Have you started thinking about booking your family summer holiday? As the pound is now stronger against the Euro and almost every other holiday currency than it was a year ago, families travelling overseas will get great value for their money this year in most top destinations. Whether your kids are keen for watersports in Turkey, beaches in Bulgaria or temples in Thailand, there’s an easy way to have a fantastic family break on a budget.

This year, for the fifth year in a row, Post Office Travel Money has compared the costs that families will face in resorts overseas for its Holiday Costs Barometer. The barometer takes into account a range of different family holiday must-haves including a cup of coffee, a bottle of water and of course the ever-important sun cream. We’ll also explore the top five family holiday destinations in the live show.

The barometer has revealed that destinations all over the Eurozone – except Italy – are cheaper this year. However, beyond Europe only one country – Sri Lanka – makes it into the top five value destinations. Other popular long haul destinations including the USA and Barbados have actually dropped down the list, as their resort prices have shot up.

Sarah Munro, Head of Post Office Travel Money, and travel expert Sarah Tucker join us live online to give us their top tips to avoid getting stung when you fly off with your family this year.

H: Vicky Letch - Host

A: Sarah Munro – Head of Travel Money, The Post Office

B: Sarah Tucker – Travel Journalist

H: If you haven’t already booked your family holiday this year, then stay watching because on today’s show, we take a look at some of the hottest destinations, that won’t break the bank

Credits

H: Hello and welcome to Travel Talk, I’m Vicky Letch. With the daffodils finally out, what better time to start thinking about booking your family holiday? And the good news is that the pound is stronger against the Euro and virtually every other currency than it was a year ago so families are likely to get more for their money in Europe and in long haul destinations this summer. I’m joined by award winning travel journalist, Sarah Tucker and head of travel money at the Post Office, Sarah Munro. Both of you thank you very much for joining us today. We’ll have to adopt some sort of Sarah T, Sarah M or I’ll get eye contact, you’ll know which one I’m talking to. Thank you very much for joining us today.

So here’s what’s coming up on the show today. The hottest destinations on a family budget. We’ll be having a look at the essential family holiday preparation guide, and of course all of your questions will be answered here live. Yes, a good time to remind you that we are of course totally live today, so any questions that you have, just pop them in the box on the screen, click send and we’ll answer as many as possible, and if you are indeed tweeting today, then it’s #studiotalkTV and we’ll answer as many of your questions and of course take your comments, if you have comments for us.

So Sarah M. let’s start with you. The Post Office has reviewed 8 popular tourist items and from that they have come up with a world wide holiday cost barometer. What exactly is that and why have they done it?

A: What we do is we look at popular destinations of families that go on holidays, it might be Spain or Greece, Mexico, Thailand, and we look at what’s it going to cost when you get there. So you might...when you’re looking at a holiday, you probably concentrate on the flights and the accommodation. But when you get there, you need to buy meals and sunscreen, you want to buy a can of Coke, beer, and all the important things, so what we do is we look at the costs of those things to work out actually what’s good value on the ground as well

H: I have to say, I love that, because it is all of those hidden extras that you don’t consider, and you think you’ve got a certain budget for your holiday, and then wham it hits you and you think; I’ve really overspent, because you don’t consider all those extra costs

A: That’s right. So a can of Coke in Portugal might cost you about 90p and it’s costing you about £ 2 in France, so there’s wide variations in the cost of living and it’s important to consider that when you’re looking at your holiday

H: Definitely. Why don’t we start then with the most expensive. What was coming out as the most expensive destinations on the barometer?

A: I know the USA has gone up in cost quite a bit, Barbados has gone up quite a bit, so they’re locations to look at very carefully when you’re considering your holiday

H: Not good news for me, I’m off to the States in a couple of weeks so that does not please me very much

A: I think the costs have gone up by something like 30% and also, although the pound has improved against the US dollar, but it’s not near the heady days of $2 to £1 but those days aren’t around anymore

H: But Sarah T, we’re not saying avoid these destinations of course, it’s just about being more aware of what you can get for your money when you’re there now

B: Well, you were talking Sarah about the cost of Coke. If you have a family of 3 children, 2 adults, when you want a drink you’re buying a drink for 5 people, so it can easily add up, every time you buy a drink you buy a drink for the whole family, or a snack or something like that, and people don’t think about things like that, so even before you go out, leave your villa or your apartment, prepare your own drink or your own juice, something simple like that. Instead of eating out, get a picnic so for the more expensive destinations or the destinations that are slightly more expensive this year, you’ve just got to think out of the box, think in alternative ways, but there are lots of other destinations, as I’m sure you’ll mention, which are much cheaper this year, where it’s still important to be cost-effective and think ahead, but because the cost of living has gone down, it’s much more effective, you can eat out.

