AIBU to think £10k is enough for 10 days in Boston?

[1ladybird]

Family of 5. 2adults 3 kids. Is £10k enough for flights and meals out for 10 days in US summer 2027?

Staying with friends who like to eat out- Boston. Possibly need car hire.

I thought this would be plenty as flights available £3k and we can stay with our friends.

However, we visited NYC (just me and DH). SO SO expensive!!!

US vs Uk economy reminds me of how rich British ppl felt visiting Eastern Europe 20+ years ago..! Now we’re on the receiving end!! Our economy is so poo and London seemed so cheap after visiting NYC Nov ‘25 😬.

After advice from families who travel to US regularly/ recently. TIA xxx

Yer costs have spiralled and £ weak against $ and costs are ALOT more there. I should have gone 5 or 6 years ago it turns out 😆🙈

Supermarket prices are insane too. HOWEVER you can definitely make it work, you just need to balance things. If we fancy a take out we get one very large pizza ($50) and wings ($20) to share, which is way cheaper than a Chinese for four, which could be double that.

You will have a fab holiday with a little planning. There is so much to enjoy here in the summer. A day at the beach can cost as little as $30 for parking plus a picnic lunch.

Yer if the flights go totally insane before we’ve bought them that would cause us to delay for another year or two.

If they are up to $5k then we would still go.

so flights aside (as they’re easy to look up and cost when they come out) what I’m mainly after is breakdown of spending costs. People who have been recently as a family maybe .

I get it. Eating out is big here and I'm always shocked how much my friends pay to eat out - we do it very sporadically... I love coming home to the UK where the prices to eat out aren't so crippling.

But I reckon if they are good friends they will understand and you can come to a happy compromise (and when you do spend $500 on one single meal out don't let it annoy you!)

But Florida is a lot cheaper than Boston!

Am not sure talking to people who have been in the past will help you.
The prices and fuel impact is volatile.
So what is happening now is what you will need to consider.

2k per person isn’t that much for long haul these days. Even holidaying in Europe on a budget you won’t have much change from 1.5k per person, once food and entertainment has been covered on top of flights and accommodation. This is why people are moaning. Costs have risen much faster than wages!

BA have flights to the US from now till end of year on average around 560-700 per person. Premium economy was around 1400 per person so definitely doable.

one thing to note is they now no longer include hold luggage & you have to add that

if the OP looks at some of the American airlines they might get flights a bit cheaper

I think you’ll be fine we did an east coast trip last year 2 adults two kids for 2 full weeks (only three days we stayed with family) and it came to about £11k.

I agree with that poster. I travel regularly to the U.S. for periods of between 4 and 28 days and outside of flights & accommodation I probably spend about $1600 every ten days so that’s like $160 a day spent on Ubers and food. I eat out twice a day but tend to drink coffee and eat fruit for breakfast at the hotel. I tend to go to museums, bookshops and like to hire bikes and sometimes join a city tour.

Forget morning Starbucks, have coffee and breakfast at home and save the eating out for dinner. For lunch you can even get sandwiches at somewhere that has counter service. Some nights you can buy groceries and cook for everyone. Buy some snacks and water from Walmart or target.

If there are 5 of you I don’t think your costs would be necessarily be 5 times my daily cost - I travel solo within America usually so all my road travel costs while I’m there would be the same if i was with other people. So basically yeah I think 7K is enough. But I’m not the type to visit every over-priced tourist attraction going.

I enjoy strolling around the city. Doing sightseeing which is often free and sitting in parks - also free. The main things I pay for are museums and galleries.

@pinotnow
I spent around £7k last year for 3 people for 2 weeks including flights, accommodation and car hire. We did mainly self-catering though with some meals out

How much did you spend per night on accommodation and how did you find it? And car hire?

There are 3 of us - we'd love to go to the East Coast and I like your budget!

And I won't be tipping more than 15%.

Obviously up to you but I really think you have to tip minimum 20%. It's just how it works here. When in Rome...

Don't go . I am desperate to visit my friend who lives in Florida but don't want to contribute a bean to the U.S. economy while the orange monster is still in charge

Interesting. I live on the east coast, south of Boston, so this is news to me because fares to eg Heathrow originating here are way, way higher. These days we feel lucky if we can tip just under $1000pp. BA code shares with American Airlines, which is one of the cheapest (and shoddiest, beaten only be South Western imo) US airlines. So those fares make sense.

This is true. Flights originating from the UK on UK-based airlines I've always found to be considerably cheaper than the other way around

So after flights, you’ll have £7000 which is roughly $10,000 for 10 nights.

You will not need $1,000 a day!

As I said, we were in San Fran over Easter 2 adults and 2 hungry teens. San Fran is more expensive than Boston, we were eating out every day, doing lots of tourist things and even we didn’t average $1,000 a day. More like $600-700 on average.

Our flights were also really cheap. Booked a couple of weeks before on a whim and they were less than £500 each with Lufthansa.

I think that’s plenty!

Before you go, order a cool box, knife and some plastic plates for delivery to their house from Amazon, and nip to a supermarket when you arrive so that you can do picnics when you’re out on a day trip.

Take one “English” meal with you from home to share. Crumpets? Hot cross buns? Tea cakes?

Your friends will definitely have planned to have breakfast stuff at their house and to cook at least one meal - and it’s unlikely they’ll want to eat out with their kids every night!

We went to Boston and NYC in 2024. It was expenaive but not cripplingly so. We found in terms of eating we only really needed to eat twice a day as portions were so large.

That’s awful. 15% is a terrible tip.

And I won't be tipping more than 15%

Then don't eat in restaurant where tipping is the norm. It's not like here in the UK, where staff are paid at least minimum wage, and tipping is optional.

In the US, restaurant staff are paid very little, and tips make up their wages. Rightly or wrongly, it's just how it is. A minimum of 20% really is expected, and you should accept that. If staff were paid the way they are here, then it would just put up the restaurant prices (already pretty pricey!), so it's no different overall - it's either smaller prices and larger tip, or higher prices and low tip - it all works out the same in the end. Don't stiff the staff just because you don't agree with the way they do things in the US.

We did Toronto for £6k including hotel and flights

na u need at least 100k u should remortgage ur house

So you've got nearly $1k a day in spending money?

I think that's very doable but it really depends on what your go to level of restaurant is, what your friends will expect and how happy you are grabbing a drink from a shop and sitting in the park or the like rather going to a cafe for breaks when you're on your feet all day.

Presumably if staying with friends you're going to have to take them out for at least a couple of nice meals? Boston is an expensive city, middling restaurants (nice but not Michelin starred or anything) are likely to be $100+/head for an evening meal when you take main courses, sharing a starter or two, tax, tip and non-alcoholic drinks into account. Easily hit $200+/head if you add in Alcohol, go somewhere a bit fancy, have dessert too, etc. But it's also a big student city and there are lots of less expensive places too.

Attractions don't seem anymore expensive than London, to me, and there is plenty of free stuff to do/see so it's not like you have to spend big everyday. And it's a very walkable city. Check out how much it will cost you to get into/back from the city from your friends place but you won't necessarily need more transportation than that most days and when you do, busses and the subway aren't expensive.

I haven’t been to Boston for a few years but did Nashville, Memphis and New Orleans last year. If you eat in pubs and diners it’s much more affordable. Drinks now are really expensive. I found cape cod was very expensive but you could wander around with no cost. Boston freedom trail was broadly free. Salem was expensive too as it’s a tourist place but again cafe and diners were reasonable. Have a fabulous time and keep
an eye out foR local events