Our September holidays have generally been to far away places like the USA, far east and so on. The hastle of air travel has meant we questioned is it worth it. There is also the hastle of luggage, weighing it, getting it within limits and so on. Then there is the ever escalating costs of flying, oh you want somewhere to put your legs? You want to sit together? Everything seems to cost a little bit more. We have flown with United and have enough miles for a business class upgrade. Before you just used the miles and got an upgrade but now you have to pay an admin fee. A business class ticket without the miles costs a little bit more so why be a regular traveller?
We looked at going to Washington DC and driving around from there. Just airfare and car hire was going to be nearly £3k. Add on accommodation and food and it was really mounting up. Then we started looking at what to see and was finding it hard to find new things we wanted to visit. I would recommend Washington DC as there are so many things to see that are free. Many museums (on all sorts of things but the
Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center by the airport is a favourite), the Library of Congress and even the Pentagon tour (subject to vetting) is free.
So we thought it wasn’t really what we wanted to spend that sort of money on. Iz is into history and had wanted to see some of the chateau related to books she had been reading. After a bit of research the Loire Valley was where we started looking at.
The house we rented was about £560 for 11 days. Eurotunnel was £200, Fuel was about £300. Tolls about £100. Plus food. So quite a difference in cost to going to the USA. Entrance costs to the chateau were about the same as in the UK but some we got free because of having a blue badge. We had great weather and it was a nice relaxing holiday.
Last year we did Germany, Belgium and Holland, again renting a house rather than hotels. Apart from not having set breakfast times it more relaxing having somewhere comfortable to sit for evenings and not having to secure everything when you leave the hotel room. Also when renting a house you get to learn more about the areas than the general touristy attractions and get to meet the locals. Forces you to try and speak the local language too - we never assume that English is spoken though once we have murdered their language and have baffled looks we still manage.
Whilst the cost is an important factor we have found despite the miles/km needed to drive it is more fun that flying to somewhere further away.