How to make self catering feel like a holiday?

[bumchic]

To squeeze in two holidays this year we went away self catering at half term and will do the same in August but I found myself seething the whole time at still having to produce lunch and dinner every day. We had two lunches in cafes and two dinners in restaurants but the rest of the time was shopping and cooking. These are U.K. breaks so there’s no cheap plentiful local seafood or produce etc and just a trip round a different branch of our usual supermarket with a slightly different layout for a bit of exoticism.

Anyone any tips? Don’t want to spend our August hol feeling annoyed

Oh and we always get a cottage with a dishwasher to reduce washing up!

Have you discovered Cook? We did a 5 night country house break and had one of these each night! Shoved in oven. The year before we had been slaving say in the kitchen sod that.

I think the OP was saying it didn’t feel like a holiday for her, because she was doing all of the cooking, not that the rest of the family didn’t feel like they were getting a holiday.

Don’t have a lazy husband.

Cook ready meals,

We usually self cater so treated ourselves to a longer hotel last year. Really didn’t like it. Insanely expensive Crammed in with lots of people living out of one room having to eat out every night canteen breakfasts. We prefer self catering with our own space. You can eat out but also stay in with easy food.

We almost always self-cater as with a neurodiverse family it's less stressful to do that than have to navigate explaining DC's needs to catering staff (especially if overseas!). But for those of us who can eat them, we get a big delivery of Cook meals for dinners, and a supermarket delivery with everything needed for easy lunches and breakfasts, and we manage fine. Having a dishwasher in the sc accommodation is absolutely vital. For us, there's no inequality in who does the chores of cooking and clearing, but if your normal day to day life outside of holiday time has you doing the majority of the cooking and clearing, that role should reverse to DP during any sc holiday.

To be honest we don’t feel it’s expensive, when you factor in the cost of food & drinks when you’re out and about every day

We do an online shop for delivery so we don't have to go shopping.

Get treat cereals, pastries etc for breakfast. Go out for brunch

Do picnic style lunches - cocktail sausages, bought salads, chicken pieces, breadsticks, pittas or wraps

Evening meals we do easy stuff like pizza, bought lasagne (or make at home freeze and defrost), have a takeaway one night, stir-fry and noodles or fajitas are easy.
Have a bbq if the weather is nice.

Basically try to make everything low prep, low cook and more fun than home.

If there are 2 adults make sure both do their share! Get everyone to do some prep and tidying up.

It's your holiday too.

Each to their own!
we like it because it’s so easy and I don’t have to worry about what to cook and it gets everyone eating foods they not had before, also we find it works out cheaper due to the amount of drinks and ice cream it saves us buying!
I do mean soft drinks & water as we don’t drink alcohol!

we found it doesn’t really work out that expensive, when you factor in what we would spend on food and drinks every day!
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I always take a selection of Cook meals, a lasagne and chilli or something I’ve made at home and then eat out as much as possible! Also have some bbqs if weather permits.

I agree that self catering abroad seems much better due to nice markets and a variety of foods that are not mundane like being at home!

I’m fairly sure 3 AI holidays abroad and a B&B holiday would be more expensive than 2 self catering holidays in the UK.

Sharing the cooking duties or what about you have a cook free holiday and let DH enjoy the holiday novelty?

We will invested in a decent gas travel BBQs for self catering holidays used it lots of times and has saved us money over the yrs. kids love it too it’s part of holidays now .

enjoy your holiday

What sort of place are you staying? If it’s got a freezer I would take some batch cooked meals from home.
Failing that, come up with a low stress easy menu and do a shop or get a delivery at the start of the week. Things like an easy pasta, a tray bake, a shop bought curry kit etc (anything that you will all be happy to eat) I have a travel cooking kit with mini pots of spices/herbs, oil, vinegar etc so I don’t have to buy all the basics.
At least then you won’t have to keep shopping/thinking about what to cook.

@rosemarble There maybe a kettle and possibly a fridge, depending on the type of accommodation.
However AI means you don't even need to make your own tea! Up, shower, dressed, breakfast buffet.

Literally everything is available to you 7/11.

We have AI-ed in fancy hotels as a couple and in sensibly priced aparthotels as a family. They are great as fly and flop (or diving in our case)
If you are after a do very little holiday they are perfect.

If you get an old phone put a sim in it and link to your phones Wi-Fi, sign up to a food delivery service with a link from your service, they give you £10 or more discounts, plus buy one get one free offers means you could do pizza one night and fish and chips another.
Do a BBQ one night, paper plates , cans of drink etc, some places have communal BBQ or just use the disposable ones. Almost zero clean up.
Do the children eat free breakfast , 2 free children for every adult.

Unless you are a single parent take it in turns.

When we self cater, it's on condition that cooking is minimal. So we have meals out, take-aways, things that we can just warm up like pasties and pizzas etc. If we've had a large lunch, in the evening we just grab a selection of bread, biscuits, pates, cheeses and fruit. I fondly remember a sort of big farm shop we came across once that had really unusual ready meals that we could just microwave or cook by leaving in the oven for half an hour. By the seaside, we may well be able to get ready-cooked crab or similar. Insist that this is your holiday as well as everyone else's.

We found a week in a hotel too much. We craved a movie night with our own food and more space to hang out in not just a hotel room. Also when abroad Dh and teens take on the food as it’s enjoyable for them as a novelty - local markets etc.

We also didn’t like the proximity of randoms the whole time in a hotel. Hotels fine for a city break but not a longer holiday. Horses for courses I guess.

Gousto or Hello Fresh boxes are good for holidays, as you don't need to do any shopping and there's no waste

Cook! frozen meals with microwave rice pouches

Steak, oven chips and coleslaw

Yeah this is how we feel about hotels too. I much prefer the space and freedom of self catering. But then my husband does half the cooking and we eat out a fair amount, so it doesn’t feel onerous.

Abroad, we find it cheaper, albeit we don't go in high summer. When you have DC who eat from adult menus in restaurants but still get charged as kids in a resort, plus the inevitable stream of drinks and ice creams, AI makes financial sense. Maybe less so with younger ones.

For OP, in the UK, firstly don't do all of it yourself when there's another adult there. And then like others, we relied on easy stuff like oven food, ready meals, some batch cooked stuff taken with us, and meals out.

I'd also check out what size the fridge and freezer will be, if possible. Accommodation with a full sized unit will give you more options than if it's just a little under counter thing.

breakfast is pastries
lunch is picky bits
evening meal is always a take out x2
1x meal out and the other nights we get hello fresh or similar and choose the meals before we go and have it delivered to accommodation.
it removes the “ what we eating” part of it all on holiday

I checked, and it has a kettle and a fridge. Yay. Anyway, don't want to divert the topic of the thread.

Does your partner do half the shopping plannnjg. And cooking?