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?

[Pinkje]

Ok, haven't RTFT but have you considered a cruise?

Apparently they Aren't all filled with 60+ holidaymakers.

[Pinkje]

But I get what you mean about spending ££££ if you are saving for house things.

[Ohfourfoxache]

Only read your posts op - have to say that I'm a bit like you in so far as I like to really experience a place rather than sit by the pool.

I'd suggest these:

Malaga. Not the coast etc, but Malaga the city. Absolutely beautiful, perfect especially for a short break. The architecture is amazing.

Austria. Again, short break, Salzburg and Innsbruck are particular favourites. Or extend your stay, rent a car and do day trips (we did Verona from Innsbruck in a day - it's not that far). I'd imagine you could do the same with Malaga although we haven't - yet!

Canada. We did a tour of the East Coast for a week (Toronto, Ottawa, Quebec and Montreal - the buildings were amazing) then flew to Calgary, hired a car, up to Banff for a week on our own. Expensive but worth it. It came in at probably over £5k and this was a few years ago, but we did splash out on accommodation in Banff. And it was nearly 3 weeks.

Maldives. Not what we would usually go for AT ALL. But excursions to local villages etc were incredible - a total eye opener to see such a different way of life. The resort was also pretty amazing - and it was very much at the lower end of what you could spend visiting. I'm not big on snorkelling etc but to swim with tiny little sharks just metres from our room, and swim with turtles - incredible. Just incredible.

Totally agree with pp's about avoiding package holidays. They have their place, and no doubts we'll be doing these in the future at some point when dc1 makes an appearance, but it's nice to do something a bit different whilst you can.

Keep an eye on groupon as well - they seem to do the occasional far flung tour for fairly reasonable prices.

[roland83]

Tattee, yes, that sounds like what we want to do.

Pinkje - I've considered a cruise yes, but decided it's not something we want. We would find it a bit socially claustrophobic and I get travel sick easily and I'm not sure if I would on a cruise or not. Thanks for the suggestion though!

[FeckTheMagicDragon]

I'd also recommend an RV, fly to San Franscico and do a circuit - Yosemite to Death Valley, if you don't like somewhere - just drive somewhere else . RVs are automatic, the roads are wider and there are loads of places to stay. KOA are really good. If you find yourself somewhere that needs a smaller car, hire one for a day. Pick your must see places and research and plan.

[Ohfourfoxache]

Ooh yes Pinkje - cruises are a good option! Just make sure you really think about what you want to see/where you want to go. Mediterranean good for culture, and I think the ones to Russia are supposed to be extremely good as well.

[FeckTheMagicDragon]

I also get the being dissapointed with holidays. As soon as I started really planning our own, rather than pay out to a travel agent, the cost went down and the quality and fun went up.

[roland83]

Ohfourfaxache - all of those sound great!

We would love to go to Banff, did you go in the winter season?

We were considering going to our favourite Ski resort Tiges in the summer, driving there and maybe walking the mountains.. not much else to do there though. The drive would be the majority of the trip, I like driving but not experienced driving abroad at all.

I guess I need to look around and decide where we want to go, then look at booking it individually and seeing how the cost comes out then.

[hellsbellsmelons]

Check out Bulgaria for snow boarding.
It's far far cheaper. Bansko or Borovets. And to eat and drink is dirt cheap as well.
I think you are used to paying a lot of money for not a lot.
Try paying not a lot and you'll be amazed at what you get for it!
Lower your expectations and you'll have such a laugh and meet some fab people!

[OnIlkleyMoorBahTwat]

If you're a diver, the diving around Malta and Lanzarote is pretty good. Look up Safari Diving in Lanzarote or Deep Blue in Malta.

Can mix and match diving with sight seeing. Both small islands that are easily explored by car or public transport.

Cruise sounds like a good idea too - Greek Islands?

[Ohfourfoxache]

Fwiw DH and I are the most antisocial gits you could ever, ever come across. And I tend to get pretty sea sick. But we did a cruise round the Bahamas - cruise itself was fabulous, loads of excursions, but the Bahamas itself was all a bit "samey". So if we did another it would be in Europe for sure.

[hellsbellsmelons]

Sorry I'm late to the party - only read page 1
I should RTFT!

[StatisticallyChallenged]

I've been to Vegas a couple of times and loved it - but I would definitely say to do it as part of a road trip type holiday rather than staying there for 10 days (or longer) as it's quite a full on, intense place. I really enjoyed it though.

Driving on the wrong side isn't too bad at all - apart from in some of the big cities the american roads are pretty easy really, they're big, wide, generally straight as an arrow!

