Best budget summer holiday ideas for a week with two young teens

[popsickle555]

I am looking for inspiration for a one week holiday this summer with myself and DH and our two teens (12 and 14) who like sightseeing and adventurous stuff but also relaxing by pool, reading books / eating out etc. Not into shopping, will do walks and bike rides under duress 😂. We don’t have a big budget.

Because of our limited budget I’d love to know what are the most fun / enjoyable holidays you’ve been on that are low budget with young teens. Can be U.K. or elsewhere. I’m leaning towards U.K. to make budget stretch further but because everything is so expensive now here I’m wondering if there are better options elsewhere. Also would consider a city break type thing if it’s a low cost place.

thank you! 🙏

Eurocamp in France! The campsites are amazing and France is lovely for sightseeing.
You don’t need to go through Eurocamp, I can work out cheaper not to. Look up Yelloh villages, Sandaya and Castells.

I think you'll have to give us a ballpark figure for "not a big budget".

My view of "not a big budget" will get you a week camping in an out of the way place in the UK, but your budget might be bigger than that.

Second Eurocamp, Yelloh and Pierre Et Vacances in France. If not then Haven or John Fowler holidays. My dc enjoyed these type of holidays when younger - a chance to meet other kids and we’d go out to explore in the car. As it’s self catering, it’s cheaper but there are usually cafes on site or nearby for teens to get snacks. Pools at most sites and other activities too but you might have to pay for those.

Yep, camping's the cheapest. And France is great. You just have to add the return price of the ferry to your trip.

My budget is such that I'd never go to Eurocamp or similar- France is full of campings municipales or campings a la ferme (easily found on Google maps) that are much cheaper. I usually pay 20-30 euros a night for me and 2 DC in August.

One place we enjoyed was the municipal campsite in Chinon, in the Loire Valley. Right across from the castle, it didn't have a swimming pool but you got a reduced price in the most excellent municipal pool across the road. The Loire Valley is pretty good for a family holiday- it has a bit of everything.

Thank you - do you take your own stuff or hire a tent / bungalow type thing?

Budget is ideally under £2k excluding activities when there. So that’s for travel and accommodation and ideally some food costs, if in the uk I’d ideally want to spend more like £1500 max including the food!

I’ve looked at euro camp but it’s £2500 in August, but perhaps I can get this price down. With food and activities on top that seems a lot. Also ferries I think are full so we’d need to fly but again I can check this!

thanks for tips so far.

Agree with @crackofdoom , I've done both own tent and renting accommodation on a campsite.

If. you take your own it' obviously cheaper, assuming you own or can borrow some.

Best holiday ever with the kids was camping in the Dordogne in France, weather was great as was canoeing and swimming in the river and touring lovely towns and villages.

This is a campsite I would recommend (although it looks as though it's changed ownership since I last went there) https://europe.huttopia.com/en/site/beaulieu-sur-dordogne/

Oh, own stuff!

Most of it from eBay/ Marketplace/Lidl, obviously.

(Also, I have a small van that I've semi converted into a camper, and I sleep in there nowadays. While the DCs sleep in tents mwahahaha 😆)

The municipal campsite in Chinon did have some safari tents, I wonder how much they were....

I don't think the ferries are all full yet! I've been doing some dummy searches on Brittany Ferries for example (for a holiday that probably won't happen this year because the aforementioned van has just broken down spectacularly 😭) and they seem to have capacity. We usually go the second half of August/ beginning of September because it can be considerably cheaper, as the peak of French high season is the last week in July and the first half of August.

Centreparcs in Europe. Try the last week in August if you can travel then as the Europeans are mainly back at school. The one near Amsterdam is good as you can also have a day trip to Amsterdam.
The activities are much cheaper than the British Centreparcs.

Another vote for campsites abroad! We have a motor home now, and did just under three weeks last summer for £2500 all in, including food! We did 2 nights in Venice and a week at Lake Idro in Italy, across to Colmar in France and Ypres in Belgium.

Look at Eurocamp and find a site you like, then google to find their own website. You usually find you can get better accommodation cheaper if you go direct. Most of these sites rent pitches to companies like EuroCamp, SunCamp and even Haven, and you’ll find little sections for each company. The sites abroad are more like holiday villages, so much more to do if you want it, and plenty to keep teens occupied.

If you hold your nerve u til a week or two before, you’ll get a big discount at the European holiday parks, particularly the last week in August.

