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 love all these people saying they're not super rich but put aside 2-3-k because it's important. For loads of people that's makes you super loaded!!

Op - I've had to change my mindset since having kids. I used to be a proper -AI somewhere hot fab but the 4-5k in the school hols seemed ridiculous and bad value for money for us.

So we bought a tourer. I appreciate that's not an option but the places we go with it normally have either statics or camping options. Some look really nice.

We're in Snowdonia this week. We have spent £20 more than our normal food budget on treatier food. 2 meals out £100 for both. Then maybe £60 on castle entrances and parking etc. The whole trip will easily cost less than £500 and this was where we were yesterday

When our children were pre teens we used to do the Eurocamp or Canvas static caravan type holidays in Europe. Although they are not particularly cheap you probably pay less than for a villa and there is always a lot for the children to do on the campsite. Mine always made friends with other children. The campsites are also often near beaches.
Holidays are not cheap if your children are school age though unfortunately.

My tips are, book early, keep researching, start saving early, look for new hotels which charge less in their first year, get a free child place, book a week or 10 days.
AI is great but agree alot of the resorts are miles from anywhere. However how much do you want to do in a week?

I always start by looking at where the budget airlines go from my local airport. Then I look for a suitable airbnb or hotel in the right area. Then I look at stuff to do in the area.

It takes a fair bit of looking but it isn't hard.

For those who go on AI, are the worth it? I always think they look expensive. Perhaps it depends on how much you eat/drink normally on holiday.

We spend 2 weeks abroad every year, self catering and with maybe 3/4 evening meals out. The kids (9 & 6) are really happy swimming in the sea and playing on the beach non stop. We make it fun by doing it with them. In France, there are platforms about 200m our into sea so we all swim to them and dive off.
In fact the kids would moan if we did anything other than a day at the beach eg sightseeing, they get too hot

@Dungeondragon15 the benefit to all inclusive is it's so easy. Especially with kids, they can just eat what they like and get as many drinks as they like. It's the benefit of knowing the price up front and not having to guessstimate how much extra you'll need to bring for food and drink.

It's not for everyone but we've done it w couple of timed and it's been great.

A decent holiday is expensive but it's all about choices.

A man at my work moans most weeks (esp at this time of year) that it's not fair other have nice holidays in the summer with their families. He and his family can't afford it. Etc etc.

What he fails to consider is that if he didn't go the pub every Friday and Saturday and if his wife wasn't forever on the high street buying new clothes for their kids so they "always looked modern" - his words not mine - they could easily afford a holiday.

Being cautious if I assumed he spends £40 a week at the pub and she spends £20 a week on kids stuff that's £3k a year.

You need to be able to say £500/month and that's £6K. You don't have to be rich to do that

That in itself is utter drivel. It clearly comes from someone with ZERO experience of being tight for money.

Ferry to France and drive to a gite or campsite. Dover to Calais is cheapest but a long drive if you want the beach. We book with Brittany ferries - more expensive routes but more convenient to the west coast. We book accommodation through them too. We book early when they have a discount It's never cost us more than £2000 for a fortnight, 3 bedrooms in the summer holidays. Sometimes we've even had a pool. You need spending money for food and petrol but we don't eat out much so usually manage with around £750.

That in itself is utter drivel. It clearly comes from someone with ZERO experience of being tight for money.

To be fair, the poster didn't say that it was possible for everyone no matter what their income. They just said that "you don't have to be rich".

We don't spend a lot on holidays compared with many people. We've never done AI and always self-cater. Haven't tried AirBnB yet, but plan to. We camp in the UK or France or we book a cheapish villa/apartment, not with a pool. We go to the beach, go for walks, go canoeing, visit local places of interest, hang out with the dc and read or play games in the evening. A holiday lying on a lounger by the hotel pool with nowhere interesting to visit is my idea of hell.
I don't see why it would be difficult to find a place to stay though. There are plenty of companies you can book through, or AirBnB - what's so complicated?

They just said that "you don't have to be rich".

Yes but to a person on a low income, someone who can save £500 per month is rich. Rich depends on your perspective.

Balloon - agree entirely. A lot of the "it's cheaper to go abroad/only costs us the cost of a packet of crisps a week" brigade arent including all the other costs. Flights/transfers/etc.
I think trips and if you eat out every day all needs to be part of the budget too!

