How much does it cost to holiday abroad in the summer for a family of 4?

[ShowOfHands]

I know that's like asking how long is a piece of string but bear with me...

I don't travel abroad, only ever camp in the UK. I don't even have a passport.

Eldest DC finishes high school this year and youngest finishes primary. Eldest is off to boarding college and the start of high school for the youngest feels like the end of an era. We've spent six years doing up the house (serious project including some rebuilding) and we have finally nearly finished. I had an idle thought that next summer, we could go on a big holiday to mark what feels like a lot of endings and new beginnings. DD is practising her french speaking exam and one of her comments about where she goes on les vacances basically says camping gets a bit boring after 16 years. I've never left Europe and I've never taken the DC further than Scotland.

I thought I'd pick a random far flung destination and check out flights. Friends have just come back from Canada so I chose 2 weeks in August, economy flights and it's 3k for flights. Presumably, with accommodation, food, entertainment and all that stuff, it's going to cost more than my new kitchen and bathroom combined to have a holiday.

Is that normal? Are there cheaper ways of doing it? I don't even know where to start. Is Europe cheaper? How do you decide where to go?

The children - quite honestly - admitted they'd love to experience a holiday that isn't so basic or such hard work for me. Often DH can't come with us so I'm used to setting up the tent, cooking in the rain, doing laundry in a tent etc. Some of dd's best friends went to Malaysia, Costa Rica, South Africa and Portugal respectively in the holidays and we camped in North Devon. Her friends aren't from a remarkably different socioeconomic background but I'm not sure how they're affording it if my cursory googling is indicative of general costs.

We don't like beaches or heat. We like history, hiking/trekking, culture, arts, steam trains, theatre, literature, curiosities, whimsy. It would be once in a lifetime so would like it to be memorable if we were to do it.

Before I start hoping or planning, is it possible for it to cost less than significant renovation costs? I don't need fancy or first class. Just different to a tent in the drizzle (which I adore!).

What is a bug holiday?

I am just planning a trip right now

3 adults. 3 kids 5-16

We are going to Barcelona for 4 nights. Flights found cheap 4 weeks before flight for £600 for all of us.
accomodation - cheapest I’ve seen is £800 but will budget about £1.5k for 2 rooms in a hotel or an apartment.

I find flights are the biggest expense and once you’ve got those sorted you can budget for accommodation.

I'd go for a city break. Cities can be expensive but just go for the cheaper accommodation and go for less time, or stay just outside the city. Berlin is great- lots of amazing history, can walk around the city and do a day trip out of the city.
Or Rome is amazing. Ancient Rome, the Vatican, plenty of museums, amazing food!
Venice or Florence. Budapest. Iceland. Morocco. Brugge is quick and easy.
In your position I would do a couple of shorter breaks over 1 long holiday. You could experience more and make more memories.

I'd say if you are in the Northern bit of France it is cheaper to take your car (could also look at trains as it would be an adventure!). Car hire is currently mega expensive. It may drop in price again though.

Just to add - I'm totally with you on the difficulty of booking holidays and trying to get value for money and enjoyment.

To me, it seems obvious that France is your answer. Drive or train, you could base yourself outside Paris, do EuroDisney, the galleries/sites of Paris, Versailles, Giverny.

Or you could go further towards the Loire, do Puy du Fou for a theme park experience you'd probably all enjoy, chateaux of the Loire, cycling, canoeing.

Or you could head down to the Ardeche, see the Roman sites at Nimes, Orange, Arles, Avignon is a fab place to base yourself, you could do canoeing, hiking.

Or the Dordogne, more canoeing, basted hilltop towns, prehistoric cave paintings.

Honestly, France has everything. Including the wine and cheese 😁

South of France and Northern Spain have lots of interesting history. You could get the Eurostar down to Montpellier (watch out for deals and I think clubcard points work) or cheap flights to Carcassonne and base yourselves there. I reckon you could get flights and hotels in Carcassonne for under £1k for 4 of you then do loads of boat tours, history bits, and chilling out with good food. Trains to the rest of the Languedoc are good too. I found it pretty inexpensive, could eat for less than £20pp a day including dinner out and most of the attractions aren't expensive. I've earmarked it as a family holiday when mine are older for the waterpark.

