How much do holidays cost?

Yellow_mango

We have just returned from a holiday - 2 weeks in France, with 5 people (2 adults, 2 teens and an 8yo) and a dog.

I’ve just added up how much it cost and it came to around £4,250 all in. That’s absolutely everything, accommodation, food, petrol, tolls, activities etc. So that works out around £61pppn.

That feels like an awful lot to me, although i don’t think we were particularly extravagant with anything. So I was just wondering how the cost compares with what other people spend. Or to put another way, is there anything else could we have done for a similar or lower cost? Or is that just what holidays with a family cost?

I googled and found a few figures which suggest what we spent is probably below average, but I guess people on here may not be “average” in this regard!

cubegame

It'd be unusual if we spent less than that for two of us......but we do lots!

Having said that we don't generally drink alcohol. I dread to think what we'd spend if we were knocking back a couple of bottles of wine with each meal!

maman

I think that's really good value. Although the majority of our holidays are DIY, I use £100 per day as a yardstick for value for money when I'm looking at packages. If it's less than that then I think it's cheap.

So, for example, European city breaks of perhaps 6 nights for less than £600 per person (including flights, hotel and breakfast) would be good value IMO.

I'd add to that eating out so it would cost us way more than your figure. Although my costings are for adults and it does seem expensive for a child especially an 8 year old although by going in what's term time for most children you've saved a bit compared with peak time.

steve1500

it won't have helped that the £ is so weak against the Euro

Kernow666

I've just worked out my last 2 holiday from this year as I am one of those who costs everything


1st was 2 weeks in Thailand


flight £436
travel to airport ( train and Heathrow express ) £106
15 nights hotels - £304
3 internal flights - £94
food & drink - £170
day trips - £135
bus-train-taxi costs - £33
other expenses ( gifts - sim card - clothes - duty free ) £167


total £1445 less than £100 a day


my second trip was to naples & bari


flight - £61
parking - £36
fuel - £30
7 nights B&B - £85
food - drink - transport ( bus & train & entrance fees ) £210


total £422 - around £60 per day

Pollycat

I think you've asked a 'how long is a piece of string' question.

I can't comment on your costs as I've no idea what you ate and drank during your holiday and that forms a large part of our total holiday spends.

We budget 100 euro per day for the 2 of us to cover a basic breakfast in the apartment and lunch & dinner out. With wine/beers and no stinting on menu choice. Fresh fish, prawns - whatever we fancy.
On our last 2 week holiday to Greece we spent 1200 euro. Plus 60 euro on an excursion which we put on our credit card.

Our holiday cost a tad under £1000 for both of us including luggage and transfers.

That doesn't include the cost of getting to and from the UK airport.

You could check out the prices of various AI packages with TUI, Jet2 etc or look at self catering and estimate what you'd spend on food and drink.
For example, you could pay just over £5k for 2 weeks in Greece on an all-inclusive basis.
And add on the cost of someone looking after your dog for 2 weeks.


For 3 weeks in Bali we spent £1150 on flights, £1000 on accommodation and £1000 spends - roughly.

LilElvis

11 nights in an "apartotel" in the Costa Del Sol next month for 2 adults and 1 9 year old works out at £ 87.42 pppn. That's apartment rent, flights and car hire - nothing else.

I never add anything up after the basic accommodation and travel costs! We would be eating and drinking, driving cars and taking our daughter out of we were at home.

Pollycat

LilElvis wrote: »

11 nights in an "apartotel" in the Costa Del Sol next month for 2 adults and 1 9 year old works out at £ 87.42 pppn. That's apartment rent, flights and car hire - nothing else.

I never add anything up after the basic accommodation and travel costs! We would be eating and drinking, driving cars and taking our daughter out of we were at home.

I just like to record 'total cost of holiday' out of curiosity (I'm a bit anal, TBH ).

I once worked out that a holiday we had in Turkey - flights, self catering accommodation, spends (not including the odd bit of jewellery - as you do ) - cost pretty much the same as if we'd stayed in one of the all inclusive hotels in the resort.
The plus for us was we ate what we wanted, when we wanted, where we wanted.

We wouldn't eat and drink the same if we were at home so I personally don't consider the costs the same.
Just my opinion.

Yellow_mango

Thank you all - this is really interesting.

I know it’s a bit apples and pears, but it kind of feels like we’re trying to save money by DIYing it - driving, self catering, limiting eating out etc. But when we add it all up it’s actually costing as much as going all inclusive somewhere. Obviously we’re not getting the exact same thing, but it’s quite a lot more stress and effort, for what could be little to no cost saving benefit.

We ate dinner out I think 4 times over the 2 weeks. Plus a few fast food lunches whilst travelling. Mostly we cooked and made sandwiches etc. The food and entertainment “spending” portion of this (as opposed to pre-booked accommodation and travel) was around £1800, or £900pw, so definitely more than our “basic” everyday £200pw budget. Though I guess I could deduct £400 from my total to account for the fact we didn’t spend that.

I think I’m basically just struggling to get my head around spending £4-5k on a 2 week holiday full stop. I need to get over that and accept that’s what it costs, save for it, then I can relax and enjoy it a little more!

LilElvis

Pollycat wrote: »

I just like to record 'total cost of holiday' out of curiosity (I'm a bit anal, TBH ).

I once worked out that a holiday we had in Turkey - flights, self catering accommodation, spends (not including the odd bit of jewellery - as you do ) - cost pretty much the same as if we'd stayed in one of the all inclusive hotels in the resort.
The plus for us was we ate what we wanted, when we wanted, where we wanted.

We wouldn't eat and drink the same if we were at home so I personally don't consider the costs the same.
Just my opinion.

I don't even know how much we spend on food and drink when we're at home! I shop twice a week for evening meals and my drink - 2 x Aldi or Lidl and 2 x M&S. Husband shops twice a week for his drink, bread/ milk, his lunch stuff, cleaning supplies and anything extra I need - Asda, Tesco and M&S. That's seven different shopping bills! As our holiday is in the school holidays our food bills would be higher than normal anyway - sprog needs feeding at lunchtime rather than school dinners and additional snacks, plus I take her out for lunch a couple of times a week (big fan of my Meerkat Meals app!). First day in Spain we will head to Lidl to get bread, milk, coffee, breakfast supplies, nibbles, the sprog's weekly fruit mountain and their copy mini-Magnums. Also some bargain San Miguel, wine and Sangria. After that the food will cost whatever ..... I love my food and particularly enjoy trying new things and eating things my husband isn't keen on so I only get to have on holiday/ eating out. I'm particularly looking forward to some Venetian style liver - I think it's about €20, but it would cost that much just to buy the liver in the UK as it's a huge plateful. My mouth is watering now!

Mrsn

We’re 2 adults and 2 kids here and off to costa del sol in October half term for 7 nights. We are on a half board basis but holiday was £1100 with another £250ish spending money, I consider that excellent value for money. The same package main summer holidays jumps up to around the 2k mark which would be still not too bad for this time of year