Am I deluded or have holidays become almost unaffordable for many families?

[Tractorprincess]

Looking at holidays and everything is so expensive.

We usually pay around £1200 for a very very nice holiday flat in the UK right on the beach but we're all getting a bit bored of the same place. I always thought £1200 was quite pricey but I'm starting to think it's an absolute bargain.

I can remember going abroad a few years ago with ds1 for around 1k, now I can't find anything half decent for less than 3k.

Thought about doing a few UK weekend breaks but nice places for the dc, the Legoland hotel is £700! I know you can go to cheaper local ones but having done than previous years I was thinking about making it extra exciting.

Centreparcs is extortionate too.

Dh and I are both on ok salaries, hardly rich but above the apparent UK average.

I don't know how people afford to go unless they're very well off or go in term time.

Incidentally when do airlines release flights? As I said above we're keen to go away during Oct 19 half term, preferably to Cyprus, but the flights are really expensive now to go this October.

Me and my partner are visiting the New Forest area in July for 4 nights. I initially decided a caravan would be cheaper so looked at a small 4 birth. £800 for 4 nights. I eventually booked a 4* country house hotel, bed, breakfast and evening meal plus afternoon tea on arrival for around £450. Still can’t get over the cost of the caravan.

Baginchhons between Xmas n new yr is good time to book

For Turkey look at sangrieme lots beautiful hotels but also apartments and the village has so many lovely restaurants

You can get really good deals for May half term week for southern Europe. The weather is hot, it's crowd free and it's not peak prices. European campsites will have always have availability & deals then. We booked late for Union Lido and Duinrell in years gone by and booked top range mobiles for

Avoid package holidays and I find it’s doable, but agree with your point generally.

Are you looking at package trips???
I use hotels.com or booking and book flights well in advance, self cater as much as possible (well breakfast and some lunches, never an evening meal and I get some right bargains.
Be different for a big family I suppose.

Morris dancing 10 months in advance

@MorrisDancingViv Thomas Cook Airlines have had their Oct 19 flights out for a few months. We booked in March.

Not sure about Cyprus, we are Canaries.

Thanks, for Oct half term we'd be looking at Cyprus or canaries

You can do it if you look in the right places.

I've spent £780 ish on flights and about £490 on accommodation (self catering similar to Euro camp) for a week for four of us in the August school holiday.

Not cheap but not extortionate.

Sure with October. We're going to Majorca, only for 5 nights and not a week, All Inclusive, have paid £420 for me and DS (so £210 each) and that includes car hire.

We can afford it as we prioritise holidays,have one child, my car is 13 years old, but clothes only if needed, don’t go out too much, much smaller house than many colleagues. But generally means we can have one £5k holiday a year and weekend break in UK once a month.

Holidays abroad have always been expensive, which is why kids growing up in the 70s were ta’en to a caravan in Wales for a week, or camping in Suffolk. We were content with that, but people now expect to be able to afford to take holidays abroad as well as having a family (and the expense that entails). It the choices we make.

gillybeanz "Holidays have always been unaffordable for the majority of families.
What has changed is now people feel entitled to a holiday"

this. It might be age related but for me, it was a real surprise when cheap flights and European holidays appeared - not that we ever went - but I wondered how sustainable it could be. More like, was it a kind of business thing where prices would slowly be hiked up and that was the intention all along.

it seems weird to me that people expect to go abroad cheaply. I particularly can't see the point with small DC but that's partly because I remembered how much I hated being taken on holiday abroad - and my parents didn't start till I was about 10 - so I felt strongly about them being able to express themselves about if/where we went.

I agree that UK breaks are expensive but I think of a holiday as a luxury anyway, you can't expect good facilities etc without paying - think of all the overheads! We know a couple who run a B&B and it's amazing what people think "should" be cheap.

Buxtonstill

It's not about "expectation" it's about priorities. I don't want to holiday in the UK, the weather is too unpredictable and I want my kids to have that thrill of the airport, be exposed to new cultures and have guaranteed sunshine. I didn't grow up with that. It's not that my husband and I are self-entitled millennials as some people make out, we just choose to prioritise our income so that we have that. We've specifically stopped at 2 children, both kept working full time and chosen a more affordable house so this is a reality for us. For other families they wouldn't dream of doing one or more of those things because they aren't their priorities, but for us we love our holidays, we love the new experiences and in my opinion we lead a good life for it.

It's not just holidays that have gone expensive everything has. Day trips, tourist attractions, amusements etc... All seem ridiculously over priced.

Contrary to the advice most have given I think packages are cheaper now. I always used to book independently but now the packages are better value. I think it depends which is your local airport though. There are so many low cost options for UK breaks in the school holidays, we do several a year and do not have a large disposable income. I could not even dream of paying £1200 for UK let alone think it's cheap compared to other options. What on earth are your requirements OP?

When we’ve got the money for a good holiday, in recent years, we’ve taken the kids to Vietnam and Thailand because it makes the money go further. The flights aren’t cheap, but lovely accommodation and food is compared to somewhere like Sicily or Greece.

But yes, a couple of weeks in a nice hotel for four of us in Europe is very expensive.

Yanbu. Our 2 week all inclusive recently was 3.5k.

3 years ago we paid 1k for a similar holiday.

prices are not more because of Brexit. They have gone up in the UK and abroad because of Michael Goves ban on holidays in term time. the real effect of this was never going to hit in the first year of the ban because so many companies buy a couple of years in advance.

Now you are seeing the outcome of this policy. The difference between term time and out of term time has widened considerably.

no wonder more people seem to be taking the hit (£60 per parent per child) and going in term time. its not going to reverse either so prices next year will be even worse.

mummy that's not quite true. Term time holidays have gone up quite considerably. This is due to the weakened pound.

the Scottish schools generally go back around 14th august so if you can wait until last week in august and fly from Scotland you might pick it up cheaper

sometimes if you are brave you can pick up a last minute deal the week before

We usually go away start of July as our schools have broken up in Scotland but not in England which makes it considerably cheaper.

We also usually do a Monday - Friday haven caravan break in October by collecting newspaper passwords. It’s very very cheap and cheerful but caravans are nice and we just use it as a base to explore whatever area we are in.

We’ve been looking at Florida holidays - I have zero idea how any normal families afford to go to Florida year in year our doing Disney and universal etc. It is extortionate