Alternatively Northern Spain has loads of history. I liked Lugo and Santander for the proper old stuff. There's a nice train along the coast you can hop on and off, and lots of kayaking around ribadasella although watch out for the big race as it gets busy. Don't forget to book the cave paintings well in advance.

If you're going long haul I'd check flights on Google flights or Skyscanner selecting a month and everywhere to find bargains. Holiday pirates is also great for deals.

Netherlands could be a good option. You can either take the ferry to Calais and drive or ferry from Harwich or Newcastle or even take the train to Amsterdam.
It has, I think the most museums per capita in the world. Lots of Windmills and there are steam trains too. Several National Parks if you want to hike and obviously cycling! We usually camp in the UK and this was one of the most relaxing holidays we’ve had. We didn’t eat out much just preferred to go to the supermarket and get food to eat back in our mobile home - we stayed at Duinrell with Eurocamp. Cost was around £2k all in with ferry/accommodation/food/trips out etc. It could have probably been slightly cheaper but we’d saved and splashed out a bit.

We flew to Copenhagen with Ryanair from Stanstead - direct - we did do hand luggage only (would need priority now) - had a washing machine

Rented Car from Denmark - via a danish site

Had two weeks cottage with a pool on Oland booked via novasol.se - found it cheaper than the UK equivalent

two nights at the holiday inn Crowne plaza in Copenhagen at the end - one on points one paid for.

We wend the last two weeks and a bit of the school holidays, Sweden goes back earlier than the UK - if we'd gone earlier it would have been twice as much.

I Love Sweden had two awesome holidays there.

We try and look outside of normal holidays. - love the challenge of not spending thousands on holidays.

This summer we drove to France - via the Eurotunnel - a couple of nights in Paris/Versaille, a trip to Puy du Fou (utterly bonkers but brilliant) and then a week in a house in the Dordogne with some canoing, swimming, walking, chateaus and a trip to the caves at Lascaux.

For four of us we spent somehwere between £2500 and £3000 - I haven't actually totted it all up exactly!

We did this with history mad ds and both dh and l also love history. It was fantastic. Maybe throw in Eurodisney for your ds. We actually took a train from Paris to Normandy and hired a guide in a car to drive us around taking everything in. We loved it. That wouldn't be too expensive and very doable.

We love holidays and prioritise them in the last 10 years: (with Dc aged 8& 5-18&15) all in school holidays usually accommodation and flights/ferry/ train.
Crete 7 nights 2012 - 1400 (half board)
Rome 9 nights 2013- 900
Train and bikes in France 10 nights 2014 -900
Croatia 2015, 5 nights £800
Sicily 2016 7 nights £800
France car/ mobile home 2017 £ 1200
Kos 2018 (5 nights) £950
Canada 2019 (10 nights) £3500
Wales 2021 (7 nights) £300
This year blow out Greece £3000

We book best part of a year in advance, easy jet flights. Air bnb, vbro or booking.com. Although I have also booked direct.

Of these I'd say Rome, biking in France and Croatia (Split) might suit you best.

Split next August for a week
£500 I am sure you could get accommodation for £300-400 so £900 ish

It sounds like you need to go inter-railing! You can design your own trip round Europe - cities/mountains/lakes.
I hope one day my 2 are open to such things!

www.airbnb.co.uk/rooms/7031008?adults=2&children=2&check_in=2023-08-22&check_out=2023-08-29&source_impression_id=p3_1665410558_0YMnAc0uzcfrYQeQ

Accommodation

Malta small island lots of history both medieval and second world war valletta and mdina fascinating fun getting round the island on the rickety old buses can go over to gozo the little island nearby and reasonably priced you dont need to go all inclusive the food in the restaurants is very good and reasonably priced

Baby - how did you do Wales for a week for 300?!