You could easily do a really fun trip incorporating Vegas if you can get past the driving. Also, a lot of the american car hire companies do one way rentals in California, Arizona and Nevada which helps. So you could, for example:

Fly to Phoenix
Drive up to Sedona - stunningly beautiful red rock country - spend a couple of nights just enjoying it
Drive to the Grand Canyon, stay around there for a night, go and see it
Drive to Vegas - via the Hoover Dam - spend however long you fancy in Vegas
Drive through Death Valley and on to somewhere like Mammoth Lakes
Drive through Yosemite and stay somewhere around there for a night
Then on to San Francisco - explore the city, Alcatraz, Golden Gate etc
Drive down the Pacific Coast highway - stopping somewhere en route like San Luis Obispo
Finish up around LA

You could do that within a two week holiday, and it would be fabulous. Quick check suggests you can do the flights from Manchester (with a short stopover) for about £1600 for both of you. Possibly less. You can probably get a car for two weeks for £300 or so

[holidaysarenice]

I did ten days on the west coast, San Fran to Vegas last summer for a hell of a lot less than 5000. Or even half if that is for two.

And I did all the scenery, helicopter over the canyon etc staying in the MGM in Vegas.

You need to look harder.

[Ohfourfoxache]

Nope, we did Canada in June/July (honeymoon ) but there was just so, so much to do. Huge amount of walking, canyons, glaciers. Even just driving along was incredible - wildlife spotting was incredible (wolves, and there was a mummy bear and a cub who crossed a very, very quite road behind us - they both just looked at us as if to say "what are you looking at, you bloody tourists!")

God I've so just outed myself

[lastnightiwenttomanderley]

resists rising to the 'Norman Foster designed Millau Viaduct' comment

[roland83]

You don't like the viaduct lastnight?

Okay, 5k was from the Virgin website, so I guess there are better deals to be found. I think we are nervous about spending so much money, in such a far away place that we thought Virgin would at least be safe and secure. Granted it's probably not the best deal.

I've hear Vegas is good for 3-4 nights only, so that's something to consider too. Although we were thinking of just using is for a base, I guess there are other ways to do it.. car/train etc.

We also would like to go to Miami too, especially to the football stadium, so maybe we can find a mixture of a few places.

Maybe we should do a short break somewhere totally different and see if that expands our horizons and gives us a little boost of confidence.

[roland83]

Ohfour - Can I come with you next time

[Behindthepaintedgarden]

You can get culture without going to the States.

And you don't have to stay in touristy locations full of apartments and swimming pools when you go to Spain. There are lots of beautiful places there, and in other European countries, that are oozing culture and a lot cheaper than flying to Canada.

[iniquity]

You are bu. So many cheap locations with plenty of attractions for well under 5000.
Too many to name really

[roland83]

StatisticallyChallenged - that sounds great.. I'm going to look into that too.

Thanks for all the ideas.

I know it might come as a shock to some of you, but I guess I've never really considered a non-package holiday. Blame my parents.

[lastnightiwenttomanderley]

Oh no, I like it! But it was Michel Virlogeux who designed it with input from Fosters & Partners. Just one of my personal bugbears - Fosters have a very powerful marketing group!

[StatisticallyChallenged]

We've done the States a few times now, but it was our first non package holiday too. For some reason it seemed less scary - maybe because there's no language difficulty (so no risk of booking something daft because you don't speak good French/Italian/Greek/etc etc.

Internal flights are relatively cheap in the USA, or you can book multi-stop with most of the big airlines. So the alternative is to do a few cities and fly between them - on another trip we did a few places in Florida (including Miami and Fort Lauderdale), then flew to Vegas, drove down to Phoenix via Grand Canyon and Sedona, then had a few nights in New York before flying home.

[Jennco]

My mum and I went to Australia for 3 weeks, flights and hotels cost less than £3000, trips out and food was another £1500, So possible to do less than 5k

We (hell I) looked on trip advisor, booked everything separately, got lots of advice etc

We are looking to take my girls to New York for the week and are now looking at £4000 for the 4 of us (4 adults, 2 rooms) So it can be done cheaper.

I cannot reccomend Tripadvisor enough :D Easy peasey to organise a holiday and lots of amazing advice (i,e shops shut that day, etc)

[SquirrelledAway]

Just book a flight and car hire and go - before we had kids that's all we ever did, drove around and stayed in cheaper hotels (Days Inns, Holiday Inns, Motel 6 etc). If you like somewhere stay longer, if you don't like somewhere move on. You can get decent rooms at less than $100 per night, and flights to LAX would come in at around £550 return, so that's around £2200 for the both of you for 15 nights. Compact car hire would be around £250 for 15 days, gas is cheap, eating out is cheap, and you can set your own schedule. What's not to like?