To be shocked at the cost of holidays?

[Fourpawsblack]

We haven’t been able to go away for years (pre DC!) due to finances. A falling down house, part time work due to childcare and the cost of living has made for a rough time.

Just started to look at a week away for a family of 5 (2 adults, 3 DC under 6) in Spain for August 2026…£4k was the cheapest I found and that was not a great hotel. It was more like £6k for somewhere with half decent reviews. AIBU to think this is crazy? Is this just what I am looking at?
It would mean saving at least £400 a month for a year to be able to do it which would be very rough.

How are almost all of the kids in my DC classes on holiday every year. Maybe I’m missing a trick. I feel sad for my DC that they should be able to experience going on holiday and can’t. I know it’s a first world problem.

Before anyone brings it up, there’s 0 way we can go at a time not in the school holidays so we are stuck with over inflated pricing. The joys of teaching.

3 kids and a teacher here but we have never spent that sort of money-look at self catering villas, they are much cheaper.

If you're North look to fly from a Scottish airport at end of August. Scottish schools go back mid august so you can get a slightly cheaper package deal then.

Fellow Northerner tip!

August expensive to go on holiday, you say? What a shocker!

I’ve been on Jet2 holidays and found a couple of packages in Benidorm in August 26 for a family of five for £3 - £3.6K. You’re not spending enough time looking around.

Portugal is cheaper than Spain, OP - the Algarve is supposed to be great value for money (admittedly I’ve not been, I’ve only been to Lisbon and Porto which are both great city breaks.

Crete in Greece is fantastic and not too expensive, lots of options for families and the beaches are warm. Because it’s a bit larger than other Greek islands it’s a little bit cheaper.

Germany is also great in the summer, as is Poland and if you were into a beach holiday, they have a very affordable and lovely stretch of coast in Pomerania, near Gdańsk (also a great city). We spent a week on the beach there in 2023, a self-catering cabin cost around £600 (space for 4 to sleep but you could get something bigger for not much more), you rent bikes and cycle everywhere, beaches are not crowded, forest is full of activities, food is cheap.

Try Efteling, the drive from the ferry is easy. We stayed here a couple of years ago, https://guesthousehotel.nl/en/hotel/bunkhouse-room/ It's cheap but really nice. We are are a family of five too and all fitted in the room (it sleeps 6). Walking distance from the hotel to Efteling.

Again, she is looking at 2026. Those packages wont be released yet for 2026.

Have a look at that last week of august/going in to September so you're getting back as late as you can before school

I looked at some package holidays today for 5 days in May. Only for me, no children.

There were a few cheapie ones but remarkably few. The prices soon went up to £700, £900, £1200 - and were not talking luxury hotels here, or high season or even all inclusive, only breakfast or half board.

Don’t book hotels and definitely don’t book package holidays.

We go away around 4 times a year and I never pay more than around £3,000 for a week, although I have 2 kids, not 3.

We always book a lovely villa with a pool, flights and car hire for around £3k. Spain, Greece, Italy, Portugal etc.

Eating out doesn’t have to be expensive and far better to go to different restaurants of an evening than being stuck with bland all inclusive. BBQ’s in the villa by the pool are also lovely.

I'm capable of reading properly. Jet2 Have released packages for summer 26.

I am shocked and horrified by the cost of practically everything these days

The ferry to Rotterdam is an overnight one so you'd get on in the evening and arrive in the morning so not really much time lost.

Center parcs in Holland is usually pretty reasonable and you also have Landal which have a lot of parks and mostly cheaper than center parcs.

Look at Bulgaria not Spain, I think you'll find the process are better and you will spend less cos its cheaper.

Also look for all inclusive deals then you take a small amount of spends and all is good. Personally I cruise for that reason - it might be worth looking for a cruise from UK in the school hols you might be surprised at the cost.

I work in a school and im considering trading in 13 weeks holidays for cheap holidays. I’m on the fence. The holiday prices in school holidays are ridiculous.

Don’t book packages
Don't book hotels

Book flights separately with sky scanner or booking.com.etc Check the prices then see if they are cheaper to book directly.
Then use the same type of websites to book accommodation. Villas etc Hotels tend to be more expensive. Again after you’ve found something see if it’s cheaper to book direct.

We always do this and with three kids we’ve been able to go abroad and travel around different places whilst there. Staying as long as we like in each.
Occasionally we’ll stay in a Hotel ….like my username which is my favourite …for a few days then off to a treehouse ( super cheap hippy style ) for a few more.

ps. You can hold places on booking.com then keep looking and sometimes they’ll lower their prices. So book it again on the lower price and delete the more expensive booking.
Ive saved a lot of money doing this ££££

We always booked Eurosites camping in northern spain. Looking now, it seems a lot of the camping companies have gone apart from Eurosites. Used Tesco vouchers for the channel tunnel crossing. I've never paid for a Shuttle crossing yet, thanks to Tesco.

Honestly 1.2k pp on a package holiday in August isn't that expensive... but as others have said we couldn't afford this or justify paying for it.
We've done family holidays in Europe for around 2.5k all in. (Last year Eurocamp just outside Paris for £700.- in August) Then you need to budget for other things like food, ferry and day trips. The beauty of campsites is that they have a pool and lots of space for DC ... so you don't have to go out every day.
We've also done things in the UK on a tight budget... 2 years ago we had 4 nights in a caravan in Norfolk with direct beach access last week in August: £500.- last minute booking. We were extremely lucky with the weather! (Caravan was 3 adults, 1 teen & 2 dogs)
I think you really need to look around and see what is available and where you are willing to compromise.

How do you get shuttle vouchers.
We have the club card but hardly ever seem to get anything.
Am I missing something

( we don’t spend much there as we are really Lidl Aldi shoppers but there’s always a few things we need )

There are other campsites in France other than Eurocamp. What I do is look for cheap flights first, and then look nearby on Google maps for campsites. Most have mobile homes,.pools, on site shops etc. it's a very different experience than camping in the UK. Prices for next year won't be released yet though.

We always travel with First Choice, we book the holiday and literally throw pennies at it regularly for months. It is top priority my child gets to travel and see different countries.

Couldn't see anyone mentioned previously but Bulgaria worth a look - a relative had a lovely holiday there the other year and it was much cheaper to get to and spending money went further. Some holiday sites are showing prices for up to September 2026 now. Worth checking all inclusive/self catering for 10 nights rather than 14 etc and swapping dates.

But as others have mentioned check whether you can book air bnb/vrbo etc and flights separately if that's cheaper. Don't necessarily discount long haul either if the flight price is good (and bargains do crop up occasionally) and you can get a villa cheaply although wrangling 3 children on a long haul flight probably best avoided!

We look on skyscanner to find the cheapest tickets for whatever time we can manage, then go from there. We live in Scotland so have never found it to be cheaper to drive over to Europe but depends on where you’re starting. Then we look for self catering - euro camps, airbnb, etc. And plan on eating a lot of picnics and other cheap meals. I’d look at the times you might be off when other countries aren’t - feb or October break are sometimes good options.

When our kids were small we used to use the Sun 9.50 offers to go abroad to Eurocamp for the first week of the school holidays ( family of 5)

I’ve done those 9.50 holidays uk though, just had to pay on top bedding and wristbands. So ended up about 100 ish for family of four for a week. Probs doubled now

Spend vouchers on LeShuttle at Tesco.com