming / body boarding; walking o the other end of the beach / looking for stones/ shells / even caves.

When we used to go for a week, then yes, we would go in to the arcades, but the dc would know they had £1's worth of 2ps to play with and then it was gone.

I know food prices have gone up but we're just back from a week at the seaside and haven't paid £4.50 an icecream anywhere.

It depends on where you're going.

My parents' ideal beach:
Parking-random field or squidged into side of road for free.
Walk around 2 miles along cliff edge to get down to beach.
Walk around another mile to make sure no one else is near.
Have pack lunch.
No facilities etc so nothing else to spend.

My choice:
Parking: Nice open car park close to the beach.
Ice creams all round
Pack lunch
Maybe a wander round the town, which might involve buying something else
Fish and chips before we go home possibly

£80 on a chippy tea and a round of ice creams?? How many kids do you have?

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

Are you asking if other people can do a trip to the beach on less than £150?! Surely you know that is what most people do!!

We always take a picnic to the beach. The only thing we pay for is parking (if we take the car), ice cream and possibly some sort of tat the dc want. The one beach I go to has a park nearby and a decent pub, so drinks will be bought.

Midlands too but don't drive so would never do seaside as a day trip. However its only a holiday if there's a beach so we then go most days.

One day we'd do the Prom so arcade (£10 max for one kid, will be less per head this year as three kids, sat £25), funfair (£10 max for one kid, will be less per head this year as three kids, say £25), lunch (£15-20), ice cream (£15) so £85-90.
Other days would be packed lunch and just ice creams and we'd literally be in the sand / in the sea all day

I think the beaches some pps are going to must have more facilities than our beach! I would just spend the petrol, and maybe stop at the village nearby for an ice-cream on the way home. There is no where else to spend money at out beach!

Money for petrol and parking only. On some visits there will also be an ice cream, depending on weather.

Wow... Well I'm planning on spending half of the summer at our local beaches
We have buckets and spades etc a picnic blanket and cool bag.
We take sandwiches, crisps, cans of pop, bottles of water and spend nothing
Free parking at three beaches near us
Possibly ice creams or chips so maybe £10 at a push.

On the occasions we go to Whitby, Scarborough we need petrol, parking and generally get fish and chips/ice cream but I still take a cool bag in car with water, cans of pop plus few snacks

South Shields we spend more as we need petrol, parking plus the DC like a few rides, arcades etc but we try and spend a good part of the day in the park/at beach so on these days yes we spend probably about £80ish but that's not a regular thing

£4.50 for an ice-cream? You're shitting me man?

Beach is like 3 miles away from me, so not £150 quid. It's all relative I think.

We tend not to have fish and chips at the seafront as the prices are exorbitant compared to those a 5 minute drive away. If we are hungry and on the beach, I’d just go for just a few portions of chips, or a chip butty!

I would just pay for parking and petrol (thankfully we live a few miles from the coast so wouldn't need a second mortgage for the petrol).

We might get an ice cream, but not always

They just play on the beach and swim in the sea, it's definitely a cheap and fun day out

We have a local beach with all the frills and another near to that which is entirely undeveloped beyond some toilets and a coffee van. We'll typically spend about £50 at the former and less than a fiver at the latter. They are two totally different trips out.

And Whitby - between the fish and chips/arcade/lucky ducks/ice creams/trip out on the boat and a go round the Dracula experience - it's easiest not to keep count.

We're in North Yorkshire, within around 45 minutes drive from the coast. We have always avoided the seaside resort type places, like Scarborough - not only because of the money spending potential, but also because as soon as my DCs cast their beady eyes towards the funfair rides, arcades etc, they become far less content with making sandcastles, exploring rock pools etc.

We tend to head to Hunmanby Gap. Miles long stretches of beautiful sand, shallow water, and only a beach hut cafe and toilets.

We always take a picnic, which is just general stuff from home - sandwiches, scotch eggs, crisps, fruit, cold drinks sort of thing. Other times, we'll bring a disposable bbq, with a packet of sausages and some rolls (although that adds hassle of needing to pack tomato ketchup/bbq sauce/plastic cheese slices/utensils, etc).

We pack buckets and spades, cricket set, frisbee, football, and the DCs can spend an entire day on the beach.
Sometimes, if the weather turns, we'll head into Filey and go to the arcades at the end of the day. We'll put £4 into the change machine to get 2p's - once that's done, we're done.
We'd normally finish the day with an ice cream, so that would maybe be £4/5 for the two DCs, DH and I don't generally have one.

So, a day out at the beach for us would be the cost of fuel to get there, parking £5 for the whole day (other beaches locally are free), cost of picnic (but we'd be eating lunch at home anyway), ice cream and (sometimes) arcades £10. Maybe £30 in total.

I should have added, both DCs have wet suits and body boards. Wet suits are always bought 2nd hand from ebay/FB and have generally cost around £10 each, and we've had to replace one per year (ds hands down to dd). Body boards bought new at about £25 each, though they've now had them about 5 years.
Definitely not an essential cost for a beach day, but they enjoy it, and extends the day if the weather stays good.

I love the idea of a beach library too. I've never seen this, but I would have loved it when DS1 was little and we lived in Glasgow. We had to take the train to the coast, and I didn't have room in our flat to store beach toys.

We lived in the midlands for a while as children and a beach day was a Big Day Out so I can see why you spent a lot. Now we live by the sea so for DS, a beach day is a day when there’s nothing else going on or a dog walk. We might get an ice cream (£5-8 depending on whether DH is with us) or the dog likes to visit the pub after his walk 🤷‍♀️ So maybe a tenner there.

And I bet the dog never gets his round in.

In a lively place, about £80-£100. Petrol to get there, parking, snacks, arcades for Ds then either lunch or evening meal.

We live about two minutes from the beach so generally it costs us nothing.

If we get fish and chips and ice cream, maybe £15-20 for the two of us.

We take a picnic, bottles of water (and a 5 litre refill in the car), picnic, flasks of coffee, bodyboards, paddleboards, books and vat and ball/boules and a beach tent and can often stay for 8 hours and spend price of parking only. Occasionally buy an ice cream each but not everytime.

• bat not vat!