Travelling with children can be a fun and exciting experience, but can also get pretty expensive. Between the added expenses of food, accommodation and activities, the cost of travelling with your kids can easily add up.
But with a little bit of planning and creativity, it’s possible to enjoy a family holiday without breaking the bank. This blog will highlight some useful tips and tricks for travelling on a budget, along with some purse-friendly destination options for you and your family.
Whether you're planning a road trip, a weekend getaway or a week-long vacation, these tips will help you save money while creating great holiday memories.
Tips to travel with kids on a budget
Holidays don’t have to be this huge expense. If you learn to properly set up a holiday budget and stick to it, you can end up saving loads of money. The following tips will help families travel for less.
Eat in
Aside from the actual cost of the holiday itself, one of the major costs of travelling is going to expensive restaurants and eating out. This can easily be avoided by choosing a self-catered property for your vacation and shopping in local grocery stores for ingredients.
Cooking together can become a fun part of your holiday and keep your costs low while you’re away.
Go all-inclusive!
Picking an all-inclusive resort can be a good way to avoid additional spending while on your holiday. Although the initial price of the holiday will probably be more, you can relax once you get there and not have to worry about additional bills.
When all the food and drink is included, you can enjoy yourself and not have to worry about paying more unless you’re planning on going for activities or to restaurants outside of the resort.
Take the ferry
Ferries are often a cheaper alternative to flights for getting to your destination. The tickets are often much cheaper than flight tickets, and once you’ve chosen the ferry as your transport, you can bring your car with you and save on car hire fees.
If you're taking the ferry, you also won’t have to worry about luggage costs! Usually, on a plane, you can only bring 20kg of luggage with no additional charges, but on a ferry, you can bring an unlimited amount of luggage in your car without running up additional costs.
Go outside of school holidays
Travelling outside of holiday times is the best way of getting cheaper deals on resorts. This is a great option if you have kids under four, or if you have older kids, you could even write to their schools and try to get permission for holidays during the term.
Check out free activities
Taking the whole family on expensive activities during a holiday can also add up to be a huge expense. If you take some time to do some research, you should be able to find plenty of free and low-cost activities to do.
Museums, beach and pool days, and hikes are all activities you could do on your holiday that will either be free or very low-cost. Some resorts also offer a free kids club which gives your kids a bunch of fun activities to do on your holiday.
Think about your destination
One of the best ways to travel on a budget is to pick out a cheap destination. A destination can be cheap for a bunch of reasons, like the travel cost, accommodation, or prices of food and activities. But the ideal budget-friendly destination would be one where all three of these are cheap.
There are plenty of cheap and low-budget places to travel with your family. This blog has rounded up some of the best options for travelling for less with your kids.
The best places to travel with kids
There are many different destinations that are a cheaper option for travelling with your kids. Here are some of our favourite picks that will help you keep your wallet in mind while planning your holiday.
France
France can be a great place to travel on a budget. It can be cheap to get there because you can take the ferry and not have to worry about plane ticket prices or overweight luggage fees. There are many different cheap places to stay, and if you’re staying in a budget-friendly area, there can be lots of cheap places to eat.
The more popular destinations like Paris, Nice and Bordeaux can be super expensive, but there are many lesser-known destinations that are great for a trip on a budget, like Saint-Florent, Cassis and Saint-Brieuc.
Spain
Spain is a beautiful country that you can visit and enjoy while keeping your spending in check. There are many cheap flights available from the UK to Spain, so you wouldn’t have to worry too much about travel costs. If you're staying in a cheaper area, it’s possible to find lots of well-priced meals and activities to do.
By avoiding the areas that are visited more, like Barcelona, Madrid or Ibiza, and instead visiting less popular destinations like Marbella, Costa Brava or Santa Cruz de Tenerife, you can travel to Spain on a budget.
Portugal
Portugal is often a cheaper Western European holiday destination that can be an alternative to other destinations like France and Spain. There are many cheap flight options to get there and many low-budget restaurants.
If you can find the right hotels in Lisbon, it can affordable to stay there, or you could go for the lesser-known options like Porto or Lagos.
Hungary
Hungary is a great option for travelling on a budget. It can act as a good base destination to visit other cities by rail, such as Krakow in Poland. The train tickets around Europe are often way more affordable than in the UK.
There are many cheap flights available to Budapest, the capital city, where you can even find cheap accommodation even though’s a popular destination. There of lots of different cheap places to eat and affordable activities to do there.
But there are really many different places to visit within Hungry, like Tihany, a historical village, or Lillafured, where you can go for hikes up into the mountains.
Vietnam
Vietnam is a cheap option all around. The travel costs, accommodation, and prices of food and activities are all reasonably priced. The most expensive price of visiting Vietnam will probably be the flights, but once you’re there, it can be a very cheap holiday.
There are many different adventures you could take your kids on in Vietnam. You could visit the turquoise waters of Halong Bay, hike through Cat Ba Island, or cruise the Mekong Delta.
Cuba
Cuba can be a great option for a holiday on a budget because the accommodation is cheap, and there are many cheap places to eat and well-priced activities for all the family to do. Like Vietnam, the most expensive cost will probably be the flights, but once you get there, it can be a good budget-friendly destination.
Travel with kids on a budget with the HyperJar Travel Card
There are many different tricks you can use to make travelling with your kids more budget-friendly, like eating-in, looking out for free activities, or choosing the right destinations. By being more aware of the big costs of travelling, you can avoid spending too much money on unnecessary expenses like expensive restaurants or activities.
The HyperJar Prepaid Travel Card is a good tool to use if you're planning on setting a budget and sticking to it. This card can also save you money on fees and exchange rates, as there are zero fees for spending in any currency. Our card also has fantastic travel features that help you stay on track with your spending limits whilst abroad.
HyperJar can also help you with saving money for travelling before your trip. By using the HyperJar app, you can plan out your travel budget and set up savings jars to set aside cash for accommodation and travel costs.
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