An annual holiday budget of £2,400 total, for two adults and a child, in the school holidays, doesn't go very far. We are just extremely grateful to be able to get away, every year, to a beautiful town, with wonderful people, excellent food and consistently decent weather, for a nice break. We love slipping into the Mediterranean way of life, we're trying to teach ourselves the language, and our little one is learning with us. It's like a home from home, and we try to adopt the Spanish ways as best we can. As for the activities, jumping on the bus to a random place or hiring a car and exploring the mountains is great fun but, sometimes, teaching our little one to swim in the pool or taking him to the park where he plays with the local children is just as rewarding. We get really quality family time together. I feel we're really fortunate and I'm so grateful to my parents for giving us that opportunity. If they hadn't bought the apartment, we wouldn't have been able to go away for many years.
As a child (and into my twenties, because my parents still took me away at that age!), we never holidayed in Spain but they bought the apartment so they, my brother and I would always be able to get away, as well as giving them somewhere to go as they get older and find it harder to get around. Sometimes, we all go together, other times we go on our own. Either way, it's fantastic.
When my husband and I met, my parents didn't have the apartment and we couldn't afford a holiday. After 4 years together, I managed to put together a week in Croatia in the summer holidays for £700 (that was flights, accommodation and spending money). For our honeymoon, the following year, we went to Vietnam for 3.5 weeks for £4k (flights, accommodation, cruise, spending money) all booked independently. After that, we didn't go abroad for 5 years (save for two, very cheap, long weekends in Poland with family and friends for their big birthdays - accommodation worked out at £10pp per night!) because we couldn't afford it. We saved and had 3.5 weeks travelling around Indoneisa and Singapore, again on a budget of £4k (within that we had 10+ flights, stayed in incredible places, chartered a boat to Komodo Island etc) outside of the budget, we had a couple of nights staying at Raffles and two fine dining meals - obviously, we didn't need to do those things but we were able to as a "once in a lifetime opportunity". The following year we both had big birthdays so my husband took me to Russia (Moscow) and I took him to Austria (Vienna). We then had a final holiday to Greece (cheap as we could find, SC - 2* apartment in a little village in the hills) which still came out at £4k for two weeks with flights, accommodation and spending money, just as COVID hit.
Baby arrived two years later.
Thinking of places I have been on holiday to / travelled... England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Ireland, Poland, Andorra, Hong Kong, Macau, Cyprus, Spain, Turkey, Madeira, Italy, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Venezuela, Barbados, China, France, Greece, Indonesia, Singapore, Vietnam, Sri Lanka... And wherever else I've missed. I'm in my 30s so I think that's pretty good going - I feel extremely fortunate to have seen the parts of the world I've managed to make it to. I'd love to travel more but the reality is that we don't have thousands of pounds spare. Whilst I think travel is important, it must be remembered it is a luxury and not an entitlement.
We've done all the "right" things... Pursued education for our careers (so we have university and post-graduate debt), never rented, bought our house, bought our cars outright, no loans, no finance, waited until we could afford a child before having one etc. Despite having good jobs, once we've done all of that, there is very little left over for travel.
We would, for example, love a second child but I'm not sure how we'd afford the maternity leave. That's our reality.
I hope that helps you with being baffled by our choice to holiday in Spain every year.