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?

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

It does depend on your perspective but I think that "rich" in the UK would normally be defined as being able to afford something that most people in the UK couldn't rather than just something that people on a low income couldn't afford.

I booked 7 nights for 3 adults and 1 child (ds18, ds13) All Inclusive to Tenerife last years, with a hotel that had 3 pools, and 2 kids clubs (not that we used them), and all day activities. Free bus to the aqua park, and zoo, 15 minutes stroll to the beach with loads of water sports. I think we spent in total £350 on activities/tickets and food and drink out. The actual flights and all inclusive deal cost £700. So just over 1K. You need to shop around OP!

Go to Poland. Wonderfully cheap with loads of beautiful, classy cities and very welcoming people. Even after Brexit. We live in Germany so we take the train across which saves a few bob but flights are so cheap these days it can't cost much more to fly.

We went to Poznan and Szczecin the last couple of years; Poznan was much nicer but I've heard great things about Warsaw and Bydgoszcz and I've visited and loved Krakow several times. There are some towns which have lots of spa resorts that are often very family friendly with playgrounds and stuff for kids to do that only cost as much as a Travelodge would in the UK.

There are beautiful mountain resorts in the Tatras such as Zakopane where you'll find plenty to do and super cheap accommodation. The weather is better than Blighty in most places too.

Realise I sound like a Visit Poland representative at this point but seriously, it's a super awesome place for an inexpensive family holiday. We took week-long breaks that cost under a thousand (closer to 700€) for 4 people including accommodation, transport and spending money when there. Can't recommend it enough.

Austria and Slovenia are wonderful.
Go to a campsite - lots of them have little self-catering huts you can stay in or rental caravans.
Loads to do - walking, lakes to swim in, good food, traditional farming on alpine pastures, water sports, outdoor swimming pools everywhere that are often cheap to get into or free with a guest card.

Last year we spent 10 days touring Iceland.
We thought about getting a hotel and going on organized tours, but it became very expensive.
Was much cheaper to hire a camper and get food from the supermarket.
We got to stay somewhere new everyday and the best thing was that when the other tourists were queing for tea or coffee at cafes, we retreated to our camper and had a nice cuppa!

We have been booking villas and apartment holidays abroad for years. We budget up to £2000 for flights, car hire and accommodation. This year we are going to a quiet part of Spain for two weeks, three bedroom apartment, private terrace with direct access to the pool and right on the beach. Last year we had a private villa with pool in Teneriffe and the two years prior to that we went to lake garda in Italy.
We tend to cook when away and make picnics for days out. We usually do a boat trip, visit parks, explore by car, walk along the sea front or marina etc. This year we have a couple of trips out planned to break things up a bit, water park at a mountain lake and a mountain river walk where you can swim in the river.

If you look at cheap flights through skyscanner and then book accommodation separately you can do it if you shop around. Some destinations are a lot more expensive than others regarding accommodation. I would say mainland Spain can be pretty cheap and you have options of seeing some beautiful cities for some culture.

If you are happy camping, take your own tent to France and travel via the channel tunnel (of course how far you live from the south coast depends whether this would be practical for you or not). You can book at all the big Eurocamp style types directly through the site or just get cheaper more simple sites depending what you want. No need to spend lots on eating out as you can cook at the tent.

I get bored on a beach all day but pools were ok when the kids were younger and eurocamps are such good value especially if you drive over yourself as there is loads to do. Went with friends in a tiny caravan to France once but that can be hard work ! ( another thread) but that cut the cost a bit and some newspapers also did ferry crossing deals.
They are not cheap though and some years we skipped holidays and just had days out with the children or vouchers for haven cut the newspapers and had a long weekend or something. Although campsites can also be expensive even self catering.

There are various websites where you can swap houses with other families for free or offer to pet sit for someone where you get free accomodation in exchange for looking after the pets.House swaps are international but pet sitting is UK.
We are fortunate to have large extended family and most of our holidays involve driving and staying with friends and family. Last year we paid a friends flight to Kenya and then stayed free with her brother who fed us for the week. Had an amazing time if a little hot as no air con!