A: That’s right

H: It’s just being savvy about where you’re going and how they operate there. For example, if we just focus on the USA for 1 minute longer, I always think I go there and I forget about the tipping, and actually it is important to be aware that every now and then you do have to throw a few dollars here and there, what advice do you have on that front?

B: I think…depending on…usually it’s about 10 - 15%, but I feel especially in America it’s expected because they give good service, but if you haven’t had good service, say why you haven’t had good service, because they will ask you; oh, you haven’t tipped, and you should say well I haven’t had good service then they understand that completely. It’s a completely different thing in London where sometimes you give tips and sometimes you don’t, but I think in cultures where it’s much more free and easy…it’s the whole culture thing and communication thing that in other countries, tipping is expected. And also in restaurants has the tip been included, has service been included? There are still an awful lot of restaurants, and this goes for all the tourist destinations where it won’t be included and others where it will be included so you’ve got to look at the fine print

A: It’s also knowing where you don’t have to tip, because London, they often add the 12.5% these days automatically, but in Europe, tipping is not common, they just round up to the nearest Euro, rather than having to add an extra 10 Euro to the meal, so that’s also important to remember

B: And they will never tell you, oh by the way the service is included already, if you add the tip, they’ll just say, ooh great

H: Of course, they’ll take it and run for the hills. And don’t be like me, I go tipping crazy. If someone even gives me a smile in New York, I go; here’s a dollar! I mean, I get so nervous about it, I end up tipping everyone for absolutely no reason, so just be slightly controlled about that as well. So, the most expensive destinations, how about the top 5 best value destinations? What do we have on the list?

A: So, if we’re in Europe, we’re looking at old family favourites, Spain and Portugal, and they’re close. If you’re looking a little bit further afield, I think Thailand offers very good value, Sri Lanka offers very good value, Mexico offers very good value, so there’s a range of places that you can look at

H: And actually this is quite exciting in terms of it good be taking people perhaps out of their comfort zone. I know why I was younger, it was all about Spain, it was always going to places like that. I’m not sure my parents even though, ooh, why don’t we look into Sri Lanka? So you could be doing different things with your family…Czech Republic for example might not be on the top of people’s thought list initially

B: Well, especially as I said when you have a family, because Portugal and Spain, they will always be popular and even when the prices have gone up, as destinations they are very resilient, because people like the culture, people know that it’s very family friendly, that there are restaurants you can take your children into, the hotels, the villas, the camping there. If you want to go to Spain you will find a cheaper way to go to Spain. You’ll go camping rather than book into a hotel, you’ll have picnics rather than eating out, if they want to go to Spain they’ll find a way, and the fact that it is cheaper this year and I don’t know if we’ve mentioned Turkey as well – Turkey is much cheaper this year, they will go either for longer, or eat out more, or do something more adventurous like go sailing rather than just on a beach holiday. There are lots of opportunities there, so I think it will be a case that more people will go there but they will just be a bit more adventurous and I think that’s good for the family

H: I agree

A: And you consider things like whether you’re going further afield, so you flight is going to be more, but you can get very good value flights, but you might want to look at things like half board or full board so your costs go down and you can still be in an amazing environment like going to Sri Lanka, that would be extraordinary

H: Yes, definitely. What about the people watching now that might be quite surprised to see the Czech Republic as an option, in the top value 5? What sort of a family holiday would they expect from that destination?

