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Budget travel tips for families

Updated June 2024

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Getting Started

We often get asked how are we able to afford to travel, especially with children. We do not have a trust fund set up in our names and we are certainly not millionaires (yet-still hopeful!). However, we live our lives in a way that allows us the freedom and opportunity to travel. One way we are able to travel is by travelling on a budget. Now, when I say budget I really do mean a small budget! It's really interesting hearing what other peoples version of budget is. At the start of the year we went on an epic 3 month European road trip with a budget of £3000. When we travel, whether it is in the van or backpacking we always follow these key things to allow us to travel on a budget... 

Free Park ups

When we are travelling around in our van, we are always looking out for free park ups. In order to save money, we very rarely use a campsite unless we become desperate for a hot shower or need to do laundry (we do have a shower on the outside of the van but it becomes difficult when parking on the side of the road!). Even then, we will only stay for a max of 2 nights. Depending on where we are travelling will depend on how easy it is to find a park up and what type of park up it is. We found Spain and Portugal to be the best for finding free park ups and some of them were so beautiful we couldn't believe they were free! When looking for free park ups, we tend to use apps like Park4night and Google Earth. 

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Side note: Please ensure that you are respectful to area around you. Make sure you leave no trace of you ever being there!

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Budget Accommodation

By choosing budget accommodation, you then end up having some extra pennies that you can put towards other things like trips & days out or eating out. My philosophy is that I would much rather pay less for accommodation and potentially have the money to travel to 2 places over spending the time in just one place. My top tip for budget travel is to avoid package holidays at all costs. I am always looking and comparing deals and I have never come across a great budget package holiday. I therefore always book flights and accommodation separately. When booking accommodation I always use booking.com or Airbnb.

Use public transport

Ok so this one might not always be possible. But if you are able to, then I highly recommend in doing so. Not only is it normally much cheaper than a private taxi, you get to experience so much more. Our children love catching local busses and trains and for them its all part of the adventure. Places like Netherlands allow children on public transport for free and in Luxembourg public transport is free for everyone! During our recent trip to Bodrum, Turkey, we paid just 50p each to use the local bus!

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Limit eating out

As big foodies, this is one thing that we really struggle with. However, we have definitely got better and we have been able to see the impact on our spending. Eating out as a family of 4 can cost a lot of money, especially when you throw a cheeky cocktail or glass of wine in the mix. I actually enjoy cooking and I love having a mooch around the local markets picking up fresh food to cook with. Things like pasta, rice and noodles are fairly accessible in every country and are a great staple to have with you when travelling. Then you can just pick up what you can find to make meals with those ingredients.

Enjoy the FREE things

It is easy to feel a lot of pressure to pack as much as you possibly can into your itinerary. Social media also doesn't help, throwing out pictures and reels of beautiful places around the world that you feel you must visit. The truth is, when you are travelling with kids, most children struggle with jam packed itineraries. My boys love a chilled day at the beach or a great park to explore. They do not always need to be up at the crack of dawn on a guided tour across 5 different locations. Whilst in Barcelona, my boys were happy with the free things that Barcelona had to offer. In Luxembourg, they loved catching the free train into the city and in the French Alps, they loved sledging down the snowy banks- they didn't need expensive ski lessons.

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About 4intheVan

We are a family of 4 living and travelling full time in our self converted Luton van. 
Our aim is to provide other families information, guides and top tips to help them on their next adventure, whether that's world travel, van life or home education.

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