Holiday costs

Bluegal with you on that and for whose benefit is an overseas holiday really for.? Surely sea and sand are the same whether abroad or in the UK, Isn't this what kids want so why spend all that money on going abroad.

I agree with Jalima, very fair comments Jalima. We also used to take our children camping, we started off with a trailer tent, and then later bought a lovely caravan. We went all over Europe with it. Obviously cross channel ferries were a lot more expensive during the summer holidays, also some camp site fees (those near the sea or with swimming pools) were more expensive than out of season, but the children were happy, had room to run around, and we could go wherever the fancy took us, though we did book ahead for any camping sites which were high facility. At that stage in our lives we never fancied big hotels with over crowded pools and restaurants. We still don’t actually and we usually find lovely apartments run by private individuals for summer holidays, we use villas if we go with one of our children, and we use nice hotels for city breaks. But some families like big hotels with lots of facilities and yes they are being ripped off if they travel in school holidays.

Actually gillybob, camping holidays never were cheap. The cost of the tent, trailer tent, or caravan was never cheap, though I believe tents can be cheaper now. Then all the equipment cost quite a lot. We fully equipped our caravan with a melamine dinner service, pans, all kitchen utensils, towels, sleeping bags, pillows, gas bottles, spare tyre, and a lot more, and then taking the car and caravan across the channel was actually much more expensive back in the day, plus camp site fees, petrol, food and meals out etc which would all be covered under an all inclusive hotel, it just wasn’t for us, but lots of families like it as they know the total price and there are no extras. Camping is only cheap if you buy a two man tent from Argos, a tiny camping stove, a couple of sleeping bags, and then rough it. Probably most young families wouldn’t want to do that, we certainly didn’t.

I think the other way round, hotels give discounts out of peak times to keep people going to the resorts, hotels, holiday parks etc. Ensuring that they can stay open and continue to pay/employ their staff. Which also benefits the wider community, providing food stuffs, local craftsmen who sell to holiday makers and additional leisure activities.

Surely it is unreasonable to expect people in the travel/leisure industry to survive only on 'school holiday' travellers, in UK and elsewhere.

My DGC are currently having a great holiday at two different holiday parks on the Welsh coast. Their friends are on a week luxury all-inclusive in Turkey - £5000 for the family of four.

You pays your money and you takes your choice, but I think I’d have picked the cheap over the expensive for very young children, even if money was no object.

As for children living in a seaside town never having been to the beach, gilly, there must surely be more going on there. We had children at the school where I worked who would never have left the street where they lived if it wasn’t for school trips. That wasn’t due to lack of money - they could have been walked into town and found free things to do there. I really don’t know what the answer is, but I do know language and parenting classes at the local Sure Start centre (now a distant memory) were helping.

Husband was in the merchant navy so not home necessarily in the school holidays, and only home for two to three months after five to six months away. He wasn't so keen to go abroad on holiday as was away most of the time. We went to visit him on the ship at various places when they came to a port we could get to, around the UK or the Netherlands. But on two occasions we house-swopped, once in France and once in Florida, which only cost the fares and daily food etc was the same as if we were at home as we shopped locally and cooked. Ok we did eat out and travel around. We drove to the French swop so had the car and hired one in the US. We did take the two daughters, 13 and 15, to Disney while in the US and they loved it .

When I was a child I was sent a few times to a holiday school in the UK for anything from one to three weeks. It was in Bournemouth at first and the older ones were in the Isle of Wight. We went to the beach, saw local sights and went to the hops. I was an only child so it meant I was able to enjoy the company.

Older grandson has been away camping with Woodcraft Folk 4 years running and that meant a walking/activity holiday, but without parents. As holiday school and Woodcraft camp are for kids in the holidays there are no extra charges.

Companies running holidays, whether luxury packages overseas, camping holidays, or walking holidays, all have costs in arranging these holidays, maintaining accommodation and facilities, paying staff etc etc and maintaining themselves. All this costs money, a lot of money.

At times of high demand, staff and owners of facilities work all hours and run themselves ragged to provide for all the extra visitors, However most facilities have low seasons as well as high seasons, when accommodation is underused. Obviously owners will charge more when lots of people want to visit and lower when they want to entice people to visit.

It is the same if you want strawberries at Christmas, they will cost a lot more than strawberries in June. So you cannot get holidays on the cheap, unless you are happy for everyone involved in the holiday industry to live at benefit level and rely on Food Banks and that surely is the reverse of the socially minded principles of so many of those pleading so movingly for holidays to be much cheaper so that more of the poor can go away.

I have heard the OP view many times. Capitalist companies make decisions based on supply and demand, not fair and unfair. I understand the frustration, but it is simply an unchangeable feature of Capitalism.

Always been the same. My husband was a teacher, we had three children, no way could we have gone on holiday out of term, just had to get on with it I'm afraid. It's not fair but there we go (excuse the pun).

momof3. There is nobody ripping anyone off! People are told the price and what it includes. Up to people if they want to pay it! It’s business. It’s life. I find your comments rather odd? Very often no two parties on the same holiday would have paid exactly the same anyway - again it’s business - it happens and peak times will always be more expensive. But ripping off? Being ripped off would be paying for a holiday that doesn’t exist imo ?

