To not want to spend £5000 on a holiday?

[roland83]

There's only me and my partner, we both earn 30k a year each.

When we look at holidays I hate the idea of going Turkey / Spain etc for £500-£1000, but everywhere I want to go such as Las Vegas, Canada etc are just ridiculous money! £5000 for around 10 days, not including food and drinks.

We are savings for our first house, so it's not really a big issue as the choice between house deposit and holiday is obvious.

I've been Turkey, Egypt, Spain and similar and I find it a bit crap. I don't want to sit by the pool/beach all day getting a tan, I want culture.. but all the day trips are rubbish and crowded. I want to go to Las Vegas and visit the Hoover Dam, Area 51, Grand Canyon but when you work out a realistic price it's astronomical!

So, is it me? AIBU to think all the decent holidays are overpriced and now I'm in my 30's £5k on a holiday seems crazy when I could get a lot more for my money on other things?

All of the places you've mentioned you can find culture and mix a bit of culture with relaxing. Out of Turkey, Egypt and Spain I'd say Turkey especially will have loads of opportunities for culture while the big sites in Egypt are some distance from the beach resorts. Spain I'm not so sure about. I'd suggest flying into I think Dalaman in Turkey and finding somewhere to stay in Kalkan which is an hour taxi ride away (it cost £30 as far a I remember but was a few years ago). We rented an apartment and used the nearby hotel pool which was a Tapestry hotel (could be Anatolian Skies now). Kalkan lovely. Bus ride to beautiful, shallow dipping Patara beach, bus to Kas harbour lovely then up to Myra tombs and ampithetre and to Salikent Gorge which is stunning. One of my best holidays and fairly cheap at the time - £120 air fare, £200 for the apartment, bus, eating out cheap in Kas and loads of culture.

You aren't annoying me adsy, so looks like you're losing here, not me.

No culture in Turkey, Egypt and Spain so you want to go to Vegas??????
Bizarre

I'd love to do Nevada but reluctant also to spend £5k on a holiday.

How about NYC

If it's a big holiday you're after, have you thought of heading east rather than west? Generally get much more for your money (unless you go all the way east and end up in Japan!) and can have a real mix of culture and relaxation?

I bet its the Millau viaduct linked above (Norman Foster / tallest bridge of its type in the world). We came across it by accident when driving down to the South of France. We stopped the car to stare a lot both there and back.

When I was younger I spent about 6 weeks travelling around the US on the Greyhound buses, that was quite an experience. The US is a great country to travel around - one leg of my trip was Montana to Arizona via Salt Lake City and Vegas (now there's two contrasting cities!).

I think one thing we can all agree on (adsy included) is that I need to remove my blinkers and be less lazy about looking at lots of different places.

Egypt, Spain and Turkey all have amazing sites and culture. It's not the places it's you.

Chazs, yes that's the one! It looks awesome. I do love bridges.

Obviously I have my boyfriend to consider too, he's not a awestruck by bridges as me, more of a football fan. So finding a happy medium will be the hard part.

NYC and Budapest both look great, I need some sort of book to tell me everything, I struggle to know what exactly I want.

If you look online, everywhere looks great..

Have a look at Trailfinders. we used them a lot pre dc and they were always fab. Lots of tours, you can always book flights separately.
You can do multi-centre trips, guided tours, whatever, a good place to start to get an idea of what you want to do.
www.trailfinders.com/tours/Usa/

you want culture and you think Egypt is crap (!?!)

what about Italy, Venice, Florence, Ravenna, Rome, the ruins of Pompeii?

or Greece, Athens, Delphi, well, too much to list?

really?

We spent about 5k on our USA trip and for that we got - premium economy flights, 5 nights in NYC 4* and super luxurious boutique hotel, internal flights across the US to California, car hire, 5 nights in another amazing hotel in San Diego, and then 3 nights in a super luxurious OC hotel, before flying back from LA, again Premium Economy.

It was a lot to spend (and actually we took 1K spending money too) but it absolutely was the trip of a lifetime, and I don't regret a penny of it.

Sorry, meant to say we did book every single aspect separately though - would have cost a lot more as a 'package'.

AHEM

I remember driving to northern Spain years ago, before the days of the budget airlines and before the Millau bridge was built - it was a huge trek up and down twisty mountain roads, but a great drive.

I'd love to go back and drive over the bridge one way and up and down the mountains on the other, but it now seems a bit mad to drive all that way (about 2 long days each way IIRC) when you can fly there in an afternoon.

Perhaps we need to fly to the south of france and do the last bit by car? Costa Brava/Costa Dorada (Estatit/Tossa de Mar) is a lovely area with great beaches and there's some Roman ruins and lovely small villages and towns in the area too. Barcelona or Girona for a day or two too.

I'll probably never get any further than the Canary Islands, because I have a list of a lifetime's worth of holidays to get through in Europe.

Vegas is bonkers and like nowhere else on earth. Wouldn't be my cup of tea for any length of time but I enjoyed the experience.

We did Vegas, Death Valley, Yosemite, San Francisco and LA for £1k each four years ago (flights, hotels and car hire). Trailfinders were fabulous and much cheaper than anyone else.probably spent another £1k on food and trips inc to Grand Canyon and some very nice restaurants.

Europe doesn't necessarily mean the traditional beach and hotel package holiday, and if you do your research then you will find loads places to go - the world is huge!! If it's America then you can get it cheaper than £5000 for 10 days you know, we've booked 3 weeks in September including a few days at the Grand Canyon, a few in Vegas then onto California for the main road trip, from San Francisco to San Diego, all flights and accomodation for me, DH and our 2 boys is just over £6000.

Thanks for the Trailfinders tips! It's a good site thanks.

We do want to go USA yes, with us probably having children in the next few years I'm not sure if we will get to go again until they are older, and will probably do a lot of European holidays then.

I know everyone has different expectations/wants for holidays, I guess I feel that I know what I want but sometimes the holidays are falsely advertised a bit.

How about Croatia or Monte Negro?

I think you realise yabu & unrealistic. You can find culture almost anywhere- you just have to look. I second looking east, there are some beautiful examples of architecture in South East Asia/ India. If your a little less brave try a package in Sri lanka. It's cheap enough to use as s base & you can hire a driver to take you to see other areas. We did this for less than £3k inc a few nights at other hotels. Nearer to home there's morocco- although there's a fair amount of hustle and bustle. I think you need to do a little more research.

Sorry forgot to mention it was all booked as a package with Trailfinders.

I never really fancied Las Vegas but went there for a few nights at the end of a longer trip and really enjoyed it - just accept it for what it is (loud, brash etc). It was cheaper to flying to one of the Northern East coast cities (NYC, Chicago, Boston, Washington), stay for a few days and then fly back onto another US city than it was to get a direct trip to Las Vegas. We did Chicago (compact, great architecture, lake), LA (central LA, Santa Monica & the mountains), Palm Springs (charge batteries by the pool and Joshua Tree National Park) and Las Vegas (the strip, Hoover Dam, Grand Canyon).

We kept the price down by shopping around, booking everything ourselves rather than a package and going earlier in the year (April / May). There were so many other things that we wanted to cram in like San Fran, Death Valley, Utah but couldn't that you will be spoilt for choice.

I do Punk yes.

I think I'm frustrated that at 31 years old I have no idea what I want or know of these fantastic places in the world.

I know the UK well, I've done over 100 dives off the coast of Scotland.. I just want to have the same experiences for a holiday and I'm struggling to know where to go.

The Trailfinders website is a good start though.