To only take one child at a time on holiday?

[Lonelee]

Okay please hear me out.
We are a family of 5 and have had a lot of financial difficulties. We have only recently (last 4 years been able to take family holidays here in the uk. We usually rent out a nice cottage in the countryside and we've had some lovely times together.

Now that the kids are in their teens, they want to explore the world and go abroad. They like exploring, sight seeing etc so a resort hol isn't something they'd like. I've had a look at some flights and accommodation prices for Istanbul / Marrakech as thought those destinations would be reasonably cheap ( correct me if I'm wrong!) and it comes to £4000 for accomodation and flights. No idea how much food and excursions would cost but thinking it might be an extra £2k.

£6k is just too much for us. And would take years to save up for.

Then I thought that what if I took just one child for a long weekend somewhere in Europe. It would be around £600 for both us and then the following year I could take another child. We'd still do the yearly UK holidays as a family but this way each child gets to go abroad too.

YABU - stupid idea and unfair on the other kids
YANBU - sounds great

I'd hate to be the third child going last and having to wait 2-3 years to go. And as a pp said, if circumstances suddenly changed and you couldn't go or afford to go one of the years, it would feel so unfair to the child.

Try looking at holiday for 5-7 nights instead of 10. And look for self catering rather than B&B . You can find very cheap alternatives for breakfast.

@Kioki whats the ages of your kids? And where do you find your hols? Any tips as I am obviously clueless and looks like I'm finding expensive deals!

Book flight and accommodation separately. For accommodation, look on booking.com.

Is this for next year? Summer?

I’ve done this and it’s great. We have done days out with just one child and also city breaks. It’s good to have the whole family together but we’ve got a lot out of doing this.

There’s the other thing. Relationships bond through shared experiences. You may be setting your children up for estrangement from each-other in future if you don’t make the effort for them to have shared memories now. It all comes back to us when our parents die and we need to manage everything with our siblings. Very depressing to be reminded of our totally different experiences.

They're 16, 6 and 2.
For the city breaks I've either done last minute.com or booked on booking.com and got cheap flights (try different airlines as well as sky scanner).
We've always gone cheap times of year to the cities as well... mostly December/January/February. It's cold but you're walking around sightseeing so you don't care. Krakow was especially good and cheap (went between Christmas and NY and gave my son the trip as his Christmas present which was the same for the January trips)

For beach holidays I love TUI... they often do zero deposit and book so far in advance that it's not a great expense each month. Also really easy to make extra payments.
We went to Tunisia last September for two weeks really nice hotel, under 4k for 5 of us.

I will also add that I think it's really vital right now spend time with each child individually and they will value that one on one time.

In a year you're taking just one of them I'd probably make sure the others had an overnight/theatre/beach/spa day to look forward to as well.

I would if they all agreed to it.

My brother would have always preferred hot countries and WW2 history whereas I'm much happier with rain and nature. Wouldn't have bothered me him having time away with one parent without me if it was something I didn't have any interest in. As long as we all went away once a year as OP suggests it really wouldn't have bothered me.

Likewise with our own kids. DH has already said he wants to do cycling holidays with one or both of the kids when they are older. I couldn't imagine anything worse so off they'll pop. Likewise I take them away during February half term currently and the DH stays behind and works.

However OP I'd look to see if you could manage to fit them all in within one year. So one child might fancy just a city break in the UK for the weekend, be daft holding off 2/3 years when cost wise it wouldn't be that expensive.

I do take mine away separately but only because they have different interests and we still do most holidays together the same year. If I take one of my two I take the other a few weeks later. I appreciate that wouldn't be possible for you though.

I agree with posters that you will be able to find something cheaper. Don't forget that you will need to pay for passports too so factor that cost in. Good luck

Also there's some really good deals on love holidays for krakow and Prague for January 2025 at the moment... might be worth looking at.

I massively prioritise holidays so make sacrifices in other areas so I have loads of tips!

Don't do this.

Your suggestion would be ok if you were taking them both a month or two apart. But a year is such a long time for a child it would be cruel to make one wait a year where circumstances could potentially change.

