Advanced options
Add the pre-trip costs people forget: travel insurance, airport transfers or parking, luggage fees, currency card top-ups and pet or house care. The 10% buffer shown covers the on-trip forgettables.
What The Holiday Budget Calculator Works Out
- Total budget: the four honest lines added together: getting there, sleeping (per night), eating and doing (per person per day). Pricing the daily lines per person per day keeps the total truthful, since GBP 45 a day of food for two across a week is GBP 630 however modest each meal feels.
- Buffer: the total plus a contingency, 10% unless you change it. It is not pessimism but the airport coffees, taxi surges and museum tickets that attend every trip ever taken. A week for two with GBP 400 of flights, GBP 100-a-night accommodation and GBP 65 a day of food and fun lands at about GBP 1,730, or GBP 1,900 with the buffer.
- Per person: the total divided equally between travellers, for splitting a group trip.
- Breakdown: the four lines so you can see which one dominates. Self-catering shifts money from food to accommodation and usually wins for families; all-inclusive makes the same trade the other way.
- Contingency buffer (advanced): change the 10% to suit the trip. Cities with expensive taxis and ticketed attractions justify 15% to 20%; an all-inclusive resort can run at 5%.
- Pre-trip extras (advanced): the costs that ambush budgets before departure: travel insurance (buy it when you book, since cancellation cover starts at purchase), airport parking or transfers at both ends, luggage fees that can rival a budget fare, and the pet sitter or kennels line that never makes the first draft.
- Grand total with buffer (advanced): everything together, which is the number to save towards.
- Save per month (advanced): the grand total divided by the months until you go, with the per-person share for groups who each pay their own way.
- Daily spending per person (advanced): food plus activities per person per day, the figure to calibrate against the destination. The same GBP 45 a day is lavish in Vietnam, comfortable in Portugal and a single mid-range meal in Switzerland.
- Local currency (advanced): the spending money converted at the rate you enter, so you know what to load onto a fee-free travel card. Pay in local currency, not pounds, when a card terminal offers the choice: dynamic currency conversion typically costs 3% to 6% more than your card's own rate.