Cost of holidays

[ringbinder99]

I can only take holidays in school holidays and so haven't been on a holiday abroad for a fair number of years. I did go camping in France a couple of years ago but that was self drive, find a site, stay a night and move on type thing.
I have just been looking at package holidays and cannot believe the prices! One week in somewhere like Corfu was £1500pp self catering! So for me and OH, would cost over £3K without even any food!
How the hell do people afford these trips as that seems outrageous to me, and we have a reasonable income...

centralwerk
Thanks I'll need to have a look.
It was actually lake garda we were thinking of.

Book it separately. If you don't mind where you go you can do it cheaply.
I booked last week in August for 4 adults. £30 each flights, 2 bed cottage £260, hire car £52. Flying to Luxembourg, 1 night airport hotel ( free with hotel chain points I saved) then drive over the border to France for the rest of the week.

Have you tried looking at adult only hotels/resorts?

My friend (a teacher) said their prices don't tend to inflate the same as family resorts as they are not expecting a surge in visitors in school holidays. It will still be more expensive for flights but may be worth a shot?

I feel a bit like this. Like you I can only go in school holidays. We really want to take the children abroad next year, probably May, so we've been looking for a while but it's just so overwhelming! And the prices are just scary. I've only been abroad once, for a school trip, so I've no experience of booking holidays, flights etc. It's so complicated!

We never do packages. Much cheaper to make your own holiday.
We're driving to Eastern Europe this year. Accommodation there is dirt cheap.

Groupon has some great deals

We book early and do everything independently. Family of 4 off to Tenerife in august for 2 weeks, flights, car hire and villa with private pool £2,000

Well where on earth are you looking?

Don't assume it's cheaper to book separately, it isn't always, certainly has not been for us.

Thomas Cook Turkey < 929 for 2pp all inclusive land view and 999 for sea view

Hey @GalwayWayfarer, I am also going to California this year for 17 days. For me, DH & 2 x DS. Norwegian Airlines flights are just shy of £2k for all of us in total. Accomodation £2k ish (done through booking.com)... then car hire, insurance and spending money on top... how have you done 12 days for £2.5k if you don't mind sharing a few tips? Thanks

I must also add... we aren't extravagant. We have been saving solidly for 4 years

Usually we do Holland for £1k with Eurocamp for 1 week... We adore that too

You're looking in the wrong places. Places like booking.com are supposed to trick you into paying more. Is it just the two of you?

If you look around properly like cheaper and more accessible sites with no prepayment like travelrepublic and loveholiday you can find excellent deals.

Last year we got 2 weeks in a holiday resort in lanzarote for €500.

This year we're off to Turkey flights and accom for 2 weeks 300 pp. for 2 people.

Most of the time package deals rip you off well not all the time but a lot!

We are a family of 5 and have ruled out Mediterranean holidays. It's cheaper for us to get flights to Canada and stay with my brother than a week self catering in Majorca.

Hey there @iloveMiWadi, its only pre-booked (no payment up front and free cancellation until a few days before we go) with booking.com. I am hoping to find cheaper options too

Its 2 adults and 2 children btw

You need to look around OP and book your own flights/accommodation separately.

Flying out on a Wednesday is often cheaper than the rest of the week for example and multi destination flights (instead of return) can also save you a few hundreds at time.

I am currently at the Seychelles Islands and heading off for an extra 2 weeks and half in South Africa and Mozambique in a few days. I have booked everything myself for less than 1000£ pp total (we are two) and that includes, housing (self-catering), transportation (international /internal flights and buses) and even some activities (1 day Safari, massages)

So going to Corfu can probably done for much less than what you were quoted.

Compare flight prices, try and find your own Airbnbs/self-catering apartment. I am sure you will find plenty of affordable options, even for high season.

If you fly from London, BA holiday finder is a godsend. Got a week all inclusive in Morocco on the cheap last year.

www.britishairways.com/travel/holiday-finder/public/en_gb

We have a villa in spain that sleeps 3 generations of a family, thats the cheapest way of holidaying now, DGP on hand to baby sit, all mod cons, home from home or eat out the choice is yours. maybe look into a SC villa or adjoining apartments?
ours sleeps 8/12 from approx £125/165 per head plus flights.

@Semster got incredibly cheap flights in a deal (less than 300pp for a return to San Francisco). Not staying anywhere fancy as it's a road trip so just low cost air bnbs. Think it will cost a fortune once we are there though!

@SlaaartyBaaardFaaast hey California buddy!

We got incredibly cheap flights through skyscanner - under £300pp. And because it's just adult DH ans me and we are road tripping we've just booked very cheap accommodation. We used air bnb and it's averaging about 60 dollars per night. So flights and accommodation for 2 of us has come in under £1500. The rest of the budget is car hire (we went for smallest and cheapest car because just the two of us) - we shopped around and I think it's 18 dollars per day for 10 days. The rest of the budget is for activities we have already booked (park passes / museum entries) but it doesn't include spending money - we're saving hard for that!

I think it's much easier for us with no kids, and we got so lucky on the flights. But I also think you can save a fortune booking accommodation through airbnb - in a couple of places we just have a private en suite room in a house but for most of it we have the whole place to ourselves. Because we are moving on every couple of days we didn't really care about how nice it was, just went for cheap and cheerful!

I have paid £600 for flights snd hotel for three nights for three of us in Budapest.

Then £1.5k pp to fly Boston, capecod, dallas and vegas includes accommodation.

Probably spend a fortune there though.

Have a look at travelzoo, like groupon for holidays. Also, book flights and hotel separately, and follow the guide on moneysavingexpert on how to ensue you get the best deal.

Agree with using sky scanner too to find cheap flights, then looking for hotels in area of interest.

Just had a quick look on Thomas Cook and found a week in Crete for £580 first tuesday in August. Like others have said though, it's quite late to be booking a holiday needing to be taken in school hols.