To not understand holidays

[RandomlyChosenName]

Aibu to not understand how people choose and book holidays and what they do when they’re there. Except millionaires...

My childhood was spent self catering in the UK. I get them! And as a couple we went on short city breaks. I get them too. And we had an expensive all inclusive chill out honeymoon. Also easy! But I can’t work out how to do an abroad family holiday without being a millionaire.

All holidays seem to cost £2,500+ for the family for 2 weeks- I’m looking on First Choice, Tui etc. And the cheaper ones are a self catering room and a shared small basic pool. My children would be bored after an hour or two. Whilst they love swimming, they’d need to do something else for some of the day. Do everyoneelses children just happily swim non stop for 2 weeks? All the holidays seem to be miles from anything. Everywhere with lots of things to do is horrendously expensive.

I can’t work out where you find self catering villas abroad- I looked at AirBNB but couldn’t understand it. I thought it might be cheaper we could maybe go sightseeing or on walks or something. I cannot work out how to even start finding something!

AIBU to not be able to adult enough to even find a family summer holiday that won’t leave us bankrupt? And to not understand how everyone else does it?

I am at a yellow village in the south of France right now. In my hammock in front of my rustic cabin. We paid a bit more for premium
Accommodation but it was £1300 for 8 nights. We did a stop on the way down at a different site £150 for three nights and the ferry and spending money probably around £3k total. But we met someone here who did fly and drive and their flights were £20 they probably made the better choice

Oh and it is the best family holiday we have been on yet. And we will be back next year.

Water slides for all ages and you can go with your toddler on your knee. A massive splash area with multiple slides and other stuff. Massive pool. Indoor pool. Multiple play areas. On the beach. Evening entertainment. Kids club . Multiple restaurants. Patisserie on site. Shop on site. Butchers and fish monger each selling meals for takeaway. Most delicious meatballs ever had.
Spa on site. Direct access to the beach. Bikes with child seats included which have been amazing. Just loving it.

TUI still have free child places for this summer holidays. We are off to Italy, all inclusive, family resort, kids clubs, multiple pools, entertainment in the evening. Only booked last week

We've booked abroad using AirBnB but staying in a holiday apartment not someone's spare room. We went for 10 nights travelling mid week to the following Friday. That made it cheaper on the flights because we weren't trying to do weekend to weekend.

Holidays in the school holidays are expensive because of peak demand so shopping around and being flexible on dates does help.

There are 5 of us - 2 adults, and three children varying from 9 to 15 years old - and £4.5/5k is about what we pay for 10 days all inclusive. Yep, I know it's some people's idea of hell, but the all inclusive bit is amazing for teenage boys (actual locusts!!) and we eat out a fair bit as well, but know we have the option of them grabbing food as and when they want to in the hotel (which is 24/7, because generally they're always starving!) We book a year in advance and pay off the holiday each month, so it's a more manageable £4/500 each month.

We also go camping in the UK at least three times, do a city break and rent a UK coastal cottage throughout the rest of the year, for 10 days a year though, we switch off, chill by the pool/waterpark/do boat trips and relax, knowing we don't have to pay the £367890 food bill for two teenage boys and an ice cream obsessed little girl :-) We're an active family though, so we always choose somewhere with watersports and activities for us all to do, and don't stay onsite all the time.

We used to take 2 adults ( sometimes 3 if my dad came too)and 4 kids to France every year for 2 weeks with a budget of £2000 - £2500 including travel ( and by that I mean fuel,tolls and ferry). We then budgeted about £1000 for spending money to include all food and trips out. We stayed in either self-catering cottages booked through Welcome Cottages or on Yelloh site. Two years we had a private pool. Yelloh mobile home had ensuite bathroom, and hot tub as well as a massive water park on site. This year we are going to Biarritz through Owners Direct. The cottage sleeps 6 and has its own pool. The costs of travel are greater due to the distance(although we are paying for our Eurotunnel ticket with Tesco vouchers) but the total will still come in under £3k.

Ive taken my kids to Greece for a week for around £1100, nice apartment with pool, beautiful beach. You can definitely do it cheaper than that. Corfu is cheap and cheerful. I've booked naice cottages in france for around the same. Self catering is actually more convenient than AI for me as there's normally plenty of places to eat out, fill the fridge with salami bread and tatziki and peaches for brunch etc... and I don't like being tied to the hotel timings.

I don't understand why people go for two weeks, one is always plenty for me. Plus pets at home preclude a longer break.

There's so many places to explore and you don't need to be a millionaire. It cost me more to take my kids to the Lake District for a week than it did to go abroad so UK not necessarily cheaper anyway.

CountFosco I’m totally with you. We’re a high earning household and I’m surprised households earning far less than us could be spending £6k every year. I think most of our money goes on mortgage, pension and childcare and a big chunk on savings for the future.

I love holidays but I’d rather have a nicer home all year than have an amazing 2 weeks every year. It’s just priorities though as we could do it.

