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?

For villas, I have used Villa Plus in the past and this year On the Beach. The beauty with On the Beach is that you can pay in instalments.

We stayed in a permanent caravan on Lake Garda. Fairly cheap to fly there (August). Bus from airport. Every morning walked 15 minutes along the lake to the old town of Lazise to mooch, people watch, eat ice cream. Back for self catering lunch, afternoon by pool or lake. £2000 for 4 people. It can be done.

We had no money when I was growing up so we went camping in France for two weeks every summer.
Campsites had pools, bike hire etc.
We'd drive to places to do stuff: cities, the beach, water parks, markets etc.
Dunno how relaxing it was for my dad as he did all the driving but I loved it.

Hmm rather then 2 weeks look for a week or 5 to 6 days using loveholiday you should be able to find something around 1500 and also all inclusive perhaps change fly out times as this can make a huge difference... Both Canary islands and Turkey should provide good value

It all depends on your other outgoings. For example, if you have two working adults earning £25k each but only a small mortgage (e.g. no more than £100k) then saving £400 - £500 a month towards a holiday is very doable. But if you live in London or many parts of the South East, accommodation costs are so high that expensive holidays abroad become a pipe dream for many people....

I pay approximately £3,000 for 1 week, 1/2 board, for 2 adults, but hardly take advantage of the evening meal as prefer to eat out, but b&b not available. And I'm not a millionaire. If only.....

£2.5K is a hell of a lot of money for many families.

We only had a couple of overseas holidays, when our children were small and we could go in term time. Once we had four children and had to go during the school holidays we simply stopped flying anywhere. We had some lovely holidays in this country, taking apartments, cottages or cheap hotels. Our children were happy to go to theme parks or other attractions, or swimming pools during the summer.
Now we're older and could go abroad as our children have left home, but we actually prefer to stay in this country, sometimes just going out for day trips and nice pub meals. Much cheaper than flying anywhere and still so many places we've not visited yet.

We book Landal sites in Holland. They are little self catering bungalows. There's entertainment, swimming, kids clubs and sports all included in the price, and they are all close to cities for sightseeing etc. Costs us less than £2000 in the summer....

I don't think you need to be a millionaire, but you do need to shop around.
My idea of hell is spending two weeks at a hotel by a pool, but I live by a beach here.
I'm doing two short breaks this year with my boys. Managed to pick up flights and hotel in Berlin (5 nights) for £213 each and oct half term in Spain for £169 each. Both are self-catering and with British Airways.

Hi try the Bay Talland we have been here and the accommodation is lovely it is literally a 3 minute walk from the beach and you have two coastal paths one to Looe the other to the beautiful fishing village Polperro. They have a small on-site gym and pool. Some of the properties have hot tubs, just try to get a sea facing one as they are lovely the living room is upstairs so you see some beautiful sunsets. www.thebaytalland.com/

We can only take holidays in the official school holidays because I teach.
Over the years we've done shared cottage holidays with other family members & camping in the UK. Loads of fun.
One holiday in the USA, as we stayed with relatives (no hotel costs)
Kids have loved all of them and still want to come with us this year - camping again - even though they're now 17 & 14

Duinrell OP.
You need Duinrell.

We are far from rich, I'm not working and DH is on a modest wage we get abroad every other year at least. We use Jet2 for the free child places (and always had a great service) £650per person budget and I will only go all inclusive. A quick search on their website and then look on trip advisor for reviews and check there is plenty to do. Then book it...

We go 2 weeks camping in Europe. 2 adult 2 DC Campsite is around €800.- includes a lovely large pool and kids club for DC in the evening.
We drive, channel crossing with petrol and toll charges around £250.-
Where we go, there is free access to public transport for tourists with a special ticket- which is very good and reliable! So the car is parked up for most of the time.
That's the basics, in top of that is food and entry fees. But to be honest, most attractions will give you a discount if you have the tourists ticket.

