The Med for Family of 5 for £3k or less....

[Bythebeach]

.... in last ten days July. Ideally 7 nights. Pref 4 star or nice 3 star. Next to or less than 5 mins from decent beach. Decent pool. Self-catering is fine. Anyone think this is possible? If so, advice gratefully received!! Otherwise, we'll save the money for next year!

I'd go and see a travel agent if you want a 3 or 4 hotel. If you're prepared to SC I'm sure you could get what you want. Have you had a search on Airbnb, Booking.com, etc? We usually use them and haven't had a bad one yet, but you need to really look at the pictures and read the reviews from other people, plus google maps to check the location, etc.

is the price just for accommodation and travel or for all expenses in the holiday ? Would you consider a Eurocamp/Canvas type holiday or do you want a hotel/apartment

Im guessing you are wanting to fly as a drive from UK to Southern Spain might be quite a trek twice in a week, Are you restricted to flying from one airport or able to get to a few local ones ?

If you dont mind a mobilhome/static caravan type holiday you should be able to do Eurocamp type holiday i know they are not for everyone but lots usually close to the beach, brilliant pool resorts on site, kids clubs, accommodation can be lovely but if its not you're barley in it besides sleeping. Venue holidays,lifestyle canvas, matthew holidays, alfresco and going direct tend to work out cheaper than Eurocamp even though accommodation is same, or even better

I’d maybe check ‘out on the beach’ or ‘Travel Republic’ you can put in a choice of several airports and they come up with an option of flights (but you would need to key in say Majorca, Minorca, Algarve, Ibiza etc) if you can afford to be flexible a day or so either side then you choose a hotel all the Trip Adviser reviews are there and you can filter the list.
I haven’t actually used either of this but I know plenty of people who have sometimes the flight costs can go up a little so don’t go to the absolute maximum of your budget.

Or as suggested you could book a flight and book an apartment with a private letting agency such as Holiday Lettings and Home & Away I have done this many times and it has worked well. In my experience it’s not worked out massively cheaper only slightly cheaper than a package but the accomodation has always b the n more spacious and a much better standard than booking a s/c package deal. But do read the descriptions carefully, opt for somewhere with a number of genuine sounding positive reviews and contact the owner have an email dialogue or phone them and if it all sounds ok make the booking but don’t pay outside of sat the Holiday Letting or Home & Away sites.