We just came back from a school holiday trip to Prague-cheap flights and accommodation and the food was very reasonable out there!

Espinho, near Porto. We stayed at Hotel Dorma Praia Golfe, right by the beach, indoor pool though not outdoor pool, but has an outdoor sun terrace by the pool. Costs < €200/ night in late July, if you can all share a room. Espinho on the train line for Porto, but takes 35/40 mins from memory. We commuted into Porto for sightseeing quite a lot. Beach is lovely, but waves are big as it's the Atlantic. Lifeguards on the beach and you need to nestle into the corners protected by the artificial breakers to get smoother water to swim. Lots of restaurant and the most fabulous ice cream shop - M"gioia Gelataria. One weekend night when we stayed there was an organised beach party outside and the room wasn't very soundproof, but the rest of the time it was peaceful.

Brittany Ferries' website shows they have capacity, and even lets you select a crossing as part of the booking process, but if there is no accommodation left on an overnight crossing then it won't let you complete the booking. We've just been caught out by this on the Portsmouth-St Malo route in August. We're having to go Plymouth to Roscoff instead, and can't have a cabin - just the reserved seats.

OP, we just (last week) booked a week in Eurocamp in Brittany (Le Port de Plaisance) for £1600 for a three-bedroom 'premium' trailer thing in August. Ferry was £960 though.

Oh yikes, yes there is that. Plymouth- Roscoff seems to have lots of day sailings this year though, so no need for a cabin. I seem to remember last time we crossed- 2 years ago- all the crossings were at night, which pissed me off.

I've also never spent more than £500 for a Brittany Ferries return crossing, but I do shop around, and if it means returning the day before schools go back, so be it. Portsmouth- Caen is often considerably cheaper.

Ah, see we're setting off from northern England so the departure and arrival timings on the south coast become more important and overnight simply works better for us.

I do Portsmouth to Bilbao and back multiple times a year and have never spent even half of what this one is costing me!

Urghhh....not a fan of Plymouth- Roscoff overnight, simply because I can't sleep if I know I'm going to have to wake up early...and that bloody intercom address waking you up at 5.00am....nooooo! But then again, I only live 2 hours from Plymouth (and 4 from Portsmouth)

Sod driving to France with a boot full of camping shite! You don’t need to. Depends where you’re flying from but just check Ryanair prices and then on the hotels dot com booking sites for camping villages.

You can travel with hand luggage only, you get plenty in a small backpack and it gets easier the more you do it. If you really can’t then as £100 to this price for a case between you.

18th August Ryanair to Pisa and a 2 bedroom bungalow for £1500 all in. The beauty of Pisa is that you are a €1 bus ride from the airport and there’s stuff to see. You can also travel on bus or train really easily to Florence and other cities. This campsite has bbq grills you can use too and is a 13 minute walk from the leaning tower etc.

That's unnecessarily rude.

Some of us prefer to drive with "a boot full of camping shite".

Some of us also wouldn't consider £1500 for a week in a mobile home much of a bargain.

(And some of us, knowing Pisa and its suburbs reasonably well, might question whether somewhere 13 minutes walk from the Campo dei Miracoli- in August- would be a good choice).

Well obviously. But the OP had already looked at European caravan holidays and thought about trying to find one less than £2500. So I found her one.

If she needs to ask if you take your own tent then I doubt she would enjoy it much and it’s always more expensive than you think.

As for the location, it’s literally along the main road and through the city centre. Hardly suggesting she walks through some crime ridden war zone 😂

I know Pisa, the weird pass agg suggestion I don’t is quite amusing, the bungalows there are also clean and relatively roomy. The OP is on a budget, the kids will love seeing the leaning tower and I suspect they’ll be less snobby about it. It’s a budget holiday, calm down

It's less of an opportunity since Brexit, but one of the big advantages of driving is the opportunity to bring back things which are either much cheaper in France (wine etc) or simply not available in the UK, or both.

Yeah, but would you walk along a main road (presumably at least partially unshaded) in the heat of a Tuscan noon when the temperatures hover around 40 degrees?

There's nothing wrong with Pisa, but outside the Campo dei Miracoli it's a very ordinary Italian town. The Campo dei Miracoli is wonderful, but also pretty crowded, with a very chaotic bit full of tat stalls to pass through before you get there, and no shade. And it's not particularly close to the centre of town. I wouldn't base a holiday around it- if I was having a car free holiday I'd want something like a nice village centre or a beach within (easy, shaded) walking distance.