Relaxing with a child and not overpaying is more than real... The main thing is to correctly assess the costs that you can go in search of a pleasant and memorable vacation and plan the route. We will talk about where you can go with children so that it is cheap and good, and we will talk in this article.
How can you have a cheap vacation at sea?
If you want to go to the sea, but there is no money for a trip to Turkey or Egypt, you can go to your native Russian resorts. We will not discuss Sochi, because the average cost of rest here is the same as in Turkey and even more expensive. But on the Black Sea coast, in addition to this city, which became the heart of the 2014 Olympics, there are a lot of worthy places that offer quite a decent beach vacation at prices several times lower than in Sochi.
First of all, these are Anapa, Tuapse, Loo. To keep costs to a minimum, you need to think in advance how to get to the resort and where to live.
The most economical transport is railway, especially since the carrier offers discounts and benefits to children, and if you are lucky enough to find super-offers on the Russian Railways website in the Promotions section, this will give an additional 40-50% discount on tickets.
You can save on accommodation by finding a mini-hotel or guest house in advance. Many offer discounts for early bookings. If such costs are significant for the family budget, it is worth considering the possibility of relaxing in the private sector.
In addition, many campgrounds have been built along the Black Sea coast, as well as on the Azov Sea, where you can put up tents.
If you can't afford the Black Sea at all, you can save on costs by going to the Azov or Caspian seas. There the cost of rooms in boarding houses and mini-hotels is several times lower than the Sochi rates. In addition, it is quite possible to find a place to put up tents, or to rent an apartment in the private sector at an affordable price. For example, in Kaspiysk the cost of renting a not the most economical one-room apartment per day is about 1000 rubles. In Sochi, the same housing at the same distance from the sea will cost 4000-7000 rubles per day.
To save money on entertainment, you should not use the services of guides; it is much cheaper to buy a guide and see the sights on your own. In extreme cases, you can use the services of an inexpensive local travel agency, which can be selected in advance.
Camping
A vacation spent in the middle latitudes of Russia can also be memorable and vivid. Moreover, it is much cheaper than sea. You can consider several of the many options for camp sites on the Volga. They are scattered along the entire length of the great Russian river, the most popular for family recreation are located in the Saratov, Samara, Volgograd regions. There is a rather limited list of entertainments at the tourist centers - swimming, riding on catamarans, fishing. But natural beauty, if you are lucky with the weather, will more than compensate for the lack of water parks and dolphinariums.
Volga camp sites do not have uniform tariffs and standards. You can find a great place for living conditions, but quite expensive for its class, or you can find more modest living conditions, but at reasonable prices... In most bases, children under 7 years old are accepted completely free of charge, for a child from 7 to 14 years old they ask for a small surcharge. For instance. The Samarkand base in the Saratov region offers rooms for families at 2500 rubles, for a teenager you need to pay another 500 rubles a day.
According to the reviews of travelers who spent their holidays with children at camp sites and holiday homes near the Volga, the most inexpensive and family-friendly places are Avangard (recreation center in the Saratov region), Alye Parusa (recreation center in Togliatti ), "Veterok" (recreation center in the Samara region).
You shouldn't expect that culinary delights await you at the Volga recreation centers. The cuisine in local restaurants and cafes is quite simple; in 90% of cases there is no children's menu at all. And you will most likely have to invent entertainment yourself.
With sanatoriums in Russia, everything is even more interesting. There are many of them, they are different, you can find very inexpensive and acceptable options. If you buy a ticket to the chosen sanatorium in advance (about six months before, that is, in winter), then the savings will be from 20 to 40%. When choosing, carefully study the list of medical procedures that each sanatorium offers, and select the desired areas of relaxation with benefit, that is, with recovery.
Here are some options that you can consider, since the reviews about them are quite positive: the Assy sanatorium (Bashkortostan) - the cost of living from 2,000 rubles per day (including meals, procedures and everything else), the Ust-Iletsk sanatorium (Orenburgskaya region) - the cost of living with meals and treatment per day per person - from 1200 rubles. The sanatorium "White keys" in Karelia, in the city of Petrozavodsk, where the cost of living with meals and treatment starts at 2200 rubles per day, deserves attention.
Recently (maybe because of the crisis, maybe because our people are quite romantic) campgrounds are beginning to enjoy popularity. Even a map of campsites has appeared on the Internet, on this resource you can choose the option that is located closest to your intended travel destination - at sea, on a lake or in the mountains.
Accommodation there will cost 200-1000 rubles per person. They usually offer free Wi-Fi, shower, toilet, parking for your car. The campgrounds have canteens and small cafes where you can eat inexpensively. Some campsites do not charge children under 7 years of age. Some of them offer the possibility to rent tents.
Choice of budget family tours
For those who do not want to plan a trip on their own or simply do not have such experience and free time, there is an excellent solution to the problem - budget family tours offered by many travel agencies. For example, two adults and one child can spend 7 days and 8 nights on the Black Sea for 9,500 rubles. In another boarding house in Anapa, you may be asked for 12,000 rubles for a similar tour. The difference is that the distance to the sea from the place of residence in the first case is about a kilometer, and in the second - 500 meters.
When choosing an inexpensive family tour, it should be borne in mind that this price does not include food and entertainment, and, most importantly, it does not include flights and transfers to the destination.
Tours, which include only breakfast, on the Black Sea coast, are already doubling in price and in 2017 they start at 22,000 rubles. And tours, where "all inclusive" (except for the flight, of course), cost at least 39,000 rubles for 7 days.
A family tour for a week to the Black Sea, where all-inclusive and paid for the flight from Moscow, for two adults and a child costs from 109,000 rubles.
Tips
- If there is a need to save money on vacation, do not overpay for what you can do (cook, visit, watch, read) yourself.
- When renting housing in the private sector in a resort town, avoid renting an accommodation from people offering rental services right at the train station. Take care of the roof over your head in advance, and find an apartment or house online.
- Before making the final choice, do not be lazy and carefully study all the reviews on the Internet about the chosen recreation center, sanatorium or camping. Also, try to contact negative reviewers with clarifying questions. This will avoid any unpleasant surprises during your vacation.
- In an effort to make your vacation as economical as possible, do not forget about comfort, because children who need it are traveling with you. Find out in advance if there is a developed infrastructure nearby - shops, pharmacies, a hospital.
You can watch the top-12 best places for recreation with children in Russia according to the rating of the Otpusknik channel in the following video.
