The Cost Per Day Of Travel And Holidays

I presume I'm like most people in sofar as I watch and track my spending and look for the best value where ever possible in most areas of my spending
In my day to day spending I feel that I get as good as you can when it comes to utilities, groceries and all the usual day to day household stuff
Other areas of my spending I'm a bit "Jekyll and Hyde" in what I would spend, like if my TV needed replacing today I'd have no problem dropping €3k on a new one
but at the same time I haven't had a takeaway pizza in four years as I just don't think their worth the price anymore, same with a coffee after a meal in a restaurant

But there is another area that I starting to question the price to value/enjoyment ratio and that is travel and holidays
This year we're doing two trips, Japan in April and an Irish road trip in September
Japan was a bucket list trip that Mrs C had originally planned for 2020 but only got around to it this year at a daily cost of €835 for 17 days
The 15 day road trip I hoping will come in and around the €300 to €350 per day which is a lot cheaper but still I feel is getting quite expensive

So my question is apart from bucket list holidays and I appreciate it's kind of asking how long is a piece of string and everybody has different dreams and expectations
But is there a price per day cost for a holiday that you wouldn't exceed or feel is too expensive for what your getting in return??

Cervelo said:

I presume I'm like most people in sofar as I watch and track my spending and look for the best value where ever possible in most areas of my spending

Click to expand...

I doubt that most people watch and track their spending to the extent that you do.


Most just look at their bank account to see how much they have left in it to spend.

We are doing a family trip to Hong Kong this year. Seven of us. I am paying for the lot and will spend up to €20k. We are travelling Economy premium class and will spend an average of €200 per night per hotel room. Some nights the rooms will cost more some nights less. We will be staying in five different hotels in different locations.
Trying to get three rooms per night in some hotels is proving difficult unless I upgrade the standard of room. Because I am naturally a frugal person it has been difficult not to be frugal and I have had to fight it.
Like yourself Cervelo I look for the best value in all areas of my spending and I am pretty good at it. Make do and mend over the years has worked well and given us the funds to splash where we want. Holidays is where we splash.
I am a similar age to yourself and I know if I don't spend it now and create memories for my wife and I and our family it will all end up being paid in inheritance tax.
Regarding the Pizza, we usually wait until Milano has one of their "specials" available, buy one get one free type of thing....I don't drink coffee, I don't like it but will have one on a social occasion. I can't bring myself to pay €3 for a tea bag either. Our local fish and chip shop has specials on a Wednesday. I am already scouring Ryanair for 2026 flight prices where available and have homed in on a few dates and locations.
Neither my wife or I spend on ourselves...no bling, no fancy cars, no fancy clothes (happy with Dunnes) we get enjoyment spending on our family and helping them out as needs be.
When it comes to holidays I feel that we are going in the opposite direction to you and actually increasing our spend, within reason. Better hotels in better locations. Better quality of room in the hotel......although when eating out we are happy with the Menu del Dia or Plat de Jour. We actually don't count what we spend on holiday as we are careful enough with other stuff throughout the year.

Good question but of course depends on what your overall income is, I have come to the conclusion that no holiday is worth it to me right now. I went away last year for 5 days, just the standard want a bit of sun on my bones type and don't even remember the total cost but in the overall scheme of things wasn't an expensive holiday but don't even think it was worth it. Mind you the travel end of it alone is a pain.

I would be more inclined to take a trip in Ireland now but again prices are beyond ridiculous, I understand why but still it's just not value! As a lifelong dessert/cake lover I have now stopped having desserts when I eat out which used to be the highlight of the meal for me, I'm not paying nearly a tenner for a bog standard brownie and a scoop of supermarket ice cream or some other bought in generic dessert!

Well, here’s one leper who accounts for every penny and always did without being miserable. But, to keep on course of daily expenditure while on holidays we’d eat out three nights per each week. I enjoy my dessert and coffee while Mrs Lep enjoys her wine. Seldom would we have breakfast/lunch out but we enjoy tapas whenever we are in Spain. If our holiday was for 7/10 days we’d eat out every night.

Most Important:-
1. Before you even start your holiday consider parking charges at your airport, would public transport be cheaper. Even ask a friend to drop you at the airport and collect you when you return. You can return the favours too, if you have any sense.
2. Check with the travel company if any extras apply.
3. Use cash only. Tip at minimum.
4. Bring Barry’s Tea with you and use in apartment or hotel.
5. If you book a holiday privately double check on all charges before booking. There are many chancers out there.
6. I don’t get involved in round buying either. Probably my best ever decision.
7. While eating out and if approached by some person selling flowers, sunglasses, singing for tips etc I just ignore them.