(Hence us self catering in a cottage in Cornwall for 600 and going for walks/national trust genuinely not costing us a lot! Or the odd caravan holiday)

Wed like to go to Wales next year. To a place with a pool rather than a cottage I think!

sorry I haven't rtft but read the ops posts. have you looked at Euro camp or centre Parcs Europe? sounds exactly what you're looking for

OP, if you find it confusing it might be worth trying an independent travel agent if you have one near you. We have switched from hours searching on the internet and then hoping everything will be what it looks like online (which isn't always the case) to using our local one. They are knowledgeable, they get commission from the bookings, so there's no cost to us, they listen to a brief and then do the leg work and they rely on good customer service for business so they do care that you're happy with what they come up with.

It's all relative though - for me it's just dd and me in the family to pay for. I've found some very cheap all inclusive holidays online (10 days in Italy for £830 inc flights all inc) with only extra costs being transfers and day trips. It's about looking and booking early IMO. I've decided to stay in UK this year and have 2 smaller holidays which will cost around the same but attractions are much more expensive, as well as eating out. Plus side is I have my car. So it is all relative.

I had a friend bang on about how she would never go abroad with her kids (Brexit related) and I think it is a real shame; we need more people to understand we are all human and learn to appreciate other cultures and landmarks. Saying that I do know larger families and low income families can't afford it but that is different to hating other countries because they are 'different'.

What about borrowing a tent and going camping in the UK? There are some camp sites with lots of facilities for kids. Cooking and BBQs becomes part of the fun too. Some sites have kids clubs and a club house for somewhere to go in the evening.

I find Eurocamps works out more expensive than doing half board or self catering in a nice hotel or flat near the beach with a tour operator like Tui.
2 weeks seems a bit long for me, especially with kids, we usually do a week or 10 days at most. and do a few days out from the hotel like a water park, a boat trip things like that.
Tui last minute holidays are cheap enough, I was looking last night, greece was under £400 each half board includes the flight and transport for the airport to hotel and you only need to get some lunch each day. Theres places in Spain for those prices too, and flying from London was even cheaper.

If you want UK I'd reccommend Shell Island in Wales. Kids run free and you can take the dog too.

Would you consider a far less traveled road?

Sopot on the Baltic coast of Poland is very nice.
www.airbnb.com/s/Sopot--Poland?listing_types[]=1

Just an example. Getting there might cost you of course.

We have lots of us and not an enormous budget so we look around for interesting places that cost less and don’t necessarily meet many people’s idea of a holiday but we enjoy. So for example I’ve just looked up the price of flights for your family from London to Munich for a week in August and an AirB&B apartment next to one of the German holiday lakes. Less than £1k. Then you’d need car hire and food (self catering could get most food from Lidl if you were happy with that!). It’s an area with loads of walking/biking/swimming and places to visit.

Airports that have loads of flights and service business/commuting as well as holidays tend to be cheaper and stay more reasonable during school holidays.

Thanks for everyone who has give good ideas. I am going to look into a lot of them.

I have googled (a lot!) But it seems to take me to the same sites. Airbnb didn't seem to have a sort by function. Home away seemed to have loads of places for £0 so seemed really dodgy and put me off. I am not stupid, but when you have zero experience of this kind of holiday, it is very hard to know where to start.

Going to look at Eurocamp again, and not going to only one place (the person who said Paris and nice is ony wavelength!)

And I will just have to accept that 2 weeks in the summer holidays with a 12 year old and another child will be expensive and that is what is normal to pay.

@RandomlyChosenName I agree and when my 3 were young we didn't go abroad for the same reason. We couldn't justify spending £4-5k on 2 weeks holiday. We bought a trailer tent and our two week holiday somewhere in the UK (which took dogs so we didn't have to pay for kennels!) for 5 people cost about £1500 if you include petrol and food. OK so the weather wasn't guaranteed but it's amazing how much fun you can have doing beach and/or clifftop walks when its not sunny.

Once they were older ie 11,9 and 7 we went to a Eurocamp place near La Rochelle then 4 years later we went to a similar set up near Bordeaux. The total cost of those holidays was around £3k and I think they were just about the best holidays could have had! If you Eurocamp (other companies are available!) then you can stay in more than one place - we split the journey both ways and stayed in a site near the ferry terminal for one night at the start and end of the two weeks.

Also we rarely fly. Eurotunnel/ferry plus driving. Your child is old enough to put up with some time in the car and you can visit places/stay overnight and make it part of your holiday. Our drive this summer will cost us 25% of flight prices including fuel and tolls.