When our DCs were young, we went in hotels in Spain, with 1 going on a free child place. When they got too old to all be in one room, we bought a timeshare which worked very well for 10 years but was a pain to get of, we virtually gave it away on Ebay. However, if you browse ebay you can pick a 2 bed timeshare up for peanuts. You will have to pay maintenance fees every year, but you will have guaranteed accommodation every year. Do your research on the timeshare companies first, some are dodgy, some are good. Watch the Easyjet and Ryanair websites and buy as soon as the flights go on sale. We got 2 return flights to Malaga this year for less than £150. When you get fed up of the timeshare, you can put it on ebay for next to nothing, and as you paid peanuts, no loss there for you. This year, just 2 of us, no timeshare now, we found a hotel in the Costa Del Sol that suited, checked prices on Booking.com and the package companies. Booked the hotel direct, booked flights with Easyjet, as mentioned earlier. At Malaga took the train to Benalmadina. Cost about £200 less than a package, and the hotel upgraded our room as they had no middleman to pay. Dead easy.

When ours were younger we went to south Brittany a few times. Was about £1700 for 10 days in a nice caravan on a decent Canvas site with ferry. We look back fondly on them.

I’m confused as to why you’re confused OP!

Seriously, search online for holiday villa in Spain or whichever destination and bingo, you will have endless websites with holiday lets listed. It’s not rocket science.

We went to Italy to a www.agriturismo.net/ place with our then pre-teens and it was brilliant.

When the kids go to bed, sit down with a glass of wine and start googling.

Ps how can you not have come across Owners Direct if you have been searching?? Beggars belief!

We've done several different types of holidays for not too much money. We're very far from millionaires!
Eg:
Cheap flight + Airbnb in European cities; or train + Airbnb to lots of towns in the UK [note: Airbnb is hit and miss, I find it difficult to recommend as not all places are as good as they seem]
Flight + Club Mac in Tenerife; there are lots of similar types of places
Caravan holiday - rent a caravan at a caravan park
There are lots of great campsites in France and Italy, with great amenities, and often good travel links to local towns and cities (eg there's a good one outside Rome)
Camping

When you're there, do things to save money where you can, eg make some meals yourself rather than eat out for all meals.

Is it that you have trouble saving up for the holiday beforehand?

What do your kids like to do? Maybe start by thinking what they enjoy, and then try to find a holiday that fits that. There are lots of organised trips for families, maybe they would be good then you don't have to think of everything to do all the time?

I’m taking DS to Ibiza for 5 days for about £650 (flights and hotel). Will probably spend another £400 when there. It depends what you want.

Center Parcs in Europe! Much cheaper in the summer holidays than the ones in the UK even with the costs of travel on top, excitement of travelling abroad plus lots of activities for children of all ages. Ok some you have to pay for but some are free. You can also self cater, eat out or combine both which keeps the costs down.

You can also have any number of days , not just 7 or 14.

£400 for a chalet in Norfolk. Whatever you do a holiday is going to cost at least £1000 when you factor in the extras.

It's up to you to work out what you want to pay and find it. It's not hard.

We spend around 5k, sometimes more, on our main holiday each year. Starts off cheaper but then escalates. It depends what standard of accommodation you want, there are cheaper holidays but we won’t go less than 4 star abroad. It’s expensive but let’s not forget that parents get ripped off in school holidays, which annoys me no end. It’s expensive enough paying for four people but, no, that’s not good enough, let’s triple the price too!! It’s very annoying to see what the same holiday costs in term time. Of course it depends what your income is too. We do ok and get good bonus’ twice a year, so that pays for holidays along with selling shares if needed. It really does annoy me that it’s so expensive for families to do anything so I do feel for you op. But no, you don’t need to be a millionaire but you do need to earn good money to afford that kind of holiday, unfortunately

...And our kids loving swimming all day every day pretty much. 12 and 10.

We book our villas Airbnb and buy our flights. Then depending where we're going we book water parks/attractions before we go (through companies like Attractions Direct). Yes it costs a small fortune but we enjoy it as a family x