I'd also add to join mailing lists for airlines if you plan to fly anywhere - BA recently did a ridiculous sale for flights between Jo'burg and London, some of our friends got dirt cheap seats when they are normally around £600-700 economy. One friend even managed to find a business class seat for £900 which is insane for an 11 hour flight with BA! So if you get advance knowledge on sales for airlines that fly to where you want to go you might be able to pick up a bargain.

I think you probably need to get away from the idea that you need to be in an all inclusive TUI type resort with a kids club, or the kids will be bored. Families go self catering or hire an apartment/villa all the time and the kids have a great time. Just make sure you're in an area where there are activites and interesting places to go. Though even without that, as a kid I was more than happy to spend hours in a pool and most of my friends were the same.

@ChangedNameForToday, me and DH love Holland. I talked him into going about 6 years ago and we have been back every year except one.

We don't have children but usually stay some of the time at Duinrell in Wassenaar. If you stay there the huge amusement park is free but you can go for the day and pay to go in. Might be worth looking at going there one of your days? Wassenaar itself is lovely and has some quite nice restaurants and a really popular ice cream parlour. It's full of gorgeous houses - the Dutch Royal Family have their house there.

The Dutch are so friendly and speak excellent English. I also love it because the weather is usually just right for me as I don't like the heat

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

This makes you sound like your life is very closed and small, if you can’t even work out for yourself what you and your family might like to do, and where!

You also don't have to go for two weeks, which will help enormously with the cost and potential boredom factor.

European Center Parcs type places, Eurocamp or self catering apartment combined with cheap flights is usually the most affordable option and also usually some entertainment for DCs (playparks, kids clubs, activities as well as pool and/or beach). Easy food, barbecues and the odd meal out or takeaway means that it shouldn't be too much hard work as long as everyone pulls their weight and a lot more enjoyable than the mid range buffet AI experience.

I can understand the fear of unknown websites, there are a lot of horror stories out there and it's a lot of money so pressure to get it right and not make mistakes.

We do spend a significant proportion of our income on holidays, - probably about £7/8k pa, but we have no DCs, low outgoings and spend very little on a lot of the things that many people spend a lot on like home decoration, beauty treatments, gadgets, phone contracts, clothes, coffee and lunches as we almost always have leftovers or home made salads or soups.

If you look at Eurocamp, then look direct at campsite website. I have read you can get better and cheaper accommodation booking direct. Yelloh was one we looked at. There was some amazing looking campsites.

We usually spend 2 weeks in a European destination, self catering apartment with shared pool, usually costs about 2.5 - 3k. We take around 2K spending money.

Days are spent swimming, lazing around the pool reading, at the beach, we usually do a boat trip or some other excursion and a water park trip. We eat out each night in the local town/s, go to bars where children are welcome and there is live music, often there is a harbour and there is always lots going on, we people watch, the kids get kiddie cocktails and play pool, or dance, or sometimes they have bars with a kids play area.

I love it, we are so hectic the rest of the year, our annual holiday is a chance to unwind, definitely never get bored.

linecraft

In the real world most people cannot out £500 a month aside for a holiday . If this is something you are able to do then you are in a very fortunate situation indeed .
Many people have little or nothing left after paying all the bills , food , etc

Holidays are expensive . And when having to book in school holidays are just out of reach for some completely

In the real world most people cannot out £500 a month aside for a holiday . If this is something you are able to do then you are in a very fortunate situation indeed.

I don't think you can say that when as demonstrated by this thread going abroad does generally cost about that much during the school summer holidays if you take into account spending once you are there and many families go abroad. When we go on holiday, most people we meet have jobs that earn pretty average incomes. Not everyone wants to spend that much on a holiday which is why there is a tendency to go at half term etc but that doesn't mean that they couldn't if they wanted to prioritise holidays over other things.

What about borrowing a tent and going camping in the UK?

I was reading a similar thread on another forum. Somebody there stated that she didn't regard a holiday as a holiday unless it was abroad and involved a flight to get there.

