Ask any parent about their Summer holidays and they will generally have two comments. One will be about having the kids around 24/7 and how it was driving them bad towards the end of the holiday and the other will be about the cost of trying to do anything.
It doesn’t matter if you are taking your family away in the UK, abroad or to the moon the cost of having a holiday during peak season has been going up year after year and unless you are willing to go away during the term time you can often feel like you are being squeezed from every angle money wise by holiday companies.
The guys over at Bobatoo have actually surveyed over 2500 parents to try and get a better understanding of just how much the Summer holidays can cost you.
Some of the interesting stats that it shows include
Most parents took their family out for 5+ days at a time.
One of the best ‘value for money’ day out was the Beach which I’m sure will come as no surprise. I would say the only thing that seems to drive up the cost of going to the coast these days is both petrol and parking. As someone who grew up in Norwich the coast was only 20 odd minutes away and as a local I knew where we could park for free but those days are well and truly gone with I would say 90% of any seafront on the Norfolk coast being now Pay and Display.
Shockingly ‘Theme Parks’ were also in the top 5 for best value. This really surprised me as when you look at the true costs of places like Alton Towers and Thorpe Park the costs just seem to rack up as they upsell you FastPasses so you can do more in the day.
Sadly it seem that 46% of the people surveyed has already resigned themselves to pay even more next year. I think much like our utility bills the cost of having time away with our family during the Summer holiday is always going to rise and all we can do in the long term is plan for it. I’m a huge advocator of booking things a year or so ahead and then saving up. Yes you may not get any ‘last minute’ bargains but you will know where you stand financially when the Summer holiday begins and you aren’t scrapping around looking for things to do!
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