To think it's more of expensive to holiday in the UK?

[hibbledibble]

Like many, I holidayed in the UK this year, due to covid complicating trips abroad. I work in person for the NHS, and can't risk having to isolate on return, if a country's status changes.

I do feel utterly ripped off though. The holiday hasn't been anything extravagant, just driving to a self catering accommodation. The accomodation costs are astronomical, as are eating out and day trips (many days were nearly £100, and that wasn't even including food). I have looked at TUI and it would have been cheaper to get an all inclusive package, and that way I wouldn't have to cook, clean, and could even have used the kids club for some child free time by the pool.

Instead I've had tepid to cold weather, rain, and didn't even get to go to the beach on our seaside holiday as it was too cold.

Not sure what to do in future. I can't afford expensive UK holidays anymore, but not can I risk letting down my department by having to isolate.

£3k all in for two adults and two older teen boys for a week in beautiful hot, sunny Croatia.
Feel completely revived, like we've had a proper break.
Worth every penny.

@hibbledibble

ash you had hit the nail on the head that it didn't feel like much of a holiday either, as it was so much work. It felt a bit like same stuff, different place.

The point is I don't know which of those options will be viable, given that I have to work in person, and am relatively low waged.

Well, none of us do. We'll just have to wait and see what next year brings. DP and I are both NHS, patient-facing too. We didn't go abroad last year as it would have been irresponsible. We tried to go this year but the holiday got cancelled ( even though it was a green country and we're both double vaccinated). Meanwhile DP's brother has WFH the whole time and has had two holidays abroad. It's a kick in the teeth, but that's life.

It depends. I think if when you go abroad you spend very little money on activities because you spend the day around the pool/on the beach but in the UK you have day trips that cost money, the difference in cost is going to be very obvious.

Yes - it's much easier to entertain children at an all-inclusive hotel with pool in the sunshine. If you spent a week in Salou and paid for the family to go to the water park there (€30 each), Port Aventura (€50 each), mini golf (probably about €30), the zoo, and so on, it would get expensive.

@TheYearOfSmallThings

It's a missed opportunity to show reluctant people what a fantastic experience a uk holiday can be

I really agree with this, but the truth is between the lousy weather and the Covid restrictions...it wasn't going to be easy to win people over.

Plus accommodation, food and drink out are far more expensive, more likely to have to pay for parking, more likely to decide to pay for indoor attractions to get out of the wind and rain.

I agree that the UK is lovely, but it's rarely going to give you consistently warm weather where you're going to be able to swim in calm warm clear seas like you can in the Med.

We went to the Formentor lighthouse in Mallorca, probably it's equivalent to Land's End. Parking was free, entrance was free, you could take as many photos as you liked for free and the cafe sold very cheap, good quality home made cakes and pastries etc. We spent about 5 euro on 2 coffees, a cake and a savoury pastry. How much would all that have cost at Land's End?

What gets me is not the cost so much as the lousy quality when you've paid all that money. The food in restaurants is often embarrassing and hotels can be very shabby.

We've had a week near the coast. Cottage £470 for 4 of us, self catering, a chippy tea and a takeaway so relatively cheap for food.
We walk a lot, that's free or a few pounds for parking, beach days, just wrap up warm and have English Heritage membership so those are free days out.

Much cheaper than abroad and a holiday sitting by the pool is our idea of hell to be honest.

Food at attractions in the UK is often the worst, same for service stations. Mid range restaurant prices for the worst kind of factory fast food.

In Spain, attractions and just about every petrol station sells fresh home made food and good coffee for not very much at all.

@wheresmyhairytoe

We've had a week near the coast. Cottage £470 for 4 of us, self catering, a chippy tea and a takeaway so relatively cheap for food. We walk a lot, that's free or a few pounds for parking, beach days, just wrap up warm and have English Heritage membership so those are free days out.

Much cheaper than abroad and a holiday sitting by the pool is our idea of hell to be honest.

@wheresmyhairytoe Our first week of our holiday was exactly that price and the rest could be me too. Except I don't have EH membership. Otherwise I've found my tribe!

We are going on holiday in England in September, so hopefully accommodation will be more affordable and the bloody weather will have improved by then. 🤞

The weather slot on Countryfile has just shown the weather stats for summer. They made interesting reading. Scotland & NI have been much warmer, dryer & sunnier than normal, but the south of England has been colder, much less sunny and in the South East, much wetter. This confirms my experience here in the East Midlands. It has been fairly dry but cool and apart from a week in July we have barely seen the sun all summer.

