Is it possible - £2000 budget for beach holiday in May half term break

[misscph1973]

Our family (DC 9 and 11) have never been on a proper family beach holiday, and I think this year we can afford it. I want to go in the May half term break to avoid the crowds, the price hikes and the heat. I am thinking that Croatia would be excellent, I went there as a child when it was Yugoslavia.

Do I use an agent? Or DIY? We're travelling from Bristol.

Is £2000 realistic? I am not keen on the idea of fullboard, as with our budget the food could be horrible.

diy is always, always cheaper. have a look at travel agent sites like travel republic to pick the place that you want to go - narrow it down to region rather than country.

then google the parts on things like skyscanner for the flights and find the hotel through hotels.com or travelrepublic. £500 each sounds like it is doable but you will have to be flexible.

Agree DIY should be cheaper.You could use skyscanner to identify where you can get cheap flights to and then see if you can get accommodation for there.

Thanks for your replies! I am quite up for DIY, I love researching (and obsessing). I really want to go to the national park, Plitvica.

We've been looking at Croatia in May too, and have a similar budget! I too love wasting time - I mean researching on the internet - and have come across Pula, Slpit and Porec which look lovely, and have found cheap places (and I'm fussy about we we stay!) on AirBnB which is my saviour as we always seem to be on a budget ;) If you can take a day or 2 off school either side of half term the flights are much cheaper too! X

I'd recommend choosing a location, then putting your dates into booking.com and seeing what accomodation comes up, then also checking Airbnb. You may decide you want to try a couple of different parts of Croatia and Airbnb means you can easily book a few nightsin one place and a few in another.

We're visiting Croatia as part of a holiday in the summer, which starts in Slovenia. The place we are staying is Rovinj and looks stunning, check it out.

Thanks for the advice! I haven't got much further with it, as I am still not sure we can afford the budget, and I don't really want to look at any booking sites before I am sure of how much money I can spend. We are both self-employed, so it's a difficult balance of deciding to save for a rainy day or going on holiday.

Do airbnb. People will think I'm on commission from them, I love them so much. I've just found you a 2 bedroom apartment with its own pool and boat, 2 mins walk from the beach, with sea views, for £360 all in for everybody during half term week. Just add flights, transport and food.

DancingDuck where??!! I'm interested ;)
I too love AirBnB, we managed a budget holiday last year to Sardinia for 8 nights, amazing hosts, beautiful town and am now totally smitten with all things Italian!
Misscph - I feel your pain, we're both self employed too and it's a mre - weighing up whether we can afford hols,due to loss of earnings every day we take off... Ugghh... But call me naughty, I'd prefer to have a lovely holiday (we used to live in Spain so I really miss the warmth) and make great memories for our daughter, rather than save for a just in case scenario. Which will no doubt come back to bite me in the bum one day! X

littlevic, I still shudder when I think of the early days as self-employed after maternity leave, DH's business was very start-up in the first few years, and it took me a while to get regular clients, and we were so poor, we couldn't afford anything! And it's still quite deep in me, so I can get quite anxious about the thought of spending money.

I'll see if I can find it again and post link.

It's gone now. or if it hasn't, I can't find it. But found another. Look up Villa Duda Blue. Three beds, own pool, veranda, overlooking sea. Absolutely lovely. £460 for the half term week in May. Sorry, can't post link, ancient computer says no.

Same here with self-employed. A friend had a go at me recently for being frugal when I earn good money. What she doesn't realise (as the never-worked-in-her-life wife of a rich business man) is that you never know when more money is coming in, and so you have to budget carefully all the time.

If you fly out on the Sunday and come back on the Saturday, Easyjet are currently doing return flights for under £100 pp in half term week from Gatwick to Split. Blimey, at this rate OP I'm going to nick your holiday and go on it myself! (I know some people don't trust the budget airlines but I use them loads and find them just as reliable as BA.)

The joys of being self employed! Certainly has it's downsides... But I'm rubbish as taking orders from people haha!!
Thanks for that DancingDuck, much appreciated - we should take a look Misscph1973 - In fact we should share - cut the cost hahaha !! X

Dancing Duck we always use Easyjet and even Ryan air and they've always been fine for us :)

littlevic, we need to find a way of putting holidays through as "business expenses" ;)

We really do!! ;)