Great Britian daily Budget

Jim: Unfortunately, it depends--there's no black & white dollar figures we can give you that are guaranteed to be applicable to your situation: a family of four re cost per day for lodging and food. Our experiences traveling as couples or solo, or as families but in different situations with different preferences, probably won't be very accurate in helping you predict your costs. It depends, on several things, some of which you can somewhat influence and some you can't. One of the things you can't control has the biggest effect, the exchange rate, recently the rates have been volatile and your ultimate cost in dollars fluctates directly with the exchange rate. No one here can predict, or even have an accurate idea of, what the rate will be in June. You're a family of four and that changes things, a single or couple of adult travelers who are highly motivated budget travelers, well, their cost will be less than yours.Some of the best cost per day advice is in Rick's 2009 edition of his Europe Through The Backdoor, you may want to buy it.Lodging cost relates to: are you in big cities, like London, or in the countryside. Your food cost per day varies greatly: sit down/table cloth restaurants are more expensive, even pub grub these days is not cheap. Also, the age of your children influences food cost. And in some areas hotel/B&B rooms for four are difficult to get, so you might need two rooms, that will double your cost. Apartments are cheaper for four but often come with a certain minimum # of days. You probably want to be cautious about relying on reports from solo or couples adult travelers who are motivated to be what we call extreme budget travelers--that's good for them but their costs will not be something you can replicate.

That depends on a few different factors. Let's assume that the exchange rate stays around where it is now and $300 gets you about £200.

Are you looking for hotels or would you be okay staying in a hostel? Are you planning on going to nice restaurants every night or are you okay with pub food and picnics?

Most hotel rooms are for 2 people (unless you have two small children), so you'd have to book 2 rooms per night. In London, most hotels average £100/night. However, if you stay at an EasyHotel, you could stay for £25/night/room (2 people per room). (Completely no-frills, you don't even have a window.) You could also stay in a hostel and get a 4-bed room, but that will probably end up being about £25/person/night as well.

If you stay in a hotel, it's possible that breakfast will be included, but probably not. Figure £5/person for breakfast, £8/person for lunch (pub), and £10-15/person for dinner (Pizza Express or similar) and probably another £5/person for snacks and drinks.

If you stay at EasyHotel or Travelodge, you'll probably be fine with £200. If you stay at a hotel (similar to one of Rick's recs.) you'll need more cash.

Jim a lot is variable depending on how you live your life. Are you traveling with a 15 and 12 year old who don't want to stay with mom and dad? Or are you traveling with an 8 and 6 year old who are happy to curl up somewhere and sleep and one room is needed? Are you a family that insists on a bottle of wine with dinner? Or does some tap water do the trick? Can you get by on a snack for lunch?

What I will do is give you some guide points and suggestions to work from especially when outside Major Cities

1. If you will take a family room look at Travelodge especially when out on the road. The rooms are nothing special but they do have family rooms for 4 if you are okay with that for about 50 pounds

2. A good place if you are going to do 2 rooms for 2 is PTI. They are a competitor of Travelodge but in my opinion much nicer. Each room will be about 50 pounds. So you're spending 100 pounds on rooms and will have about 75-100 pounds on food

3. A lot of pubs offer 2 for 1 specials or buy 1 get one free.

4. For lunches wraps are very popular and affordable. You can find them not only at Grocery Stores (ASDA/TESCO/MORRISONS) but can find them at a lot of places on the High Street like Marks and Spencers or Even Boots. Resist the temptation to take overpriced ones from Coffee Houses.

My daughters are 13 & 15 and easy travelers. I understand that eating and lodging in England is expensive. With this in mind my plan is to stay at a B&B with breakfast, lunch would be a picnic type, (buy fruit, drinks and cold cuts at the grocery and eat in a park). The evening meal could be pub grub or an occasional restaurant. Hopefully this could be accomplished for $300.

Thanks for any input you may have

Jim

I agree with Kent - there isn't really a way to predict. My wife and I went this past summer (we did England, Scotland, and Wales) and we used Rick's figures in his guidebook to figure out how much to budget for food.

What I found useful was to use Rick's figures to decide on a cost per day per person for food (you have to go with his formula as there isn't really a way for you to know as it isn't a place you frequent). Then figure out where you want to stay and budget that. Then look at what you want to do and figure those costs against how much money you have left.

Of course, as Kent points out, there is no way to know how all of this will be affected by exchange rates, but you will get a rough estimate.

For me personally, figuring out a "daily rate" for everything wasn't helpful and didn't make sense. You'll be paying for your beds ahead of time (presumably) and your tourist attraction entrance fees aren't necessarily a "daily" cost (i.e. you may do 3 things with entrance fees one day and go on a free hike and pay nothing the next). So it made more sense to me to just put aside the money for food. Estimate on the conservative end (i.e. have more money than you might need) and then adjust your budget as you are there and start to get a feel for how much things cost.

I will add, though, that my wife and I went way cheaper per day per person than Rick suggests. However, we are both fairly simple in our food tastes. We mostly ate at sandwich shops for lunch and bought fruit and pastries for breakfasts. The Mr. Sandwich (with a GBP sign for the 's' in sandwich) in York was great. I think we literally spent less than $10 for two sandwiches, two drinks, and two bags of chips.

My three kids (17,14,13) and I were in London for a week this past summer. We stayed in a hostel family room (YHA Central) and ate breakfast before leaving, ate out lunch and some dinners. We did try new foods but it was nice to have a kitchen to fix things that we liked also. My budget was right around 300 US$ per day and we had no problem at all. We are not big shoppers and spent our money on food,lodging, and attractions for the most part.I purchased "family" tickets at some places and with the tube check to see if it is still one free "under 15" with an adult. The dollar was lower then also.
Sherry