Family of 4, 2 adults, 2 teenagers. Did the big trip to the US a couple of years ago and probably cost us about €15k but worth it.

• As a family, we would rarely if ever spend more then €100 for 4 to eat out. Italy was very cheap, 4 of us could easily eat out in Rome with a bottle of wine for €60-€70
• Air BnB has been great for keeping accomadation costs down. Easy enough to get something reasonable for around €150 a day for the 4 of us. Check if there is a supermarket nearby before booking one and that takes care of breakfast (and shopping is part of holiday experience)
• Try not to buy food at the airport

TBH honest, once flights and accom is paid for, there have been days where we have spent €400-€500 between us (Broadway show for example) and other days where we have spent nothing

This is entirely dependent on discretionary budget and priorities!

When I was a student, more than £50 a day all in would be extravagant. It was Megabus to Paris and sleeping in 20-man dorms.

These days I have an annual holiday budget of €5k that when you add up annual leave days and the weekends bookending the trips, it's probably about €150/day average. Maybe the most expensive days are €400 with nicer hotels, food and activities but others are cheaper.

By the way it'd be easier to get a comparison if you were asking per person costs. Is 835 pp or for the two of you?

To be blunt, no. We try to get the best value and have had very inexpensive holidays pre kids but now I don't have a threshold within reason.

I'm more of the what holiday do I want to go on rather than here's my holiday budget what can I do for it. I do tend to keep the same behaviours as at home, eg self catering cos I simply can't eat out too much, not spending on silly things so maybe that helps. For me a large part of the holiday is the research before hand, so I love finding free or almost free things to do, or things that are local so local prices.

I don't have a budget per holidays but I know we spend about 10 to 12k a year on travel over several trips for 4. We generally try to do self catering and bring a picnic for the day. We would not eat out regularly, once or a couple of times a week maximum. I just find that we are never coming across somewhere nice when we are looking for a restaurant. So we just always plan something and might stop on the go if we find somewhere pleasant. We haven't done very expensive holidays, the States a few years ago was the only one. Our budget has definitely increased over the years: I would not spend 3 weeks in a tent going around France with small kids anymore! In terms of accomodations, I often try to find a place with a pool and even an internal pool to please the youngest in our family. I don't have a specific budget for each trip. I spent 2 weeks in France earlier in the summer for 800 with one of my children. But am currently finishing to plan a family trip which should cost around 4k for a week. It really depends the type of things we are doing. Visiting a few cities with a road trip is much more costly for us than spending time near a beach or a pool.

I was going to start off a long reply on what we (my wife and I - no children) budget/spend/save on holidays etc.
But then I always remember something a friend of mine said one year - "we have enough stuff - we are spending our money on experiences, not things " And I agree with him.
We are close to 60/retirement, and if we don't spend it now, it will also be eaten up in inheritance tax.
We're in the fortunate position of not having to worry about money, because our lifestyle isn't extravagant, nor frugal.

And holidays are the main thing we won't save on. I would rather spend more and enjoy the experience, than not enjoy my holidays because I'm counting the pennies. (Not saying you do ). And I''ll be the first to admit that only paying for 2 on holidays, with the ability to go outside of school holidays, goes a long way.

Recently spent

Buddyboy said:

But then I always remember something a friend of mine said one year - "we have enough stuff - we are spending our money on experiences, not things " And I agree with him.

Click to expand...

This is the important part for me these days. Kids don't want for anything so rather spend the money on bringing the young lad to a match then getting him the latest team shirt.

Our trips can be expensive. But we shop around to make sure we are getting good value for the location. We have a very expensive (IMO) cruise from USA early 2026. I’ve scoured the internet for good value in hotels for a night or two at each end of the cruise. Essential to get over the flight and jet lag. Hotels are mad money so we’ve compromised as much as we can in terms of location and number of stars. That way I don’t feel ripped off. But within reason, I’m not travelling via turkey and staying in a hostel and lugging cases around busses, (cheapest flight to east coast USA was via turkey with a 6 hour layover!)

Other recent holidays have involved us funding accommodation for us and our adult kids and their partners. That’s expensive but totally worth it. We are doing such a trip in November. Much better than handing them expensive Christmas presents and hardly seeing them, they don’t live in Ireland. Meals out on those trips are expensive but we don’t care. We all love our food.

