Is it still a restful holiday if you have to cook?

[timberleigh]

Usually we go on holidays to places where we can afford to eat out for every meal. Often skip breakfast out because some yoghurt and granola or cereal is fine.

We are considering going to a very expensive place for a week’s holiday. A mid range meal out for two would easily be £150. We just don’t want to spend that much on food every day, so we’ve found an apartment with a kitchen so we could cook in maybe half of the nights. Will this trip still feel restful?

I think it depends on how much of your focus is on food.

On holiday, we eat simply. In and out of the supermarket as quickly as possible. Pizza, pasta, sandwiches. Snacks as necessary. Meals are made and eaten quickly so we can get on with our holiday.

Restaurants take too much time. Easily wastes a couple of hours and cost a lot. I don’t want my holiday to be based around sitting indoors eating. Planning and preparing loads of food at the holiday home also takes too much time.

Holidays are about the experience. We obviously do eat out, but not loads.

We did this in Florida last year, booked a Marriott villa. Got take away a handful of times but the majority of the time got food from the supermarket and took our own sandwiches to the theme parks. Saved a bomb, didn't come home feeling bloated from excessive eating out and had a fab time.

We are self catering in France this year. I will be cooking basic meals such as stir fry and spag Bol.

We used to go to France when the kids were young, dh used to like pottering about supermarkets and cooking dinner or a BBQ I just let him crack on whilst I just drank wine😀

It’s fine for me. I’d be cooking anyway so I’d rather be somewhere interesting!
It’s interesting to buy groceries abroad and we do very quick and easy meals on those kind of holidays and eat out a few times.

In answer to your title question, no.

I don't self cater quite like this but I don't think it's then the same as being at home at all.

For me, a holiday is about seeing new things and places and not just doing nothing (I find that boring)

We do self catering UK holidays, but I dont cook, as such. I buy ready meals. It's not just the cooking - it's the clearing and washing up. At least if the food you get is ready-prepared you can just get rid of the packaging and there is less to do.

DH likes food shopping especially for fish, loves cooking and makes it look easy so happy days.

We don’t usually self cater but we are for a week in Portugal later this year. I refuse to cook much while on holiday, I’ll do breakfast, scrambled eggs, toast etc but the only other time we might eat in our apartment is if we’re having a pool day then it’ll be local bread, cold meats, cheese etc. Where we’re going isn’t that expensive to eat out so we’re not breaking the bank to have dinner and drinks out every evening.

So to answer the question, I wouldn’t find it restful at all personally to cook an evening meal on holiday.

I mostly cook on holiday as we prefer to have a private villa with its own pool (or ski chalet / apartment) so that we can eat what we want when we want and not have to to go out to crowded restaurants every lunchtime and evening. Also I’ve never been to a hotel with a shared pool because I really wouldn’t enjoy that. We eat out a few times and I cook the rest of the time, but it’s usually fairly simple things that don’t take much time so it’s doesn’t feel like a chore. It suited us when the children were smaller and perhaps wanted an earlier evening meal than would have been possible in restaurants, and now they are preteens & teens it’s just carried on as it fits in with our preferred types of holiday.

We always go self catering as my son has selective eating disorder so have to take food for him and if we do eat out it's usually just once. Yes it's a pain to have to go out and buy food and cook it but on the plus side it means we can get drinks in and enjoy on the balcony/terrace rather than always going out for a drink. It also means we have an apartment with space for relaxing that's not just a bedroom.

We do sometimes book apartments etc for the space, but you won’t see me using the kitchen!

We have often eaten out at lunchtime as it’s cheaper, even in v good places. Then had cheeses etc in the evening and gone out for drinks.

I don't mind preparing breakfast or an occasional lunch, whilst on holiday, but not dinner. Half the point of going on holiday is experiencing different restaurants/foods etc, especially abroad. To me cooking even only some of the time, is just no!!

i usually book self catering in aparthotels - we only have breakfast or lunch in the room though and eat out for tea/dinner the whole week. When it was just DH and me we may have had a night in with a frozen pizza but it’s nice for us and DS to go out every evening for a week

That’s a good point actually, all the places I’ve been to where we’ve catered ourselves in the evening have had easily accessible inexpensive supermarkets. And eating out hasn’t been particularly expensive either - just our choice to do it at lunch time as we find it more relaxing.

We find eating out for every meal exhausting with the dc and do a mix of restaurants, take out pizza , easy salad, bread cheese olives salami type meals.

There's loads of nice foods in foreign supermarkets. Or you can get takeaway other foods.

I don't cook huge meals

For a lot of people, the food on their holiday be it shopping in a foreign supermarket or finding a nice restaurant, is a huge part of the experience.

I don’t cook on holidays. Part of the holiday is visiting local restaurants and enjoying new foods in different surroundings.

I feel exactly the same, there are so many interesting foods in other countries. You don't have to make anything complicated if you don't feel like it, but cooking different food is one of the things that I enjoy about being abroad

We had a suite in Florida I can't remember the hotel now, but it had a kitchen and sitting room so we ate in a few nights .

No but then I don’t do the cooking at home either.
We take a shit tonne of spending money when we go away and eat out. If we are staying in for a relaxing evening my preference is a takeaway but Dh does love cooking, I just don’t want to clean up. So there is a compromise in that if he wants to cook everything has to go in the dishwasher/be dishwasher safe or it doesn’t get used!!

Back in my childhood days we went on holiday annually to Scotland and stayed in self catering (friends of my parents had a cottage which they let out). The general arrangement was dad did the driving, mum did the cooking, however in a week's holiday, we ate out three times. You can still have a restful holiday in self catering, breakfast doesn't take long to make unless you into full fry-ups, lunch you can eat in a cafe or make sandwiches, evening time it might feel like a chore but it takes an hour at most and afterwards there is the rest of the evening to wind down and relax. The thing is you have a choice, if you don't feel like cooking then find a restaraunt.

Yes. I even like doing this at home on sunny days