To ask how much you spend on a UK holiday

[Maryofscots]

I've not been on holiday in the UK for many years as I find it much cheaper to go abroad. We are considering it this year due to the way things are. So if we are allowed to, say in August, for a week, how much would you expect to spend? I know there are loads of variables here but still curious/hoping to find some form of average or idea. Thanks in advance

@2pinkginsplease

We’ve had many a luxury caravan holiday in the UK, we normally spend approx £500 for the caravan for the week and then £100 a day on going out and eating out. Thankfully we have been really lucky weather wise in the uk. I can only think of 2 holidays in the last 14 years that have had atrocious weather,

There isn’t no way we would get a holiday abroad for 4 of us for that price, we’d also need passports and new clothes for going away,

@2pinkginsplease you’d be surprised, I just checked for an all-inclusive for a family of four (incl two older teens) this August and you would have loads of options for the same/cheaper incl 4* Costa Brava (Love Holidays).

2/3 bedroom holiday cottage in St Ives in August/September we usually pay about 2.5k for the accomodation for 2 weeks. Another £100 for parking , £150 for fuel, 1.5k for food, eating out, trips etc and another £200 for a couple of nights in Devon on the way down.

I have only been on a package holiday once and it was paid for by a friends parents ( family holidays involved a tent and a kagoul growing up ) .
I am not sure how much it would cost to stay in an apartment/villa somewhere like Spain or Portugal or Greece, 20m from the beach, that had 2-3 bedrooms, for four people, during the Summer holidays, including all travel and food etc ?

It depends how much you have/want to spend, doesn’t it?
Camping in Northamptonshire probably not a huge amount. A week at Cliveden, much more.

Our cottage (3 bedrooms, terrace overlooking the sea, detached studio for two, big garden, no off road parking though) rents for £1,800 in summer, but we only let to ‘known’ people.
We’ve a pretty 4 bedroom cottage booked in then Lakes for September and are paying £2;800. It has lake frontage and has lots of space, but nothing special.

When on island we spend an average £100 per day on lunches, coffees, takeaway, ice creams, magazines, sundries etc. Then we have a supermarket shop for basics which is about £150 for the week. We usually eat out twice in the week at an extra £150 a time, roughly. Then ferry fares, petrol. We spend about £1000 in total for up to about ten days - we could spend much less but could spend more. We really do tourist attractions, cinema or anything. We don’t want to eat out every day either.

Lakes we’ll spend more as our daughter and husband are joining us. We’ll probably eat out more, buy day spa tickets, stay somewhere on the way up, hire a dinghy or kayaks. I’d not expect to have much change from £2,000 with overnight hotels included.

@FredaFlintstone

Here's a top top...if you want a UK holiday in August and you're going from England, Wales or NI, go to Scotland and go in the last two weeks of August.

Scottish schools resume by about the 10th August and we've had some real bargains in the past by going once Scottish kids are back. I suppose it's kind of the equivalent of going somewhere in England or Wales in the first week of September, prices come down a fair bit ime.

Caveat: don't expect it still to be summer at the end of August in scotland. That one works far better in the other direction. There was a funny thread last year, with the OP feeling sorry for Scottish kids going back in "the heat" when it was 12 degrees outside.

Last year we spent about £900 for 7 nights self catering in Whitby in a gorgeous 5* cottage end of August. 2 adults, 2 kids and a teenager and we spent at least £1000 that week, maybe more.

Generally a week's holiday cottage (nicer than our house) always in school holidays so prices pushed up. Between £650 and £900 by the time admin fees, damage waiver etc are paid. Cook maybe 4 main meals in that time, sometimes less. Take picnics when we go out. Most (though not all) days out are funded via Tesco vouchers, National Trust membership or at the very least scoured for 2 for 1 type offers.

Parking free with the cottage but obviously have to pay when we go out.

At least £100 to £150 a night for a hotel and £200 a day for meals and activities plus travel costs.

Usually costs more than going abroad.

You can save a bit going to a caravan or self catering.

It's being tied to school holidays that really pushes up prices. Same cottage literally rose by £300 from one week to the next due to that. As a teacher, I've just got to suck it up and smile sweetly at the families taking their children out of school because even with fines it's cheaper than going in holidays.

Hey ho, it is what it is.

We've spent £2.5k on a house in Wales but that's for two weeks, mid August.

Obviously trips and eating out will be on top, but I wouldn't expect that to be loads.

Just had a look at the Jet2 site and I would need to book 3 , 1 bed apartments for our family of four and it would cost 5k for all inclusive in Spain, Benalmedena. Do people go abroad and sleep on a sofa bed ? or do they put the children on the sofa bed ?

I had no idea self catering holidays were so expensive.

3 generations in a very nice let, with travel, restaurants etc, probably £2,500 for a week.

We’ve booked a 3 bed cottage in north Devon for the summer holidays and it’s around £1800 I think. Many were a lot more expensive.

