to wonder htf people manage to afford foreign holidays in the summer?

[TheBolter]

Please tell me I'm not alone here...

£4000 for a family of four to holiday in a self catering studion in Tenerbloodyrife!

I don't even want to go to Tenerife, but my expectations are getting lower... started off looking at villas in Sardinia but knocked sideways at the price. Now looking at anything... ANYTHING! that will ensure a reasonable standard of accommodation outside of the UK during July/August but cannot believe the price!

I know I must sound naive, but I really didn't think it would be this much. I was think a couple of thousand would be enough...

I know I may also sound a little self-entitled, but we have DONE camping and holidays in the UK for the last six years, and I thought that now I'm working again, and dh and I are on a combined salary of roughly 60k, and our mortgage isn't too much, that we would finally be able to afford something this year!

So AIBU to think that families who do manage to stump up the extortionate prices for a couple of weeks in the sun are a) loaded b) being ripped off or c) both?

Any advice as to reasonably priced holidays also welcomed... I know this isn't the travel section but I'm suddenly feeling too poor to rub shoulders with the travel lot!

A lot of people have friends with properties abroad who will lend. Cuts down on costs loads.

We use OnTheBeach, Holiday Nights, or Alpharooms. Have never had any problems with any of them.

Sign up to e-mails from travelzoo, they pick the cheapest deals from hundreds of different travel agents. 3 of us went to cayo coco (cuba) AI last June/July less than £2k

We had a gite (rural, but lovely) in France last year - one week = 250 euros!!

But, I'm totally with you on what 'normal' holiday deals are. Our combined income is more than yours and we can never get that sum of money saved by the summer (after xmas). Maybe some day...!

Bit late now for you but trick is to book mega early and never book through a travel agent. You could use the online ones to get ideas about what would suit, check out the reviews on Trip advisor and then price it up separately.

I have managed to get 2 weeks in school holidays in 5 star 2 bedroom appartments in luxury complexes with holiday clubs for about £3500 by booking before christmas.

Also Tenerife is lovely, we stayed last October and would really rate Costa Adeje some nice hotels there as well.

We are paying £1000 for a 3 bedroomed villa in Portugal- the flights were £1600......flying end of July.
And that's for a week.

I have booked through Teletext holidays for 2 years, and had good deals (also definitly open up another browser and run checks on hotels on trip advisor)

Although I must say one year we went to Egypt for £1300 AI for 4 of us, the trip advisor reviews were 50:50 so we took a chance and went - hotel was great and in a location away from naama bay (nabq bay) that we have gone to again. The food AI can get repetitive so we have eaten out a few times, but cheaply.

Last year we went with On The Beach - never again as the flight company went bust when we were due to come home. The stress was awful and OTB werent helpful

This year we have gone with first choice to one of their holiday villages, and paid £1600 for the 4 of us AI

HTH

I have booked a villa direct in the Languedoc for 3.5k for two weeks with a pool. We will drive though and stay with friends in Paris en-route.

Well, I hate to say it but March is bonus month isn't it. Its when various superfluous funds get allocated for spendage.

sc in France self drive . Book direct and go end of August when European schools are already returning.

TheBolter, Marrakech isn't on the coast, it's a city. Not sure if you knew. I'd have thought 2 weeks in a city would be too much. Foreign office makes Morocco sound bad but I've been following updates from people that have been there end Feb/ beginning of March and it doesn't sound like it was too badly hit. I'm dithering over whether to risk 3-4 days there in April. I'd always suggest checking Tripadvisor before booking anything. It also has a section called Flipkey I think where you can rent private apartments round the world. I think either Lidl or Aldi have a travel department now. I looked for my dad last year and a 5 star hotel seemed really reasonable. Worth checking maybe... just remembered that was Sharm though, not sure if that's a good idea.

meant to say too badly affected by demonstrations, not too badly hit

Last minute deals and go in half term not the summer holidays.

£50 ferry crossing or Clubcard vouchers on the tunnel, then self catering in France, Germany or Holland. Works out about £500 including diesel.

We book a year in advance to give us time to pay it off.

Fwiw we went to keycamp a few years ago and it worked out more expensive than our usual holiday to Greece.

We always book our accommodation and flights separately. Good accommodation on ownersdirect.com.

on the beach are cheap but you have to pay for baggage and transfers on top. Turkeys cheap. I would ask travel agent to book accomodation and flights seperately and see if it come out cheaper

Brother came back from tenerife today and thoroughly enjoyed it.

we hire a car in lanzarote. pick up at the airport when we land, drop off when we go home.

it is around £100 for a small family car, booster seats free if required

considering a transfer is anywhere from £15 per person, its well worth car hire.. and gives you the freedom to explore as well.. Lanzarote is very easy to navigate, and easy to drive around with quiet roads and good signposts..

Blimey, just did a random search on On The Beach. For dd and I, 7nights Algarve, return flights from Dublin for 1 bed self catering, pools, restaurants etc 10th May for £247 all in!

It's £437 for last week of August, same place, just for a studio apartment though.

Definitely look at booking somewhere directly from the owners. We got a lovely place through Owners Direct near Lake Como a few years ago which was much less than £1000 pw in August.

For France we have been using Chez Nous for years. We rented a villa in the South of France with its own pool for substantially less than a grand a week - also in Auguxt

Thebolter I wonder this too we are on a very good income, I dont understand we must just not be prepared to go without so much stuff to be able to afford the esteemed holiday abroad.

We are center parcs during term time £400

and a luxury cottage in summer hols £600

Both for four day breaks and thats it. We wil pay for stuff relted to cottage holiday using clubcard vouchers like eating out etc.

btw Skyscanners is a totally fantastic flight comparison site for finding cheap direct flights. You can put in your local airport and either select a destination, countries of anywhere! Can even view by month.

I find it very useful and by far the best flight comparision around esp for low cost airlines.

To be honest, I think if a holiday abroad is a priority for people, they will save very hard/use cards/pay more. If it's not such a priority, you shudder at the thought of spending that. There is no way I would spend more than £700 on a summer holiday. Just not worth it to me. We do go abroad though, every other year, and rent a cottage and drive.

House exchange. As long as you're in an area people might possibly want to visit of course - but even if you think you're not, you might be surprised.

We tend to limit our trips to places we can get to relatively cheaply, so we don't go to the US or Australia for instance, but there's a great choice of locations, especially if you're after something a bit different from the traditional lie-on-a-beach holiday. You can often swap cars too, which also saves a packet.

The only downside is the extra cleaning before you go especially if you're a slob like me.