How on earth do you afford a nice holiday abroad with children?

[bacon]

Come on then how do you do it???? 2 adults, 2 children, quality hotel, good food, decent resort.

I'm confused or am I dull?

you either save elsewhere, earn more, or go somewhere cheaper

Hotel?
How about a camp site. They come with real loos and showers these days you know. Camping kit is very sophisticated and kids absolutely LOVE camping not being cooped up in some stiff old hotel.

Do a house swap.
Much nicer and you will save £££££££

I do have a caravan - that isnt my point.

Save?????

i have no idea, tbh. we are only the four of us and getting free accommodation but even cheap flights x 4 is 600 quid. on top of that... sky's the limit. we are getting this break and then going camping in the summer, much less horrifying.

I'm with Aitch. We're going away with my parents for 2 weeks this summer and they're paying for the accommodation. It's still costing us the best part of a grand when you factor in flights & car hire.

Next year it'll be Wester Ross and a tent.

For somewhere decent in school holidays it costs a lot.

For one week in a nice villa in Turkey we're spending about £3k before spending money etc.

tbh i don't really get what you're asking?

if you cannot afford it on the money you earn then that's that isn't it?

you either have to stop spending money elsewhere (ie, buy cheaper food, less/cheaper clothes, do without other things) or you need to somehow earn more money

surely you buy/do things that you can afford. and if you can't afford it then you don't have it

Um, we don't.

Either you can or you can't.
I can't and that's that.

I have taken DD abroad twice, the first time my Dad paid, the second time I won the trip on here.

Last time we took 3 DC's abroad for a fortnight it cost £12,000 in total, I doubt they'll go again until our 20th anniversary family holiday and i'd rather do that than a crappy package holiday costing £2k every year.

Spidermama- liked the sound of the camping. Any tips on where you find a great campsite? V novice camper here.

try the ukcamping forum! actually we have a camping topic on here too with some very knowledgeable campers :)
will get a link for you in a mo

My dad used to use the Eurocamp brochures for a starting point when camping in France even though they had their own tent.

They tend to use campsites with a high standard of facilities.

Eurocamp or similar is also an option to look at if you fancy trying out camping but don't have all the kit or don't want to haul it all to mainland Europe.

Last minute out of season deals! Best one ever was Morocco AI for two weeks £600 for 3 of us - not so easy now there are 4 of us and one is at school though.

Generally, we save up and go every other year. Last year was 2 weeks in Ibiza. This year is 4 nights in a Haven caravan.

camping topic

i think th e OP is just expressing her surprise re holidayying with children, or at least that's how i took it... it was a shock to us, very much the cheapo weekend break abroad types rather than fortnight holidayers, just HOW MUCH people are obviously paying for proper vacations with kids. and omg re prices during the hols.

I think it depends on what you prioritise. We dont go out in Britain except when free or heavily discounted. We never eat out in Britain. We dont have the latest cars.

What we do have is an annual holiday abroad. The total cost is around £5000 for 2 adults and 3 DCs (15, 12 & 11). We drive (not fly), self-cater, eat out a few times.

It is important to us so we go without other things to have it.

We save all year - its our one big treat but its a bloody sacrafice.

my best tip is to go around May half-term rather than July/August - in places like Southern Spain/France, or Italy or Greece, the weather should be fab

assuming your kids' school will allow you a couple of days either side of the week (obv this depends on kids not doing GCSEs etc so has to be Y9 or below really, or Y10 in some schools) you can fit nearly 2 weeks in and if you book flights etc independently they should be reasonably priced.

so this year you'd be looking at eg Wed 25th May - Wed 8th Jun (or thereabouts)

You book cheap flights in advance. You take kids out of school out of peak season and you get a villa or apartment from somewhere like owners direct.

If it must be a hotel, my tip is to forget the star rating and find out which hotels have been newly built. Beds will be bed bug dust free, everything will look fresher. We never do package deals except for this which we did for xmas 09:
here
It was newly built, cheap hotel an pool but you stay in lovely spacious apartments.

Agree with Ponders - we deliberately choose to take our main holiday during Whitsun half term in Southern Europe. We do pay a premium for decent accommodation/facilities but the premium is siginificantly cheaper at the end of May/beginning of June than in August! Good weather and less crowds too. We DIY it too - budget flights are booked early, then shop around for the best deals for car hire and your chosen accommodation. With longhaul - book flights asap and Easter is normally cheaper than Christmas ime.

We certainly don't do hotels, well only for stopovers. Our usual holiday involves mobile homes and gites and we drive. Dd is happy as there are usually great pools and kids clubs. We probably self-cater 2/3 and eat out 1/3. Campsites usually have a takeaway where you can get a roast chicken and loads of chips or potatos for 10 euros. Add wine and salad and you are sorted.

My holiday is still my big expense each year though as we go for 3 weeks in July. Mind you I get almost as much fun planning it through the dark winter months as I do going It keeps me sane.

Take them out of school (primary)!

this year we'll be doing a week abroad for the first time (DDs 13 and 14) I've been saving for ths for 3 years and done camping for the last few years.