Many of you who are finding it expensive appear to be trying to compare all inclusive foreign holidays to cheap destinations with UK holiday cottages. I love a UK holiday; walking on Exmoor, swimming in rivers and the sea, picnics in parks; all free. I also love my Italian holidays at a fabulously expensive villa in Tuscany after flying Business class; costs a fortune. The cost of the two holidays are impossible to compare because they are completely different.

This year was a joke cost wise so we hand a genuine staycation at home. Last year was good though as there was eat out to help out and the weather on the east coast was hot.

We have found costs very similar to going abroad - normally our flights woukd cost around 1k and that is the same as we paid for a helicopter out to the Isles of Scilly and small plane back which kids much preferred to big aircraft. Hotels have had pools in and similar price to what we pay abroad, only had breakfast included but so big dont need much else. We have been lucky with weather, no rain in 2 weeks and around 21C every day and sunny, fine for us as we hate heat. Looked up food on tripadviser and been fine. But hopefully next year easier to go abroad.

I completely agree. We usually holiday for a week in the same place in the U.K. each year (and two weeks abroad) and so don't necessarily need to be "sold".
(DH used to travel a lot for work and so he always wanted holidays that did not involve an airport). We didn't have any holidays last year.

We had a two week U.K. holiday this year and spent more than we usually do going abroad but didn't have a better holiday - food definitely worse, self catering but we usually eat out more but that was very difficult, even takeaways took an hour of queuing. Day trips to attractions seem more expensive than ever. One beach we go to most years have doubled their parking prices over £12 for the day now.
I feel that people are just ripping off the tourists now and they will find it biting them on the backside next year. I am not sure we will come back next year - we usually book the same apartment, in 2019 it was £1.2k for the week. This year £3k for two weeks (this includes a discount for not having a cleaner come in) and next year is £3.3k for the same two weeks. Not doing it.

Surely it was your choice to spend £100 a day on day trips? We went on a holiday to Cornwall and the most we spent on a day trip was a tenner or so for train tickets or ice creams.

Don't panic about what you will do in the future, next summer it might he totally different so don't worry about it til it happens.

We didn't find this actually. Our self catering accommodation cost was fairly similar to what we would expect to spend abroad, and the fact that we could drive meant that we saved loads of money on flights (family of five). Eating out is more expensive yes, but we didn't do that every day and it didn't come close to the money we saved.

We went on holiday in the uk and we did comment that on the day it was bad weather we spent an awful lot. However a lot of times people arent doing a like for like comparison.
A lot of the time villas abroad are way cheaper than self catering here, but by time you add on flights in school holidays it doesnt make much difference. Although I think food would be cheaper etc abroad and you can spend time outside or on the beach more.

Our strategy for next year is firstly to decide if we want uk or abroad with covid rules next year and if uk book early ideally free cancellation so plenty of choice and better deals or if abroad book last minute within the 3 week period of traffic lights so as soon as announced book and go but difficult with work.

Totally agree. Its more expensive for smaller rooms, worse food and more hassle (parking, weather).

Tried a few days in the UK in a hotel this year. More expensive than a week abroad in a nice 4 star all-inclusive resort hotel for a worse overall experience. Won't go on holiday until test-free entry to the UK is a thing again (and I accept that might be a few years).

Yes it’s always been expensive to holiday in the U.K. in my experience. Especially if you go somewhere like Cornwall.

However I personally enjoy staying in the U.K. as I really hate the faff that goes with flying. Especially with kids. I love holidays when I get there, but the journey back hangs over me a bit.

Anyone thinking of the environmental cost of flying…?? U.K. holidays are wonderful, sunny weather here in the south west, beautiful beaches and lots of fun.

I totally agree!

@Jangle33

Anyone thinking of the environmental cost of flying…?? U.K. holidays are wonderful, sunny weather here in the south west, beautiful beaches and lots of fun.

Probably just as much as most people think about the environmental cost of having multiple children, or buying new lunchboxes every year when the old one is perfectly serviceable, or buying fast fashion etc. We tend to holiday abroad because my family live there and we wouldn’t see them otherwise.

Definitely. We had a week in Devon and a week in crete. The Devon holiday was far more expensive than the crete holiday. Both holidays were similar in nature - not resorts/package holidays, road tripping exploring staying in different places, museums and eating out every night.

Well I paid £18 for three ice creams in Luss, Scotland. If anyone knows the owner of the ice cream can there, pm me. He charged me twice (card).

I do think of the environmental cost of flying. This is why I haven't been abroad in over 3 years. I just wish it was more affordable.

I haven't had plush holidays, but even for modest accomodation, the cost is 3x the cost that it was 2 years ago.