B: Well, I think those destinations have always been regarded as quite sophisticated short break couple-y holidays, you know Prague, the city of Prague is very, very romantic and I remember going…it’s the bohemian central, it’s the boho capital of Europe, it used to be, so you’ve got castles everywhere and it’s very gothic and wonderful, but I took my son there, he’s now 12, about 6 years ago when we went to the Christmas markets and it’s magical, and I think OK, well if we’re walking around a cathedral and it’s very sophisticated and to be quite honest quite dull for children, no matter how wonderfully you describe the history, but we ended up playing chase round there and again, it’s about a climate. I’m always going on about it when families choose a holiday destination, children don’t like it too hot or too cold and for climates during the summer break it’s just the right climate, it’s very, very good. Turkey, fabulous though it is and it is a fabulous destination, during the summer its oven temperature, you’re getting 30, 35, 40 degrees Celsius and that’s too hot for a toddler. There’s ways around it but it’s a much better destination to go I would say in May and June and September.

H: What about long haul options in the top 5, you touched on Sri Lanka?

A: Sri Lanka’s the best value long haul destination. Thailand is always very good value, but I think with Thailand just check the political situation out, there has been a period of unrest, what will happen in the future, who knows? And then Mexico has definitely come up the ranks recently and our Post Office has seen the currency sales soar for the Mexican Peso, I think our sales were up 150% year on year, so people are definitely looking at Mexico as a new destination. Places like Cancun are very popular

B: And also, with Sri Lanka, I went to Sri Lanka last year it has so much to offer, but sometimes the thing with family with destinations like that, there’s so much to do, one of the ways to keep the costs down is to keep the number of things that you do down and the problem with especially the long haul destinations, is that families going there for the first time they want to do so much, there is so much to do, so they are literally dashing from one thing to the next, to the next, to the next, to keep the kids occupied and actually, bottom line is that children, whatever their age, toddlers to teenagers, they like it simple, they like the beach. Toddlers like their parents to be with them and keeping it simple also keeps it cheap as well. All the teenagers want to do is be around their peers, so whether it’s taking a friend who’s a teenager with them, or going to an area where you know there’s going to be lots of other teenagers. I spent my teenage years along the Adriatic Coast in an Italian resort camping and lots of Italian students from Bologna came down, and I was the token English girl and it was very nice and that’s exactly what teenagers like. They like to be with other teenagers from other nationalities and be cool. They don’t have to do loads of things, as long as they look cool, that’s cool.

H: That’s a really good tip. So you don’t have to over ram your holiday with lots of activities, you can just keep it simple and saving along the way. Great, thanks ladies.

Well, coming up in the next part of the show, we’re going to tell you how to best prepare for your holiday. Before we do that though, let’s take a look at where you could be this summer

Break

H: Have to say, some beautiful and vibrant scenes there. If you have just joined us on Travel Talk, we’re looking at some of the best value destinations for holidays this year, but now let’s think about preparing for your trip. When the kids are excited and they’re running around and it’s all chaos, you can easily forget some of the most vital essentials for a successful family holiday, so ladies what do you think we can do? What sort of processes can we put in place to avoid making basic mistakes

B: Well, I’ll start. We always take too much. It’s a fundamental thing, we always take too much, especially the first family holiday you think that they don’t have babies or teenagers or toddler overseas and they do and especially where you’ve got destination where things are going to be much cheaper there than they are here, buy the stuff there. There’s going to be certain destinations where it’s going to be much more expensive to buy suntan lotion there than it is here, and I would say get your suntan lotion here, but again, that’s research, basically doing the mouse work, looking at the internet and seeing, because you can get a lot of price comparison sites about where to buy things and where not to buy things. And it will mean taking much less than you would have originally thought, so keep your luggage light. And also, if you’ve got children who can carry their own luggage and backpacks, get them to do it themselves, because it literally lightens your load

H: And you can get some really fun little bags for kids now

A: Trunkies

H: Trunkies, there you go!

B: And also, another thing, especially if you’ve got a large family too, if you want to keep the costs down, is give them pocket money at the beginning of the holiday because what you’ll tend to find, especially if they tend to want things, they want that and they want that from mum and dad, if they have a set amount of money at the beginning, it’s up to them how they spend it and you’ll find what happens is that they will save it to the very end because they want it to last, and the ones that have spent it straight away, they won’t have any more money to spend, so it gives them the choice and that keeps the cost down as well

A: Very good

H: Yes, very good.

