4 Ways to Reduce the Cost of Family Holidays: Experts state that just one week away for a family of four can cost almost $9,500 if you don’t watch your spending. And, as anyone who’s used to traveling with kids will tell you, it’s surprisingly easy to reach those staggering heights. From flights to hotels, and additional spending for meals out and excursions, taking your kids anywhere can cost a good few months of your earnings.
Keep on reading to find out how to make family travel affordable at last.
Research transport options
When you’re heading abroad, a plane will typically feel like the most obvious transportation option. It’s certainly the most convenient, fast choice. Unfortunately, flights are also expensive, especially if you need to add things like car seats to your travel costs. Pile on extras like luggage, and flight expenses could quickly outstrip what you intended to spend on your trip overall. You can overcome this by taking time to research your transport options in full. For instance, options like overnight trains, while expensive upfront, can save the need for things like additional luggage payments, and even hotel stays during any stopovers. Equally, if there’s a boat available for a trip closer to home, you could cut costs in half, particularly if you already own what you need and only have to factor in basics like fuel and boat cleaning supplies. Even with flights, researching choices like late night flights or last-minute deals, could save you significant amounts of money.
Choose cheap destinations
When trying to get a feel for whether or not a location is affordable, make sure you look at costs on the whole. It would be a false economy to find a cheap hotel in a location with food and excursion costs that are through the roof. To make this a truly affordable option, seek somewhere that can keep costs down across the spending board.
Earn as you travel
The idea of earning as you travel might not be the most appealing thing when you’re trying to have fun with your family. However, some great on-the-go earning opportunities could pay for your entire trip without requiring much legwork. Travel blogging is an obvious choice right now, and there’s a huge market for family-based travel blogs that consider things like to do lists in certain destinations, or even the affordability of any given location. Equally, by taking a computer along with you on your trip, you could manage to sell stuff you’ve got lying around the house or even sell worksheets or crafts that could fund you as you go. Just make sure you check out local postage or have someone back home who can send off anything you sell while you’re away.
Choose all-inclusive
Finally, choosing all-inclusive travel is one of the best things you can do to keep vacation costs down, especially if you’re traveling as a family of four. This option does have the downside of looking more expensive on paper, but the inclusion of food and drink in accommodation costs can quickly pay off during your stay. In fact, with vacation food costing an average of $75 per person per day in even an affordable location, you stand to save a few thousand during a four-person week away.
