to ask how much you spend on a summer holiday abroad?

[chickpea1982]

We haven't had a proper summer holiday abroad for a few years, before our third child (now 2) came along. I've just been looking into it and am shocked by the cost! It looks like it would cost at least £4,500 for a holiday in an all inclusive resort in Europe, including flights - and that's the lower end! Granted I'm looking for somewhere with two bedrooms, rather than just one room for the 5 of us, but still. Is this normal? Does everyone just pay this as a matter of course? I'd be interested to hear what people usually budget for a summer holiday with kids so I can reassure myself I'm not just throwing money away.

How long was that for?

Last year and this year - 12k for each, driving from Kent to Algarve with an Airbnb stay one night either side of two week villa stay, and flights for my son and father-in-law to join us. Cost includes fuel, LeShuttle and spending money.

We can’t fly as our daughter is disabled and won’t tolerate it.

12k each 🤯?!

We have 5 holidays booked this year.

One to Portugal in Feb which is costing us £3500 all inclusive for 7 nights.

Second holiday is long haul to Malaysia during Easter for 17 days and is costing £10,000 just for flights and stay. Food and sightseeing etc. will be extra. Only breakfast is included in the price. So will probably cost another £2000.

Third holiday to Greece in May. Costing around £3500 but not all inclusive so maybe another £1500 for food, miscellaneous.

Fourth holiday is again long haul to India over the summer. Costing around £6000.

Fifth holiday is Dubai in December, costing £5000.

As in 12k in total for last year, and then the same cost for this year in total.

We spent £3k last year on an AI in Europe in school hols but we have two kids, one of my reasons for not having 3 was that we wouldn’t be able to afford holidays anymore as rooms are usually max of 4 people.
This year I’ve been looking and it’s around the 3.5k mark upwards for something decent but I am quite fussy. I’ve managed to find a 6 night AI at Easter for £2.8k

Is this a stealth boast thread?

We like to self cater but get most meals out. We're mostly vegetarian which seems to make food out cheaper? Our Greek holiday was 3500 last year and it did imo feel better than AI.

2 adults 1 DC 10 nights Greece in August -

1000 flights
400 car
1100 nice accommodation, comfy apartment with pool
1000 budget for food, sunlounger and drinks. On this we had a bakery breakfast, a light lunch (a halloumi gyros each or a few dishes in a beach restaurant) and we ate lots at dinner. We had the odd cocktail and DC had an ice cream every day.

Divorced with two teens. I love travel and prioritise it over other savings/spending. The way I've done it since divorce is to put aside what I can afford every month and then make the holiday fit the budget

We usually go camping. Live in the SE so it's easy to access the tunnel and go to France. In the past I've used Clubcard vouchers to reduce the cost of the tunnel crossing. I have camping equipment already, which obviously makes it easier. We stayed in a lovely municipal campsite in France for 23 euros a night a couple of years ago. Use of the municipal pool (nextdoor) was included in the price if you were staying on the campsite. That arrangement is quite common in France/Germany (campsite with use of municipal pool) and some campsites have lodges/static caravans if you don't have camping equipment. So that might be worth investigating.

I just search "camping + piscine" in Google maps in an area I like the look of and see what comes up.

I usually have £2k saved to cover two weeks of camping plus activities. It sometimes costs more due to road tolls and petrol if we go further from Calais.

My oldest doesn't want to go away for a full two weeks this year, so we're doing 10 days further afield and flying. Even priced at 3 adults (because teens), I've paid under £600 for return flights and am looking at Airbnb for most of the accommodation. Haven't booked that yet, but it would be possible to average around £125/night based on DD and me sharing and DS in a separate room. As we're not using the tunnel this year, I've cashed in my Clubcard vouchers towards a couple of nights in a hotel, too, so we can visit two locations.

Flights + Airbnb in a coastal city (if you're after sea/beaches) might be cheaper than a package holiday if you don't mind self-catering.