Because we’re live of course many of you have been sending in your questions. Keep them coming in, we’ll be with you for a few more moments yet, but let’s start running through your questions then. Sally has emailed in, thank you Sally, and she says; I want sun and sea and sea and relaxation, he has so much energy and wants to explore - so this is either Sally’s other half or youngster – where should we go? So where can Sally go where both get pleased, they both want a lovely holiday?

B: Well again, it’s a mixture of sophistication but also fun for the children. I still think the Algarve is excellent and there’s good reason why it’s always been one of the most popular holiday destinations, there’s resorts like the Villa Vita Park and that is close to the airport and that’s also key for family holidays. When you arrive at an airport, you don’t want an hour or an hour and a half schlep to your resort in a car or a coach, you don’t want that, so half an hour is nice, an hour max, especially if you have a larger family, and that has things like wind-surfing and sailing for the children and lots of activity, but it also has a Wellness Centre and a very good spa. So you’re looking for resorts that cater for both, and there’s a lot out there like that at the moment. But what you do want for children, whatever their ages, you do want to be preferably on a beach, but for the sophisticated…that place is also very good because it has a fabulous wine cellar. A fabulous wine cellar. Fabulous food. And again there’s interesting things to see nearby, interesting cities and towns, but again, children don’t….there’s a lot of talk about children being interested in city breaks, you’ve got to make sure, especially when the weather is hot that you keep the tour very short and sweet, because they get very tired and then you want to bribe them and buy things for them, which completely makes it an un-cost-effective holiday

H: Right, good. Julia. Thank you very much Julia. Julia says; we’re going on our first family holiday. Aside from travel insurance, what other precautions should we take?

A: My first piece of advice is get your currency before you leave so if you get to the airport, airports often charge you commission, and they often have minimum purchase values and those types of things and often poor rates, so get your currency before you get to the airport. Also, when you travel overseas debit and credit cards often charge you for every time you use them, so think about taking the money with you. If you’re worried about carrying cash, something like a travel money card, a pre-paid currency card can also be good, because you’ve got your cash on a card, not connected to your bank account so for security and fraud reasons it makes it very safe, so that would be something I would definitely recommend. Make sure you get your currency before you go

H: So it’s amazing, really, there are so many simple things you can do and so many simple changes you can make to how you prepare for your holiday, but it’s just knowing them and coming but to everything you’ve said today so far, it’s all about researching all of your options and just doing a tiny bit of homework before you go

A: It’s all about the preparation so if you put in a little bit of time at the front, it just makes it so much less stressful when you get there. So you know that your hotel is close to the airport or close to the city centre, you know what’s included in your resort, you know what things will cost when you get there so you’ve got enough money, you’re covered with your travel insurance and those types of things and with your travel insurance, check out what’s included in your cover, so there was 1 airline and 2 holiday companies that went broke in Turkey last year, so you want to make sure you’ve got scheduled airline failure in your cover, you want to make sure you’ve got cover that covers you if your hotel goes broke, so look at what’s in your cover. Make sure you’ve got good medical that’s very important and make sure you have it, actually

B: Yes, you’d be surprised how many people go overseas and don’t have the right travel insurance cover. They go on skiing holidays or they go on horse-riding holidays

H: It won’t be me! Nothing will happen to me!

B: They do, they think exactly that, or they think their normal travel insurance will cover it, it won’t and especially if you’re in America going skiing or horse-riding or something like that, you do not want to get stuck with bills over there

H: The most active thing I’ll be doing Stateside will be shopping probably, I’ll avoid the horse-riding!

B: Which is dangerous in itself!