Thanks @mydogisthebest - I'll look up the amusement park and the area you mentioned, that's great that you enjoyed visiting Holland and keep going back - can't wait to go!

It is all about priorities. I rarely drink, my car is 13 years old (had it from new -so more than paid off), don’t smoke, rarely buy new clothes. We have a fairly small 2 bed which is big enough for the three of us, my mortgage is half that of my friends with large houses/4 kids. Cycle many places.

It's also about income.

We have a second hand car we've had for donkeys years, I walk to work, our mortgage is £370/month, neither of us smoke, my clothes are second hand, DH wears his until they fall apart then buys in sales, we have one child.

The above example of £500/month savings for holiday is just under a quarter of our combined monthly income.

We have 'breaks' staying with family in various parts of the UK. As soon as we save a reasonable amount of money (by which I mean £3,000ish say) some catastrophe happens and most of it is gone again.

We live in Australia. The boys are happy to camp ( 13& 15). There’s often other kids their age around and they hang around together. If it’s winter they often build their own fire.
We’ve also used Groupon for accommodation. Discount was great , near the beach and it had a pool. We saved our Coles ( like Tesco ) points to buy tickets for theme park. So didn’t cost us anything!!!
Could you do something like that?

We earn good money but can't afford to spend lots on holidays. For the past 7 years we've taken our 3 dc to eurocamp style holidays in France. Vendee, charante maritime, by eurotunnel driving all the way with a stop in a cheap hotel. Such good memories of long sunny holidays staying on campsites in mobile homes since they were age 1, 6 and 7. We used a company called venue who are much cheaper. 2-3 weeks accommodation for about 700, then Tesco vouchers for the euro tunnel and bbqs most nights. Lots of activities and friends made, swimming with slides on site. My teenagers are physically a bit too big for mobile homes now so this year we're hiring a friend's apartment in Spain and cheap flights booked as soon as they came out. So cost is 1400 plus spending money in August. Fingers crossed we'll enjoy it as much as the campsites but would thoroughly recommend eurocamp/canvas/venue

but once those DCs are in primary school, your childcare costs fall dramitically, say to around £3/400 pm for wrap around care/holiday clubs

Gosh I am currently looking into childcare costs for primary going kids and wraparound care is £450 per child for ten months of the year. Camps are not included. I am trying to figure out if it’s worth working at all!

£450 a month or £450 for the 10 months.

If it’s £450 a month that is very expensive. Even if it was full time, we would be ~£250 for a 5 week month.

This is what I do: A 5 night holiday in a resort style hotel somewhere where budget airlines go. Last year I took my DD to Salou in Spain. We flew into Barcelona on a budget airline which was about £400 less than flying to Salou. We then took a bus there which took about 50 minutes and was v cheap so that saved loads of money. I booked the hotel separately. I like a nice hotel which entertainment, good buffet etc so would rather go somewhere like that for 5 nights than a budget hotel for 2 weeks. In Salou there is a theme park, a beach, an aqua park so we mixed it up by spending sometime by the pool and some days at the attractions. It was really fun and cost me around £800 for the two of us. I will then do a staycation type holiday thing at home for another week in the holidays where we go on daytrips and go to the theatre and eat out but without the expense of the flights and hotel. This is almost equally as fun and a bit more relaxing. If I had more money I don’t think I would go away for two weeks. It feels a bit too long, possibly 10 days if we were going long haul.

Book early, book villas/air bnb, book outside of good areas and hire a car or somewhere with good public transport. Go as a big group, two families or with grandparents.... but yes, it is expensive.

450 a month or £450 for the 10 months

A month!!

@cantbeb0thered where are you please? You had me at hammock!

@Trottersindependenttraders

A yellow village site called me Sérignan plage. Next time I would fly and drive if I could book cheap flights early enough.

We are staying in a cabin Robinson . It is incredibly spacious. Absolutely love it

• Le

A few people have suggested it, but take a look at cruises. These are a fantastic option for families, and there are some great deals out there. My kids loved them, and so did I (single parent at the time).

Now cruise with my husband as kids are 20 and 21, got 4 booked next year!

In terms of what would your pre teens do, I usually go somewhere where there is "culture/stuff" to do.

Successful trips have been Rhodes Town, Italy, South of France, Crete.

What are your DC interested in?

OP it's not just you!! I'm scratching my head too. Haven't been abroad in years and would love to go short haul all inclusive .. but 2yo is charged as an adult it seems!

Bit off topic but people I know all seem to have family members or family friends with holiday homes in Spain or France how is that even a thing, I don't get it.

And I think yes you do need a substantial family income to drop £2500 on a holiday!

Thanks cantbeb0thered, I'm on it! Enjoy the rest of your holidays, this is me plotting for 2020 already, I think we've left it too late for this summer.

@Trottersindependenttraders

We booked direct with the site as well. It sure if there was any difference? Prices are released in October for next year. You won't regret it 😁