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

You won't need a car. Public transport in Boston is not bad, and Uber/ Lyft are available. Shuttles from and to Logan Intel are great.

Fly Aer Lingus from Dublin - look out for their St Patrick's Day sale every year. You do US Immigration in Dublin so there are no long delays in Boston.

15% tip is fine. The tip will be automatically added if your dining party is over a certain number.

You can eat expensively or cheaply. Check menus and prices online and plan your meals carefully.

We’re in England and will be flying from Heathrow.

We won’t be planning our meals and eating carefully, that’s kind of the point of my post. I will be to some extent going along with the plans of our hosts for meal (who will ask us what we’d like to do of course sometimes!) I won’t be scrutinising each restaurant/ menu before we go out. Unless it’s evening meals we have to book ahead for a table as we’re are large party.

Our friends live in a little town a few miles from Boston (8 I think) and have said we should hire a car.

Thanks though.

I think you’ll be fine. I posted earlier - we go every year as we have family east and west. I have just been looking at last years spending for this years trip (easy as we have a separate account for travel).

When we left our family last year and did the holiday part of our trip, we averaged £200 per day on food. This was west, we’re doing eats this year. That’s 2 adults and 3 teen boys. We had a couple of real blow out meals in special places and a couple of days we spent very little (eg subway/deli lunch and pizza dinner). It also includes a beach hotel where we ordered lunch by the pool a couple of times. We often just shared a sandwich & fries between two. I think for 5 we ate like we were a 4 and yours are still small. We bought very few snacks because we were eating out so much nobody felt like them. We often had water to drink in restaurants (teens seem to be healthier these days!). It will be different with friends but even they won’t want to have big lunches and dinners every day. Of course you will need to add on entertaining them onto your budget.

I would recommend your own car if you can. Even though your friends are obviously kind and generous, it is a lot to spend so much time in each others company and you might like the freedom of taking the kids to a movie, saying you’ll do the grocery shop, going out for ice cream after dinner locally or whatever, just to give everyone some space. Sometimes a bit of extra spend is worthwhile for overall enjoyment.

Thanks that’s really good to hear. Yes defo going to get a car. I asked them and they said we should so will do that. Thanks 😊

Without accommodation costs maybe. I've was stunned by the cost of even mediocre hotels in central Boston so you're very lucky not to have to pay that.
I think a lot depends on how much you want to spend on food.
We could definitely do it but we're not foodies and we only tend to eat 1 meal a day plus hotel breakfast. We walk everywhere and are more interested in the surroundings than paying to do stuff all the time. So it's very variable.

I am not sure why people are making Boston out to be so expensive. It’s a lot cheaper than London. We were originally going to stay in the Langham which was around £450 per night. It’s more than double that for a family of four at the Langham in London.

Well that’s why we’re going- to stay with our friends. Rather than because Boston was on our ‘bucket list’. So yer no accommodation costs and a meal out a day is the plan. We meet up with these friends every couple of years but we’ve never been to see them. They used to live in UK but are American.

7 kids between the 2 families ranging 5-13 yrs so will be lots of beach/ outdoor activities as well as museums and touristy activities mixed in. I’d imagine the ticketed activities we would have a decent influence on as they can do these any time and will likely have done lots before.

Consensus after reading all replies is £10k should be good/ not far off - but good to have couple more K£ that we won’t mind spending.

So that’s great- it’s a year away still. Lots of regular travellers to US and people who live there saying it’s plenty. Odd cheaper day will balance the more expensive ones like any hol.

So full steam ahead for us without neededing a 2nd mortgage or to sell an organ 😆

Really? Have you been yet or is this an up and coming hol? Everyone else is saying it’s the same as NYC. NYC when I went 6 months ago was ALOT more than London.

The hotels I found similar. Everything else loads more.

I mean I’d love it if you’re right 😆🤞

Yes. I went last year. We paid appox £350 per night for a decent four star hotel for a large room for four people. It is definitely cheaper than NYC (we went to NYC about four years ago). Meals were also cheaper than NYC.

So we don’t need hotel.

Meals you found cheaper across the board? What about drinks? Tourist attractions?

That’s interesting as you’re first to say that. Be nice if that’s our experience on 2027! X

Yes, drinks were definitely cheaper. It was $19.50 for a glass of house wine at the hotel we stayed at in NYC. Didn’t pay anything like that in Boston. Meals were also cheaper. The most we paid was £220 for four adults in Cape Cod (only two drinking as we have two teenagers). We ate at nice mid range independent restaurants. Almost all were less than £200 for the four of us which I have as a base point as that’s what we pay for a bog standard chain restaurant in the UK.

