Cost of going abroad

[Springblossomtree]

For the last 10 years we have travelled around the UK with our touring caravan with our 2 children, enjoying several weeks away each year. Last year we decided to sell, and use the money to do other holidays UK & abroad.

We've been pricing a few options up, ferry to France, flights to Paris, Barcelona, Rome etc and the prices are much higher than we were expecting.

Any hints & tips on where to look, how to book, or do I just accept this is how much it costs? (A flight to Rome for 4 ppl in October £1500, ferry to France £900).

Friends and family often go abroad but I don't want to appear rude by asking how much things cost and where they stayed etc.

Any advice much appreciated..

I'm not sure there's anything wrong with asking family and friends for recommendations on where to go. They know you better than we do, after all, and will know what you and DC will enjoy.
Prices of holidays abroad (and UK based) have gone up so much the last few years and everyome will be paying more this year than they did last.
Some people prefer the safety and esse of booking package holidays, others prefer booking flights and accommodation separately cheaper.
It truly is impossible to suggest or recommend anything when we don't know what kind of holiday you want, how old DC are, budget, time of year etc.

Flights seem to be really expensive this year. I also looked at Rome over October half term out of idle curiosity and it was over £1000. They’ve gone up a lot since 2019, apparently (we haven’t flown since 2018).

Ferry to France shouldn’t be £900 unless, perhaps, it’s a gold plated cabin on the Portsmouth-St Malo route in school holidays. The cheapest route is always Dover-Calais and the shuttle may be cheaper than the ferry.

For ferries, I’d generally just book direct with the ferry company unless the camping operator or similar offered a competitive deal.

For flights, we always check on sky scanner first to see who has the best price.

Thanks for your reply, it was the Portsmouth to st Malo route we looked at, perhaps I'll look at Dover to Calais but I was hoping to avoid the drive when we get the France...
I'll keep googling 😃

Thank you, I came across this site this evening...😃

We always use Eurotunnel to France and it’s nothing like £900 more like £150. Dover Calais is cheapest ferry route but issues atm. Re flights we only book with airlines directly but would use Skyscanner to search for ideas. Ryanair and EasyJet are normally cheap though add ons and minimal service. We just flew to Azores at about £100 each per person per way. Back was via Porto. But was just out of school holidays. Flexibility on dates and destinations helps.

I noticed longhaul prices up a lot, in 2020 we had flights to Asia for 500 each that got cancelled with Covid, looked this year and it’s more like 1,000 to 1,300 each. But good deals are out there. For packages TUI and Jet2 are good value.

There are some great fb groups for cheap holidays and money saving tips if you are on fb

I do worry that the era of cheap flights is behind us now. We've all got so used to it. We were supposed to be visiting friends in Spain in June but have decided we really can't justify the cost.
I wonder if it's a temporary, war, post-Covid blip of a permanent thing.

Flights are very expensive post Covid. Pick a few nice places to go and save up, or take a train and enjoy the journey?

You can often fly cheaper to smaller airports. For example Salzburg rather than Vienna, Cologne rather than Frankfurt. Trieste is often Ryanair bargin flight and it’s in northern Italy, not Far from Venice but much cheaper to fly to and then drive this end the extra.

Same for accommodation. Staying in Central Rome will be far more expensive than a short drive or train journey away.

The dfds ferry from Newhaven to Dieppe is really cheap. We payed about £240 last August for 4 people and a car including a cabin.

For flights I tend to go on Skyscanner and just put in 'anywhere' as a destination and the month of travel and then see what comes up. Most years we have managed to find something for around £100 per person in the summer holidays. Then we look for Airbnb type accomodation in that area. We have been to various places in France, Spain and the Canaries by doing this.

There are some cheap flights to Rome in October, nowhere near £1500...

The Rugby world cup is in France in October this year so prices may be higher.

Booking early is my top tip. I never book for the summer any later than early jan as prices just seem to spiral after that.

we also usually go the last week of the summer hols as this helps to keep costs down.

this year booking a package was cheaper than booking separately, but this isn’t always the case so good to look both options. AI isn’t always as good value as it’s sold to be. We usually go b&b and then eat out. Normally it works out quite a bit less for us than an AI would have and AI I’d a bit wasted on us as we like to go off and explore anyway.

And yes book early. We have a holiday let overseas. It’s usually booked up by October/ November for the following summer. Most people seem to finish summer holiday and then look for booking next summer soon after.

I think the days of lots and lots of tickets being sold at stupidly cheap prices have generally gone...even Michael O'Leary has said that paying less for the flight than the rail journey from home to the airport isn't sustainable.

It's hard to work out what a sustainable fare for a route actually is, there are too many variables, many closely guarded by the airlines, but I've always reckoned if you're paying much under 100 euros/pounds for a one way flight UK to Europe the airline is really going to struggle to make a profit on that single sale, especially once tax is taken out.

Anyhow that said and out of interest I've just looked at some BA flights, London <> regional France for this June. Now BA don't leap to the forefront of people's minds when it comes to cheap but if you are prepared to be flexible there are currently fares available on the route I was looking at of 130 euros, return, hand baggage only.

That's comparable with the fares for Easyjet that @JorisBonson posted upthread, IMO not dirt cheap but pretty cheap.

Definitely look at flying to less popular cities, go on sky scanner and type ‘everywhere’ for your dates and it’ll show you other options. Look at staying in private rooms in hostels, much cheaper

Ferries from Dover to Calais are under £100. Eurotunnel is a but more expensive but quicker and easier to do. You can also sail to Dunkirk and Newhaven to Dieppe which are cheaper.

Newhaven to Dieppe or Portsmouth to Caen are often cheaper.

Skyscanner and ‘everywhere’ ‘whole month’ can show you how flying a day out from plan makes a huge difference.