How much does it cost you to go to Western Europe for one week?

[NCTDN]

I’ve deliberately posted here and not on holidays to get a more general view. I know there’s huge differences between people and I think I’m way off the mark in the cost of a week abroad in somewhere like Spain or France. Someone at work told me how much it was for her family and I nearly fell over!
I’m not here to ask as a competition, but genuinely intrigued. We had a caravan for many years and toured all over Europe with the children. Ferries then were cheap as were campsites. We’ve also been fortunate to have use of a family apartment so only had to pay for flights.
Neither of those are an option for us now so I’m looking at what is the average cost for an average week. Nothing fancy, just a week abroad. So all I’m after is the cost for one week and for how many people. Thanks!

Summer holidays? For family with four including young children I’d say £3-4k for a Gatwick/Spain average beach hotel with breakfast. In one room. Then £1000-15000 spending money.

About £3,000

We have our own place that we rent to friends for £500/week. It’s in the south of France so add the costs of travel. We (family of 4) have booked Chunnel….that plus petrol and tolls will total about £600. We may have a couple of meals out but usually eat in. We don’t spend lots on activities. We also usually drive in one go whereas adding an overnight stop would add about £150-200 (hotel and meal).

So I’d say about £1500 including some food. But not supermarket food we’d be buying at home.

NB DS is going with friends next month. Has a flight for £50 but will need to get to stansted and then a €40 train trip…

As a family of four we spend approx £2600 on a week in Portugal in August. (£800 Flights, £800 apartment and roughly £150/day on food/spending when there). When we first started going 10 years ago the budget was very tight and we cooked and ate in the apartment mostly, but now we have a bit more budget and we have at least one meal a day in a restaurant.

Yes if I said summer holidays that’s the best to see the average.

That’s way too general a question. France and Spain include an enormous variety of destinations, and different types of holiday. If you mean a week’s AI on the Costa Brava, then say so? Because that’s going to be a completely different situation from renting a house in the Gers.

It’s obscene
last summer we went to a fairly posh hotel in Spain in whit week and for the four of us I think it was a bit under £5k for a week

this summer it’s 10 days in a cabin in a French campsite and probably more like £3k including the ferry but that’s self catering

it’s slightly less obscene when you work out the per person price rather than per family.

now my kids are older I feel we could try long haul which could end up cheaper but my preference generally is to stay in Europe

I haven’t been but the best value relatively close to home is probably Turkey. Or maybe Egypt but I’ve been there and wouldn’t go back. Hotels are nice but everything else fairly nasty.

We are paying 3k for one week in a 4 star hotel in Spain for a week. This is in July, and there are 3 of us. It’s all inclusive so we won’t spend much at all when we are there.

WAY too many variables to properly answer this. When? - school holidays or not?
Where? — obviously some places much cheaper than others.
The last holiday we did - Tenerife, all inclusive, 4 people all over 12. Was maybe 3 or 4 Star accommodation but all in one hotel room, 1 separate bedroom and then beds in the living space. Cost about £6000 for 2 weeks. Maybe a bit more including the flights.

We do £3k South of France every year for a week. Including flights and accommodation. We eat out most days.

I looked at Spain and Portugal yesterday and it was expensive compared.

We also did a long haul city break in 2024 for £6k in August and a fancy hotel.

So much fun!

We are paying 6k for a week in France (Paris and Disney) that includes all accommodation (4star hotel), flights and private transfers, and our Disneyland tickets - for 4 people in August

Totally depends what sort of holiday you want. If you are happy to take your own car on the ferry and drive, France has very reasonably priced gites if you don't want to anything too fancy or very near the coast. In the past couple of years we have hired gites sleeping 4-6 that cost only £5-600 for a week in the summer holidays. They were nice, clean and spacious, just not thay luxurious. If you get the ferry to Calais thay can be about £300 return. Depending on how far you want to drive you will have the cost of fuel and tolls. If you self-cater food will be just a bit more than you would be spending at home anyway. The Newcastle-Dieppe ferry is also quite reasonable and gets you in further to the West of France.