I’ve found super cheap holidays before by doing this:
me & DH online at same time - one on air b n b and one on sky scanner until we find somewhere that is cheap accommodation and cheap flights. Croatia for example we got £30 flight tickets each return, and found a cheap local fishing village to stay that was still close enough to visit Dubrovnik etc. the host picked us up and dropped us back to airport. this is basically how we choose our holidays lol. We keep an open mind and see what deals we get.
we have travelled cheap this way to Berlin, Brussels, Vienna, Freiburg and Crete.
nowhere touristy- and its nice getting to know the locals & air b n b hosts who always have great ideas on places we should visit etc sometimes even take us places, arrange rides and giving us gifts 😊

I mean, wouldn't it knock loads of money off to go somewhere for 5 or 7 nights instead of 10?

We take our three away separately and together. The separate trips reflect different ages, interests and availability (youngest goes to a different school with different term dates).

One family we knew always arranged special trips for their children on “big” birthdays. So everyone gets to go somewhere of their choosing on say their 16th. Mum and dad take it in turns and one stays home with the other two. No one ever felt hard done by.

I certainly wouldn't be looking for a 10 day City Break, a week would be enough. That cuts costs a bit. Look at the cost of living websites to get an idea of how much you'll be spending on eating out/transport/ supermarket shopping etc then look at how much museums etc cost, whether it's worth getting a city card etc.
Could dorm type accommodation be an option? Many have family room and this would hopefully cut costs.

My Dad did this with me and my 2 siblings as teens, and it worked well. I got to go to Paris, my brother Switzerland and my sister went to Amsterdam with him - lots of great memories of one to one time with Dad and the novelty of being an "only child" for the weekend doing exactly as we wanted! We had lots of family holidays when younger - camping in the UK or driving to France or Spain and staying in gites (this is another possibility to keep costs down)

I should say though this city breaks were short - 3 days each I think and were all done withjn the space of a year

I don't think it's a good idea unless you can do (say) two long weekends away over the summer and one goes in July and the other August.

Taking one child away and making the other wait a year is a bit mean, and what if your circumstances change and the second holiday can't happen?

I wouldn't look at 10 day holidays either, hiring a villa for all five of you for a week would be cheaper.

Maybe do it as a special 16th birthday thing or after gcse thing. That way they all know it will happen on their 16th birthday and perhaps even if you choose the place then they can be involved in planning what you do.

I actually don't think there is an issue doing things individually with kids as it gives precious one to one time and a real insight into them as an individual. Have done similar with mine. One wanted a sporty type thing and the other a Christmas Market type thing. You can often pick these up quite reasonably

Also check out EuroStar.

For a whole family holiday Marrakesh is a good call but generally look at booking riads direct rather than through booking.com. Also the cheap flights won't be as cheap in school holidays which is why post gcse works for individual trips as you can nip off ahead of school hols.

I took DS1 on holiday last year but not because of cost - it was just easier than taking all 3 kids!

But YABU about the costs. Stop looking with package holiday people.

You can get flights to say Carcassonne with Ryanair for less than £120 each in the summer holidays (end of July) and then use public transport and stay in an airBnB - a 3 bed apartment for about £100 a night.

A shuttle bus is 6 euros from the airport. Bus journeys - you can buy a ticket for about 1 euro each which gives one hour of travel.

Public transport in most European countries is much cheaper than the UK!

So the entire cost for 5 of you would be around £1400 plus food/activities.

And that's just one town/city example.

There's a lot to be said for taking each of them for a city break after their GCSEs - maybe a European city of their choice. In one family of boys I know, dad took each of them off camping for a week after GCSEs, and they really appreciated the one-to-one time.

How far in advance would you advise to book to get the best deals.

We’ve done both of these places really cheaply by buying flights and then rent somewhere. We did Budapest a few weeks ago for £44 per person return and the accommodation was £250 for 5 nights.

Don’t look at packages. Go onto Skyscanner or Ryanair and select everywhere and you’ll see what flights are the cheapest. We regularly do holidays like that. We got flights to Rome for £2.50 each on one occasion. It can be done, you just need a bit of patience, persistence and an open mind! 😄

No our family is bigger by 2 andwe go together as a family, much as we all want to see the world we can't and uk holidays are just fine