So what is your budget OP? Camping in the UK is always going to be very cheap, but to go abroad you'll never get it all in for £500 - especially as none of you currently own passports. If you want to go to Canada in August then yes, the flights for 4 people will be at least £3k. You can stay in self catering accommodation when you get there and travel around by train, but I doubt you'll see much change from £10k if you go for 2 weeks in peak season (which August is).

Can you do something much cheaper in Europe? Absolutely. Travel by budget airline. Travel Tues-Tues rather than Sat-Sat. Stay in a self catering apartment or youth hostel. Shop in supermarkets, make picnics and travel by local trains. If you go to Romania or Poland or somewhere where the cost of living is low by British standards then you could have a great, cheap holiday with plenty of walking, castles, history, etc on a shoe string and you'd have a real adventure too.

Don't forget you need passports. A new adult passport (over age 16) is £75.50 pp and a child is £49 (both if you apply online). So right there is £255. But also take a look at fares on Wizzair - I think you'll be pleasantly surprised how cheaply you can travel if you're creative about it.

If you want a good value, fun family holiday that has history and culture then get a cheap flight to Athens, spend some time there then take a train to Pireaus and do some Greek Island hopping.

There are lots of camp sites and cheaper accommodation options on the various islands.

If you a careful and can avoid peak season then I reckon a family of four could do this for 2 weeks for less than £2k including flights and ferries.

We travel a lot !! But we always go at random times of the year when it’s cheaper !! For example japan in feb (weather not great but it’s fine) flights a little cheaper.

mexico in March

Cambodia in November etc etc

we do a package holidays most years in may or September can usually get something in Mallorca for less than a grand for 3 of us! Same holiday in school hols was 5k 🙈

if you can only go in school holidays you will have to suck it up and pay a lot more unfortunately

id pop in somewhere like trail finders or similar and ask for help to plan something

we also prioritise travel over everything else though - I couldn’t be bothered with doing work on our house once it’s livable - we don’t really spend much on clothes or stuff we live a very frugal life in general - got of the car - cycle everywhere

outgoings are super low so on a day to day basis and all savings go In holiday fund and we go away whenever we can

we have gotten great at planning / finding cheap flights

you need to really dedicate a lot of Time to it - try a lot of options / dates etc

We do AI but budget that we eat out every other night, it still generally works out on par with SC with kids - drinks/ snacks / ice creams all on tap.

We use the AI very much as a base. I am not cooking on holiday. Sure you can do it cheaper but even when we had a mobile home in France it still cost a couple of grand for two weeks if you want to do anything off site, then you have fuel, train / ferry / tolls.

We're going to Ibiza AI next year for 6.5k for 2 adults 2 tweens

Oh and I'm married to a teacher so have been stuck with school holidays for years so I just try and ignore it now!

Orkney? I know it's Scotland, but it's a bit different to mainland Scotland and has a ferry crossing. Lots of historic sites, water sports and outdoor activities on offer all over the place. We loved it!!

We enjoyed Northern Ireland too. We don't do beaches either.

You could look up Explore holidays to Morocco or somewhere similar. 9 days during school holiday is £675 pp and if you book soon and book flights early, they are ridiculously cheap. Loads of sightseeing, trekking, quirky things so the three of you would have a fabulous holiday for under £3k in total, for 9 days.

for this selection: history, hiking/trekking, culture, arts, steam trains, theatre, literature, curiosities, whimsy
I suggest Hebden Bridge, Howarth, York or failing that a Wes Anderson movie 😂

We went camping Luxembourg last year, and sounds like it could tick a few of your boxes. Often overlooked because its so small and in the middle of France, Germany and Belgium. Landlocked (so no beaches) Lots of beautiful castles and historical towns. Depending on where you stay, close enough to drive for the day to places like Trier in Germany which has lots of roman buildings, also birth place of Karl Marx and a museum about him, and to the north there's towns in Belgium just over the border with WW1 and 2 museums. Luxembourg city itself is lovely to walk around. For the hiking there's a trail called Mullerthal which is 112km in total, but you could do as much or as little as you want. Lots of cliffs, rock formations and waterfalls on the trail. We went with Eurocamp and stayed at a campsite called Birkelt which was lovely. Very easy to get to, only 4 1/2 hours from Calais, if driving.