Do people buy lunch and dinner out on holidays?

[user1471554720]

When we go on holidays in e.g. France Spain, Italy, we get our breakfast included with the hotel. We eat dinner out in a restaurant. For lunch, we go to a supermarket and get rolls and ham/cheese.

I see lots of people eating a main course at lunchtime. Do those people eat a dinner in the evening as well? Surely this would cost a lot. Any hot lunch could come to 20 euro by the time people get water, coffee after.

What do people generally do? I know people staying in apartments would get breakfast and lunch in the apartment, and eat out for dinner.

I asked people but they evaded the question irl. Dh would eat enough at breakfast to keep going until dinner but I find this uncomfortable.

If you can’t afford it, you can’t afford it.

I enjoy eating out for lunch and dinner on holidays and budget accordingly. I like sitting out with a glass of wine at lunch time and people watching. It’s something I would never do at home, so why not!

I actually enjoy it if it is somewhere new.

We just go with the flow. We might eat any or all meals out on any particular day. We might have cake somewhere instead.

It depends on what we see and how we feel. I hate an over planned holiday.

Yes we always have lunch and dinner
I wouldn't mind maybe just having bread and fruit at lunch but DH is very keen on having lunch (and beer)
He is of the view we work hard for it
To be fair he does most of the shopping / cooking at home and wants a break from it
Found it a bit difficult in France earlier this year as most places didn't do 'lunch ' they served the same type of food at lunch and dinner

We start with fresh bread for breakfast, ham and cheese from the supermarket for lunch with the left over bread from breakfast. And out for dinner.

Then we eat all the bread for breakfast, get chips from the take away for lunch because there’s no bread. And head out for dinner where the dessert is too tempting to miss and a glass of wine has turned into half a bottle.

By the end of the holiday, breakfast is bread, a croissant and half a pain au chocolat , pizza and chips for lunch, afternoon drinks, dinner, dessert, bottle or two of wine, and a cheese board to soak up the apéritif.

And we wonder why our jeans don’t zip up when we get home.

Yes

It depends on your budget, the type of holiday, the company you're with and what you enjoy doing. Personally eating out is something I love (and can afford) so it would be incorporated into the holiday as specific feature. I also love looking around local food markets, so I might also buy some nice cheese, salami and bread and use that for a picnic one day. I don't really understand your question though because if you can't afford to eat lunch and dinner out then you've basically answered your own question.

It depends whether you can afford to eat out or not. It sounds like you can't afford 100 Euros a day for lunch (or don't want to spend that much) so the alternatives are to have a large breakfast or to get something in a bakery or a supermarket.

In my case it really depends on what Im doing. Most of my holidays are hiking holidays and then I buy food in the supermarkets to take as a picnic. But I also eat out in the evenings sometimes or make food on the campsite or in a hostel or apartment depending on what accommodation I've booked.

And that’s fine, if that’s what you can afford then that’s what you can afford. Everyone has different budgets.

Sone lunch menus can be cheaper than evening ones and you less likely to have booze so some people might be eating lunch out and having supermarket snacks for their evening meal to save money ?

This is true - we find if we have lunch out it's a single course or a menu-of-the-day special with a single glass of wine/beer whereas in the evening it would be 2-3 courses with several drinks. Mostly we like just relaxing at our accommodation in the evening - but the supermarket bread/cheese/wine is certainly a lot cheaper than eating out and we've already enjoyed a nice lunch.

We tend to do one big meal one small meal per day (other than breakfast) but vary whether the big meal is lunch or dinner depending on plans for the day.

I always like local cold meats, fresh bread, cheese, olives, local beer/wine on the balcony of my room as a "dinner" option if we had a heavy lunch.

Or have big, breakfast, late lunch, light nibbles in the evening.

We usually self-cater, and it's on the basis that there will be minimal cooking. So we have cereal, toast etc for breakfast (but might take ourselves to a restaurant or café.} We then play it by ear with a mix of meals out and things like pasties, fish and chips, ready-cooked stuff, salads, bread and cheese etc at wherever we're staying, and meals out. If we've had breakfast out we may well just have a snack lunch, likewise if it's a large lunch we just have a snack evening meal. Suits us fine.