I worry about the amount we spend so we economise the rest of the year. I’d rather have fewer takeaways and nights out and see my kids.

I have lived 70 years spending only within my income. I need a budget, (€6000 a year) even for holidays.
Just before Covid hit I flew business class for the first time, and loved it, but now it doesn't make any sense. It's ten times the price of a night in a hotel to catch up on lost sleep.
I travel alone (would love a companion if anyone's in the same boat). Eating alone is no pleasure and I'm not picky about food.
I would take 4-6 trips a year to family in UK or Europe, ditto solo trips to European cities, to visit museums etc. And one big trip to Asia or further.
I would like to travel more around Ireland but food and accommodation is so expensive.

Cost per day (travel plus accomm & food) average across all, (some staying with family) about €100 per day.

Buddyboy said:

But then I always remember something a friend of mine said one year - "we have enough stuff - we are spending our money on experiences, not things

Click to expand...

Doing the same, we've built our holidays over the last couple of years around a specific event, a gig this year, a big match last year. Also built in a couple of weekend breaks for the next year or so.

Cervelo said:

Other areas of my spending I'm a bit "Jekyll and Hyde" in what I would spend, like if my TV needed replacing today I'd have no problem dropping €3k on a new one
but at the same time I haven't had a takeaway pizza in four years as I just don't think their worth the price anymore, same with a coffee after a meal in a restaurant

Click to expand...

I know people have different interests and find value in different things but this is a prime example of people sweating about the wrong things. How many times have we read "if you saved the cost of that daily cup of coffee, this is how much you'd have" and the answer is not very much and you'd deprive yourself of the little daily joys you get.

It is the big ticket items that you need to look out for, not the little ones.

As for holidays, I don't budget. We don't eat in Michelin star restaurants, so prices aren't crazy (ate out in the local pub last weekend and I couldn't believe the prices there!! ) but I don't like to not have that extra drink or desert if I want it.

Steven Barrett said:

I know people have different interests and find value in different things but this is a prime example of people sweating about the wrong things. How many times have we read "if you saved the cost of that daily cup of coffee, this is how much you'd have" and the answer is not very much and you'd deprive yourself of the little daily joys you get.

Click to expand...

I disagree with that. I find that budgeting is all about choices. I rarely take a cup of coffee out. While I enjoy my coffee, it costs a lot for what you get and I don't find it provides really much joy to me. Same thing about eating out if the food is not good enough. I recently went out to a place I go from time to time, the food wasn't bad, but it wasn't enough to me to justify the cost. I was fed but I can't say I really enjoyed the food. As mostly a one earner family, we did a lot of cutting on these extras to focus on what we really enjoy and what provides the most joy to us when the children were small and coffees, take aways... were really in the bottom of the list. Coffee is an example but there are multiple examples in daily life of things we consume for convenience, quick gratification... I don't think it is about cutting all of them but about realising what we are doing, making inform choices and focusing on what provide the most joy.
My son got his first job this summer and he is astonished on how much money he has already spent. He started the habit of getting his favorite drink daily (in the supermarket or on the go) as it provides him "joy". I pointed out several times during the summer how it would really eat in his budget. But it's really when we did the maths that it sank in and he realised it could take between 12.5 and 25 per cent of his summer earnings over the year. It certainly made him think!

2 Cappucinos + 2 scones + 2 butters cost me €17.00 recently in a local cafe. Never again though.

It doesn’t hurt to keep an eye on where your money is going.

But my mum used to be a misery guts to take out. Skip the end of meal drink and maybe dessert. So we’d spend €150.. save €15 on coffees and IMO spoil the night out. We started insisting and she realised it was a small % and also she didn’t need to save it.

I am not enamoured of my workplace at the moment, a fancy coffee makes me happy. Totally worth it. Sometimes you need the joy

A coffee break with an old friend… €17 .. totally worth it!

Annieindublin said:

A coffee break with an old friend… €17 .. totally worth it!

Click to expand...

But I would say it was about the friend more than the coffee. And I totally get that!
As for restaurant, I rarely take a desert or we share because a lot of the time (not always) the deserts are not that tasteful (in Ireland) or I don't need/want to eat more.
I don't say I cut on everything. I just make choices that make sense to me and a lot of these small things don't give me enough pleasure to make the cut.
As I said, our travel budget is 10 to 12k a year, I don't really feel hard done by but I know I wouldn't be able to spend that money on travelling or other things we enjoy or we need if I wasn't careful sometimes.