I second everyone who's suggested getting a last minute family friendly cruise. There are kids clubs all inclusive so always something to do, you wake up in a different port each day or two so plenty to explore (and you might fall in love with an unexpected place and decide to take a trip there some other time), and all your food and entertainment is included. My husband and I got a cheap 12 night med cruise for £499pp a few years ago, and additional guests in a cabin beyond the standard 2 is very cheap (sometimes there's 'bring a child for £1' or similar). The only thing that changes cost is the cabin class you have. We always have an inside cabin because we only use it for sleeping, we're up and about the rest of the time. If you want a suite then you'll pay much much more!

When you stop in ports, you can choose to pay for arranged excursions, or arrange your own (or just explore). Unless a port is very remote, we always choose to go for a wander (except when we did a Baltic cruise and had an overnight in Russia, we went for a 2 day tour when we stopped there because it saved us having to organise and pay for visas and we got early entry to all the biggest tourist attractions, which was included in the tour price - worked out cheaper than organising it ourselves and we had an excellent tour guide). Because food is included, you don't have to worry about eating out when you're in a port, you can head back to the ship for lunch, or put some sandwiches in a bag for later.

Good luck in finding something suitable!

@dungeondragon - they probably get it on finance, I used to work with a woman who got credit cards, loans etc for holidays and "paying for Christmas" as well as a car on finance.
Some people do as a few on here and save up but they are pretty fortunate to be able to do so.
I am fortunate that I got a cheap deal last year which I put on my credit card and paid off over about 6 months and went without anything remotely treaty all year and i was lucky that nothing went wrong with my car at mot etc. That was an air b n b cottage which cost 750 plus petrol and spends and I have no idea how most (on mn) people can be so blasé about the extortionate cost of holidays.
In real life I know a lot of people on low income, average, and higher salaries and they nearly all struggle with holiday costs. The only person I know who can take regular abroad holidays without issue is on over 100k and no mortgage.

dungeondragon - they probably get it on finance, I used to work with a woman who got credit cards, loans etc for holidays and "paying for Christmas" as well as a car on finance.

It doesn't make any difference whether they pay in advance or use finance and pay later! They still have to pay for it! If anything a holiday using finance will cost more than a holiday that is saved for in advance.

Shop around OP and look at your wish list. Things like being on the beach add ££££.

We had 8 days in the Canaries early summer (not in school holidays). 2 adults, 2 children that are younger than yours but not babies.

All inclusive. Food was excellent. Was lovely to have someone else doing it! (We usually go self catering).

1 pool at hotel. No activities. We loved the peace and relaxed atmosphere! But we expected to entertain the DC.

We booked everything separately. £1500 including flights and car hire (with no excess) and spending money. Days out were cheapish - beach a couple of days, 2 days of tourist attractions with entry fees but they were pretty reasonable compared to some places.

We had a 2 bed apartment. It was clean, airy and spacious with a big private terrace, nice toiletries and fluffy towels! Very little noise as they were designed well.

A 2 week break would have been proportionally cheaper - easily < £2500.

We’re also going self catering in the UK. It will cost us more for the week once we have factored in transport (includes ferry) and food.

Hi op, if you want a villa with pool, owners direct or home and away but beware false advertising, particularly in Spain and Italy. There has been a lot of pressure people advertising villas they don’t own and asking for bank transfers for the rent. When you turn up no villa!

Eurocamp sounds like the best bet, lots of similar companies, Thompson al fresco, canvas, Sibiu, vacansoleil. . The trick is to book early and get flights as soon as they are released. We have been on many of these holidays and my children love them. To keep cost down you can book a tent with these companies instead of a mobile home. They come with beds and a fridge/cooking area. These sell out very quickly though as so much cheaper.if you are flexible where you go you could get a late deal now. The benefit of these versus villa holidays is that you can start your holiday on any day (if you book early) and so can book cheaper flights. Villas tend to be rented out Saturday to Saturday and so have to pay for Saturday flights. Good luck.

Try Eurocamp? I've got toddlers so go term time but stayed for a week 5* all inc for £1700 family of 4. Loads of stuff to do.

You just need to shop around.