H: Which is very dangerous, but that’s why I quite like the idea of having your money ready, because quite often I get that holiday mindset of “I’m on holiday, I can have everything!” No, you have to stick to your budget, because otherwise you come back you suffer, and you don’t necessarily look back quite as fondly as you perhaps might have done on your holiday

A: As you’re paying your credit card bill for the sixth month after

H: Exactly. This one is from Pete, Pete, I like the first word already; food. What countries do we need to think carefully about what’s on offer food wise? I think that’s a good question

B: Yes, I think it is a good question. Again, with families, I am going back to Turkey. I like Turkey because all their food is quite mezze, it’s different sorts of mezze, lot’s of bits and pieces so children like it and again with Portugal, it’s very picky food and they eat late, they’re very relaxed about when they eat all the time. You’ve got other countries and cultures like France as well, it’s very interesting. Some countries, like Austria and Slovakia and other countries, the Czech Republic, it can be a little unusual, because you’ve got a lot of meats and pickled vegetables, but it’s good for children to try new things and I think if you show that it can be fun and that it’s interesting to try new flavours and tastes, I think that’s a good way forward. But I think picking those destinations where there’s a lot of fresh food and fresh vegetable and lots of different colour, they’re more likely to try

A: I think one other thing to consider is vegetarians. So, a very good example there, so if you’re in Turkey or Spain, or those sort of places, you’ll get lots of fish and vegetarian options, but when you go to Eastern Europe, or places like Morocco, I was in Marrakesh and a friend of mine was quite a strict vegetarian, and she had the vegetarian dish, and it was vegetarian on the outside and then it was chicken

H: Because chicken is OK for vegetarians!

A: Because chicken seems OK for vegetarians! So if you’re vegetarian, you need to consider those sorts of things, or actually, learn the phrase for “I am vegetarian”, it’s very handy

B: In all languages, because again you’ll find especially in rural communities, and this goes throughout Europe, and I should imagine throughout the world as well, if you ask for something like a vegetable soup, you’ll get one of their vegetable soups and there possibly will be meat or ham in it, but they call it vegetable soup because it’s predominately vegetables and this whole concept of vegetarian is still a bit alien

H: It can work the other way as well. When I went to Marrakesh, I went to this wonderful restaurant which was all female run and my friend was a vegetarian and she said I’m going to get the salad starter, do you want to share it, and I was like “Salad!”, but the most amazing starter came to the table and it was 17 dishes, tiny dishes, all these different foods and it was the most incredible flavour, so it can work the other way as well. I think I had about 5 different varieties of carrot that night

B: But it’s child-size. All the things in the mezzes are child size and that’s why they like it and it works for children

H: Absolutely. Paul – one more question and that’s it – Paul; is there any point in taking a toddler too far from home

A: I think it’s about knowing your limitations and thinking about, you don’t really want – you probably don’t want a child on a plane for very long or at all, so a good destination to consider, France and Spain – ferry. Brilliant! There’s a new service that’s going straight to Balboa, so that’s a very…or the train. Get the Eurostar. I think Spain and France are very good because you can drive, you can get the ferry and you can get the train, and that’s probably a much better idea than going much further afield

H: And as you were saying it earlier you can keep it simple for the young children, you don’t have to over complicate things

B: Well I wrote a book called “Have Toddler Will Travel” and I travelled all over the place with my son when he was a toddler and I think it’s a case of finding which airlines are very good with toddler and usually it’s the long-haul ones that are better than the short-haul ones, because if you have a crying toddler for 12 hours, it’s going to be much more painful than it is for 2 hours, and they absorb everything, and also you don’t have the limitation of keeping into school holidays as well, so I think it’s a very good time to travel. Again, I always think with toddlers that age, it is 2 things to consider that are the most important. One is climate, too hot, if this destination is too hot you’ll be worried about their health the whole time, you’ll be worried about dehydration and that is predominately the thing that most parents will worry about. You can have a fabulous location and fabulous facilities, but if you have a sick child, especially a sick toddler, forget it. And also, culture, because again you can go to a destination which has wonderful facilities, but if children are not welcomed there, and they aren’t in a lot of these posh hotels in some countries, they’re not as welcome as others, and it can make your life very, very difficult and so I think travelling with a toddler, I think those are the most important 2 things to consider and I think a lot of the destinations which we’ve discussed today are very toddler friendly, but keep it cool. The cooler destinations are definitely the best

H: Keep it cool, keep it simple and do your research.

Sarah, Sarah, thank you very much. We are sadly out of time today. If you do want more information, all you have to do is go along to postoffice.co.uk/holidaycosts2011 and I’ll see you next time. Bye bye.