This year we are doing ferry to Calais, staying two weeks including one week in a more expensive gite with its own pool. Ferry and accommodation is costing about £2000. We will need extra for petrol, tolls and food but will come in at less than £3000 for the whole two weeks. This is for 2 adults and 2 teens, each teen with their own room. One week could be done for not much more than £1000 if you had fairly simple accommodation.

DH and I are off to Greece on Thursday for a week - £1,700 for a 4* hotel B & B. We’ll eat out every night, use local buses and boats to get around and expect to spend £1,000 - £1,200. So once we’ve paid for a taxi to the airport and bought breakfast in Pret about £3k for the week.

I know it’sa really general question with lots of variables - that’s what I want. I’m just generally interested in how much people spend. I very naively thought that £2000 was a huge amount for a week abroad - we spent that last year on an all inclusive holiday for two people and I really thought we’d spent way above the average 😳

Two weeks self-catering for four of us in Denmark is going to set us back about £5.5k this year including spending money. I actually think I’ve done pretty well since Denmark is notoriously expensive and i expect Dh will find budget to eat out more than I plan to.

Usually we spend less because we drive to France or Germany or Netherlands and it’s a lot cheaper (and better for CO2!) than flying.

Denmark is notoriously expensive and we now have a big teenager so we can’t all squeeze into a family room now.

But careful planning has kept costs down - booked flights in BA sale; monitored prices to get best deal on accommodation; bogoff for attraction tickets etc.

We have trained our kids to enjoy budget accommodation and for most people our holidays would feel like hard work, but our kids need to be active every day so we save our budget for activities and we live happily on our picnics and self-catered food!

We have 7 nights in Copenhagen and 6 nights in Lalandia holiday park (inclusive water slides and pool etc) near Lego House in Billund.

Not asking generally about money you spend once there - we would budget around £100 per day plus maybe a couple of more expensive days out.

@NCTDN in school summer holidays, for one double room, £2k AI is still a good price! Flight prices have shot up since Covid.

I think you mean the cost of a typical beach holiday somewhere hot? In school holidays?

I would say about £1200 per person including everything. All travel, accommodation, food, drinks, etc. Obviously you can spend much more than that but it’s the baseline I would think. I don’t think you will find anything for less.

I think 2k for a week would be more shoulder season average prices, if looking at a family of 4.

You probably need to factor in distance to the continent also. Someone living on the south coast will have access to more and cheaper options than someone in Scotland or NI.

I must admit that the prices people quote for holidays on MN are eye-watering. Sure, if you want to spend £6k for a week in Western Europe fill your boots, but it's by no means necessary.

The kind of things we'd do (single mum with 2 DC):
Return ferry Plymouth- Roscoff about £500 if you're clever with the dates
7 nights in my favourite campsite in Brittany £200
So £700

Interrail passes for 3 (with one DC under 12, including Eurostar reservations) £580

7 nights in cheap German hotels £420

So £1000

Obviously food and (for the former) diesel aren't included in that, but food is such a variable- at its cheapest you wouldn't pay much more than you would pay for food at home.

We are about £100 a day for four of us (2 fat adults, one teen, one primary).

There is usually a lot you can do for free in most holiday places and we pick places where we can mix cheap days and the occasional expensive day out. Self-catering we eat pasta, potato, egg/ cheese, salad, bread and then grill for dinner every day! We take a chiller bag and a couple of ice bricks too. If you research carefully in Europe you can often find places that let you cook out on a public grill - our kids love to do this. When we are driving to Europe we take our own mini electric grill so we can bbq on the deck - sausages, chicken, fish or whatever looks good locally. Wine is always cheap locally and we aren’t fussy!

We spend about 4-5k for two adults, two kids in a lovely hotel in Portugal in peak summer hols. But we book early, say early January.

It’s usually about £3k for two adults, two children, half board in a 4* in Europe. I try to make sure I keep in budget. We’ve been to,
Spain, lanzarote, Denmark, France and have managed to keep to that price. This year we are staying in the uk and going to forest holidays that’s £2k without the food so I don’t think it’s much cheaper to stay local!

We have a week in a “nice” hotel in Cala bona half board for 1000 each. I think that is cheap.