The only attraction that I remember thinking was expensive was the Aquarium.

NYC is the only place that we have visited in the World which has seemed expensive when compared with London.

I would assume a few $$ more.

Mainly as is not just your 2 adults and 3 kids. Your staying with family so have already said will be covering some of their meals out as thanks for hosting you all for 10 days.
So if it’s $50 per head plus tip that’s around $300 if just your family, but more like €700 if your paying for another 2 adults and 4 kids on occasion. So im not sure why people are amazed how someone can easily spend $700-1000 per day. That’s 4 adults and 7 kids!

If you offer to grab even just an ice cream for all the kids that ice cream x 7.

So the question is how many meals or other costs will you be paying for just your family or also including there’s? I assume your planning to offer to grab some groceries for breakfast etc which even breakfast at home for 11 people isn’t cheap when your probably buying nicer things like picking up fresh juices, berries, making millions of pancakes
We often end up hosting at ours as we are the ‘family overseas’ and our bill rockets when we host another family for a week as we don’t expect them to pay as they have flown over and it’s often family, but you end up making fancier meals than just grabbing slice of toast of using leftovers ( there’s no leftovers!)

Great that sounds good then! Yes £200 for meal for 4 is loads cheaper than what lots of people are saying- so maybe they’re high end ones that are £400. I think the amount of kids we have between us (7) we won’t be going to mega posh places!

Yes that’s what I found with wine NYC so good to know it’s cheaper in some Boston restaurants.

Norway is only other place I thought ouch other than NYC! X

We live in London. Def didn’t find NYC more expensive last year, even including tips!

Our friends are mega generous and comfortable so they always try pay for stuff so I don’t think we would be paying out all meals. They’ll put up a fight if we try and pay but we’ll Insist on a couple of meals and split rest of time and of course groceries too.

Balanced across all responses, more research I’ve done and speaking to friends I am in the right area but will have a couple extra $k ringfenced that I’m not going to be too sad to spend if we go over! 😆

We actually host other families alot (including them on occasions). I never let my guests pay for groceries but think it’s a nice gesture if they get one meal out at some point but then I would try get some ice creams or drinks in too from us to balance it! I will of course off to get groceries and fetch them/ pay etc where I can get away with it!

I found alcohol a lot in NYC defo more than London. Also found restaurants to be a lot more. Fast food dirt cheap in NYC.

Maybe that’s because I’m more likely to plan in London though and know the chains. Whereas more likely to make random choice on hol!

No way would I be spending £10k for 10 days for friends somewhere not that amazing or where I wasn’t that fussed about going , I wouldn’t spend that on family. That’s a lot of money!

I don’t drink so that makes a difference!

That’s your choice/ circumstances.

We loved travelling pre kids and have 2 big hols we want to do to see friends with the kids before eldest reaches 18/ uni/ flies the nest.

One is to see our very good friends in America who the kids have grown up seeing every couple of years in UK/ Europe .

Another is to visit another good friend in Australia!

We are solvent enough to afford it without going without healthy food/ hobbies/ roof over our head rest of the year.

Appreciate your finances and priorities are not the same as ours but this is my thread 😆👍

Yer huge difference! We all met in our late teens/ early twenties - a life time ago. We used to drink a fair bit back then! So a few drinks defo on the cards some evenings but nothing too heavy!

Right thanks folks! Lots of useful answers and examples from people who live there or have been recently as a family.

Post has served its purpose so I’m off now!

Will see if I can find it again after our trip to let you know how much I spent in the end! Going August 2027 so we’ve a bit of a wait!

I'd recommend checking out some menus. I've found that restaurant prices in the US vary hugely between different cities, so unless people have been to Boston lately, general comments aren't that helpful. I would also look into really well reviewed cheaper options that you could suggest to your hosts. E.g. legendary local Mexican restaurants can be fairly cheap.

Everyone is different! We’ve just spent a fortune going to see friends abroad. It’s not a place I would have visited if they didn’t live there, but going to spend time with them was the point of it and we had a brilliant time.

I lived in Boston for over a decade and still go into my office there several times per month; $500 per day for the family will not go far. It's doable but they'll need to be mindful about their spending.

Agreed. 20% is the minimum standard here.