I think one of the sad things is that school foreign trips are so expensive and the poorest children cannot afford it. At our local primary the PSA fund raise to try and make sure that every child gets to go on every trip. But once they get to secondary school it can be a big problem for families on low incomes.

I have to say that school did not arrange foreign trips when I was young - the Lake District was as far as we got - and I got blisters on Day One on the walk from the station to the Youth Hostel!

Put yourself in the position of the poor mathematics teacher who has the unenviable position of trying to teach a class of children at the same time as trying to explain the work that the child /children returning from a term time holiday has missed.

It's interesting to hear about the TUI holidays costing less from other parts of Europe.

The same thing happens with flights - the same airline will charge less from the UK to Australia return than it does from Australia to the UK.

Lancslass yes, but the same thing will happen if children are off ill - eg if a virus goes through the school and one after another are off ill.
I remember that happening years ago with Asian flu.

Camping equipment may be expensive initially but it can be used more than once. The best thing we ever did when our children were small and we lived in a London flat was to buy a caravan and based it in Kent. Not only could we use it during the summer holidays but weekends even during the winter. We towed it off during my husband’s holidays but the children missed their friends.

The thing about camping is that
a) you have to have a car
b) it probably needs to be a large car
c) or you have to have a trailer.

We had a car and DH made a trailer when our DC were small but not everyone is as fortunate.

Posters talk about the 'simple' holidays they had when they were children, going off in campervans, camping etc.

We didn't have a car when I was growing up, so anywhere we did go was by coach or train.

gillybob I think you're very fortunate living near the coast and that you're able to take your DGC to the beach. I do miss living near the sea.

and if we went for a picnic or short trips in the holidays we went on our bikes. Mum would pack the basket on the front of her bike with sandwiches etc, we would carry drinks in ours and off we went.

When I was a child we got a family of 8 and all camping equipment into what I think was called a shooting break. No, you don't need a load of expensive camping equipment to have fun. My parents had a thing about finding Roman remains but we often didn't find them and it became a search for Roaming remains! We never ate out but did have a fish and chip meal once a holiday as a big treat.

I don't think a little deprivation necessarily does any harm, it makes a child appreciate things when they eventually get them and it gives them an incentive to work and save for things. If they get everything easily when they are young they grow up feeling entitled to things. I'll never forget DS2's face when I told him to tell his teacher (out of school activity) that he would not be there next week as I had just booked a last minute holiday to Majorca and he would be going on a plane. He was about 10 and didn't at first believe me as it was something he never thought he would do. When I booked that holiday it was for the next day and all I knew was that we were flying to Majorca, the rest we found out when we got there! I don't think such great deals are around these days but if you are not fussy where you go and what sort of accommodation you have I'm sure there are some great deals to be had.

I'm sad that gilly feels the need to keep telling us about those who are hard up. Yes, of course there are people in this situation, I think we all know that and we have always known it. There will always be people who can't afford things whether it be holidays or homes but surely that should not mean that those who can afford things should not have them? Those of us who have time to post on here day in and day out, at all times of the day are clearly not needing to work all hours to make ends meet but it doesn't mean we don't care about those who have to. It is however, a bit hard to understand those who are significantly better off than us and those who are significantly poorer than us unless we have been there.

Has anyone thought that maybe the holiday season is the normal price, and that holiday home owners have to drop the price off season to attract customers?

That is my understanding of how the pricing works.

I'm not correcting your spelling Nonnie but I think they were called 'shooting brakes'. DB had one - it was just a small one, a Morris Minor shooting brake and they used to put a mattress in the back so the DC could sleep whilst they travelled, bags stuffed all around them!. No seat belts in those days.

And a nice post, Nonnie.
Yes, there are children who never go on holiday at all and I know there used to be schemes to give these children a break at the seaside. I don't know if these schemes still exist.

Thanks Jalima I wasn't even sure I had the terminology right, let alone the spelling! I've just remembered all the things we did in the car to make the journey go quicker, so many songs which I still remember and some verses which we made up as we went along. I was, and still am, terribly car sick so we had to make frequent stops for me to throw up which I had completely forgotten until now although I remember all the good things about those hols.

I have to agree with Jane10, Nonnie and others! As they (used to?) say - cut your clothes to suit your cloth!

Jalimal108
Re your comment made at 12.40 mentioning that the same thing happens when a child returns from illness.
Indeed you are right
However parents are not keeping a sick child away from school by choice.
Foreign holidays are not necessary for a good education
I wonder if the children who are being taken out of school would rather not miss the work with which they are going have to catch up when they return to their lessons.

I and my brother were lucky in that my dad was a headmaster and we (together with mum) got to go on holiday with him to Colomendy, N Wales, to a camp site which catered for overseas and home schoolchildren of varying ages.
They were housed in wooden chalet dorms but each teacher had a separate family room at the front of each building. It was an exciting two weeks with long 'leat' walks and trips to an old-fashioned tuck shop, mushroom gathering at 5am (supervised) and evening songs round a campfire after supper, with a group of German older teens and their tutors.
We ate with my parents in the formal dining room (all starched cloths and napkins) but would have preferred to eat with the other children.
I can even remember cheeky Bobby Thomas who grew up to own a fruit importing company and sent my parents a crate of fruit every Christmas.
Great days.
We also rented holiday cottages in Betwys, Farndon and on Deeside where we messed about in boats and went for milk, butter and eggs to local farms. Those were the days...