We usually spend anything between £500 to £1000 for a holiday cottage, and probably the same for spending money. Now it's just DH, me and the dogs, we go more upmarket. But we never go at peak times as I don't want to be surrounded by screaming kids (get that at home for free with the grandkids) and don't like crowds.

We camp so it's probably not more than £500 per week including spending money. But we have spent £2k on decent camping gear.

If you want a hotel or holiday cottage it's hugely expensive in the UK. Much cheaper to go abroad. We usually do 1 foreign holiday and 2 or 3 UK camping ones per year.

We've got a cottage booked near a beach in Devon for this August. Cost £1400. I think prices have shot up for UK holidays (thanks COVID!) as we've never paid more than £800 previously.

You need to compare like for like. A cultural holiday in the UK doesn't compare with an all inclusive beach holiday abroad. We are culture vultures and go self catering both here and abroad. A week self catering in a 3 bed flat with 3DC, eating out once a day, and visiting a cultural attraction every day is always more expensive abroad purely because of the cost of the flights (we don't live near an airport with cheap flights which makes a massive difference). In the UK it depends where you go. Northumberland and the Peak District were a lot cheaper than Oxford and Edinburgh purely because of the accommodation. Visiting family (in a touristy area) is even cheaper! EH/NT membership and Blue Peter badges reduces the cost of days out in the UK whereas abroad we are more likely to pay full price. But eating out may or may not be cheaper abroad depending where you go. I'd expect to spent £500-2K for a week in the UK depending on the accommodation but £3-5K for a comparable holiday abroad (because if we are travelling abroad we're going to the Oxford/Edinburgh equivalents, not Northumberland). Last year we stayed at home and spent a few hundred, we had no accommodation costs, visited lots of EH places and picnicked several times. We live in a beautiful area so it was lovely.

It so much depends what you are after.
We've holidayed in the UK regularly for decades.
We normally get a cottage and self cater.
We prefer to walk, or sit on a beach with a book, so we don't have "entertainment" expenses. Since the dc have grown up and don't come with us, we might sometimes pay to go into something, if we get a lot of bad weather.
I wouldn't be buying food out for every meal either, as the pp who costed her stay in Brighton suggested. We eat breakfast as we would at home, and tend to take a packed lunch for the day then either eat out or get a takeaway in the evening.
So it is difficult to get "an average" without knowing what you are looking to do.

Week in Cornwall in nice cottage about £1300, spending money on meals out about £300 (we don't eat out much, happy with pasties or BBQ at cottage), we use national trust pass for parking a lot.

We also a second cheaper trip camping for a long weekend, probably about £400.

Also you need to take account of how many people there are in your group. We're a family of 4 (2 adults & 2 kids) so will spend less than my friend. She has 6 kids plus her dh so their holiday bill is a lot more than ours.

DenisetheMenace

3 generations in a very nice let, with travel, restaurants etc, probably £2,500 for a week.“”

Sorry about quoting myself 🥴

Wanted to say though, the above aside, our teenaged son and I had the most fantastic week on the South Coast in a Ready Camp tent in July 2019 for the princely sum of £250 for the tent, £100 in petrol and £90 in evening meals (there was a brilliant pub up the road offering two, three course meals for £15, much nicer than we’d expected). £50 on top for sundries and a bag of essentials (wine and crisps 😁) that we brought with us.
That was such a lovely week. I’m pining now!

We have a week in Northumberland booked for 4 of us in June which is £800 & a week in a cottage just outside whitby in august which sleeps 12 which is costing £1500. The larger house is being split between 2 families. We don’t spend more than £600 on food/entertainment/drinks when in the U.K.
hoping for a couple of camping trips this year too.
You definitely get more for your money up north than in devon/Cornwall.

I won't pay more than £1000 for a UK break, I know I could but anything more than that I'd rather go abroad. We've done a hot tub lodge for a long weekend, center Parcs for 5 days (school term), caravan beach location over August bank holiday. Because we like to eat out rather than self cater £1000 doesn't usually go more than 3-4 nights!

Home exchanges are a great way of cutting down on holiday costs, and you can find places all over the world. We've had lovely stays in England, Ireland and France. There are several websites, we use Guardian Home Exchange. You just pay an annual membership fee.

@2pinkginsplease

We’ve had many a luxury caravan holiday in the UK, we normally spend approx £500 for the caravan for the week and then £100 a day on going out and eating out. Thankfully we have been really lucky weather wise in the uk. I can only think of 2 holidays in the last 14 years that have had atrocious weather,

There isn’t no way we would get a holiday abroad for 4 of us for that price, we’d also need passports and new clothes for going away,

Why would you need new clothes for going away? I've never really got the whole shopping for hols thing unless you're going skiing or something!

We did a week in York/Harrogate last year, three of us, spent about 1.5k I think. Few cheap days outside York then fancy spa hotel near Harrogate. Most of the ££ was food and activities, did steam train, museums, afternoon teas etc etc. Had a great time. We have spent much less camping but then we did more self catering and amused ourselves with walking/cycling etc. Depends what kind of holiday you like.