We'll have breakfast with the hotel, and then probably have snacks and stuff on us for moving about. Depending where we are, we might get a light lunch of sorts because we all honestly overeat a TON at breakfast so aren't that hungry. We'll get sandwiches from a shop or something but if we are ravenous, we'll go to a restaurant but mainly we are on the move. Dinner is always a restaurant.

If I am on holiday, there is absolutely no way I'll make anything, not even a sandwich. That's because I am older with adult children and I've done more than my share of camp cooking, self-catering and picnics. We eat whatever we feel like, whenever we want. Bliss.
However, I fully appreciate that if you have several teenagers to feed, it can get very expensive indeed. In those days, we'd fill six foot plus teenage boys up at all you can eat breakfast, then hit the bakeries for lunch.

@User19876536484 I try to stay away from the chocolate and good crisps 🤣

Went to Paris and free breakfast was included in hotel. Ate out for all dinners and a mix of lunches, it does cost more but had factored it in to trip cost and alternated between pricier restaurants and cheaper places

We fill up at breakfast usually as late as possible then get by on snacks until dinner

I know people staying in apartments would get breakfast and lunch in the apartment, and eat out for dinner

That's quite an odd assumption. Why would people go back to the apartment to have lunch?

We have a relaxed late breakfast either provided by the hotel or we make it ourselves. If we're self catering we might have a cafe breakfast a couple of times.

Then we're out sightseeing and beach for the day and will have a late lunch in a restaurant maybe around 3 pm, which is normal lunchtime in Spain.

We then have drinks and snacks on the balcony in the early evening and might have a BBQ, get a takeaway or go out for drinks and tapas.

Or we might get a big ice cream or something like a slice of pizza, an empanada or just some cheese, crisps and olives from the supermarket for lunch then eat out jn the evening.

We don't have 2 full restaurant meals a day, but that's about the amount of food, rather than the cost.

We're not big breakfasty people. Tea. Fruit maybe a pastry. But we love a boozy lunch around 1.30 especially if we've been lounging in the heat. Nothing heavy and usually not hot. Greek salad with a few beers would be my ideal choice.

We tend to eat later in the evening

Same for me

We normally either do:

If breakfast is included, eat it as late as possible and eat loads, then do coffee/cakes in the afternoon when peckish, then buy dinner out.

If not, we'll get coffees/pastries in the morning, eat a big lunch at a nice restaurant, then get snacky things for dinner. Like loads of cheese and crusty bread and eat cheeseboards for dinner every night

I say 'normally' because we'll also do what we feel like, and if on occasion that's a huge breakfast, lunch and dinner then we'll just roll around all day 😂 But when I budget for a holiday I do set aside full meal costs for eating out each meal so I don't have to stress. Then any money left over goes towards a down payment for the next holiday when we get home and the vicious cycle continues!

Depends what we are doing and where we are.

In France and Spain we usually get a light breakfast out - markets usually have a cheap cafe you can get a coffee and pastry. In France lunch is often a bakery meal deal - they are very popular in France and you can often get a big filled baguette, a drink and cake for 6 - 8 euros.

Sometimes in France or Spain we will eat a big lunch - a lot of restaurants do a good value fixed lunch menus. In France especially it is a good eay to eat affordably at relatively fancy restaurants. We do that if we have something planned in the evening or are on a day excursion.

All holidays can be so different. We self-cater in a house or on a campsite and prepare almost every meal. Might eat out once or twice. We like to eat at our own schedule and have one DC who is an extremely restricted eater so eating out is stressful. Lots of people wouldn't enjoy this type of holiday but it works best for us. It's also cheaper buying food at the supermarket than eating out.

If it’s a city break for a few nights staying in a hotel then it depends on how hungry I am! Just got back from a trip where a really good breakfast was included and I didn’t feel like eating again until 3pm-ish. I’d get something light like bread/olives/allioli with a couple of glasses of wine to tide me over until dinner. Maybe an ice cream at some point too.

On a trip to America recently we hardly ate lunch as the breakfasts were so massive!

We just had a big lunch the last day in NYC (proper old school burger, chips, milkshake - the works) because we were getting the over night flight back to London and knew we woild not be eating dinner until about midnight on the plane.