Yes family of 6 and always need two bedrooms and I think a good AI price would be £5-5.5k.

However that said- I don't think we get our money's worth as my husband doesn't drink (other than the odd red wine) and the kids don't like fizzy drinks so I often find paying £3k for self catering works out cheaper as we don't spend £2k. We are doing 3 nights in an air b&b in Milan this year followed by a week in a Eurocamp lodge at Lake Guarda area and it was £3k all in. I can only travel in the school holidays so it's always expensive time. Good luck 🍀

No, we spend more. Our main holiday is usually two weeks 'self catering' which might be a similar cost up your holiday. We then have our meals and drinks to pay (2 adults, 2 teens, one of whom is another adult really). It's so expensive in school holidays.

We tend to do big group holidays to europe or extended family holidays to Orlando and ends up being around £10k for each holiday

This year determined to have a cheaper one so having an active couple of weeks in Scotland. Looking at the Alps next summer which I've hesrd you can do pretty cheaply

What about a cruise? We’re doing a 7 day fly one to Tenerife next month and never pay more than £100 a night each. That includes flights transfer and great food. The newer P&O ships are fabulous and loads to do for kids

We just booked for four of us AI in Canary Islands, £4800 for a week in July, a two bedroom with separate lounge as we didn’t want to all be in one room. We could have got cheaper if we wanted to go to Egypt or Turkey or somewhere though.

We love a Eurocamp too though! Although last summer we did Eurocamp and Disney and probably spent £4K+ then too.

5k for a week B and B in early July last summer (Scottish holidays) family of four. Probably spent around 1.5k while we were there making it the most expensive holiday we have ever been on per night!

We tend to go abroad in the winter and do a UK holiday in the summer - in 2025 our UK holiday was about £1700 for a week, and our foreign holiday was £2700 for 5 nights. That's for 2 adults and 2 children. We usually spend somewhere around £3-4k on our week of winter sun, and our UK holiday is usually cheaper as we often stay with relatives or find other ways to reduce the cost. We could afford to spend more if we wanted to, but we have other priorities at the moment (mainly saving/investing like mad with the aim of retiring early).

@chickpea1982 it depends what you class a a proper holiday
For us a proper holiday probably means a week away ,done DIY never a package and always done as cheaply as possible

I much prefer a French campsite type holiday but all inclusive will be cheaper .

What I found was that with all inclusive you could have ‘nice’ campsites at a reasonable price but with resorts if you go lower end it really shows.

@DesLynamsMoustache eurocamp are an operator who have caravans on someone elses campsite
So the owners have mobile homes (usually in a better situation and quality that other renters ).then you have eurocamp caravans (usually more cramped in and not as nice ) then canvas and other operators

Sorry if you already realise this it's just eurocamp did an amazing marketing job on everyone as though they are the owners and only choice.

Also have 3 DC and we would never do AI. We drive and Eurocamp mostly. May half term is really cheap for this as other European countries mostly don't have a school holiday then.

For 4800 I could find somewhere luxurious!

We go camping all the time and I have no idea how you can go camping by plane. Our car is completely full even for a couple of dayss camping.

Cost of holidays is now ridiculous at a time when col means that discretionary spending is reduced. We did 10 days in a nice enough 3 bed villa on a Greek island in the summer. We spent about £9k all in and ate out 6 of our nights (but not excessively as we don’t really drink). I think your quotes are sadly normal for all inclusive. There may be some deals closer to departure time but you can’t rely on that. If you go for euro camp I would book asap as the good accomodation goes quickly. If you don’t want a package find your flights first then accommodation as a days difference in the flight time can really add up if there are 5 of you.

We're spending similar. Pretty shocking really when I compare to our pre-kids holidays which were usually outdoorsy with wild camping and an occasional night in a boutique hotel somewhere, or weekend city breaks.

I would never have imagined us staying in a big resort but with a toddler and a baby it just feels like too much hassle to do anything else.

4 of us - 2 adults 2 kids - about 5 - 6k