Why Family Villa Holidays Work For Us

This is an advertorial post. For the past 6 years we have chosen family villa holidays over hotel stays for our summer holiday. After years of caravan holidays, we took a chance on our first villa holiday and haven’t looked back. We didn’t expect to love family villa holidays as much as we do though – Here’s why choosing a villa over a hotel has worked so well for our family.

Why Family Villa Holidays work for us

Cost

We know that hotels work for many families – as our girls have grown older, the thought of being squashed into the same room or hotel suite definitely becomes less appealing – both to the girls and to us adults!

To book separate hotel rooms can cost an absolute fortune -especially once our girls hit the age considered to be an adult hotel booking (Often around aged 13). The villas we have stayed in often have separate rooms for each child for a lot less than a hotel booking would be.

In 2023, I priced up a 2 week stay in a 4* hotel for the 5 of us (3 children aged 21, 17 & 13) all inclusive – We looked for countries like Portugal, Croatia, Italy and Cyprus – Prices honestly ranged between £17,000 to £24,000. Who has that sort of money spare for a holiday? Certainly not us! The same weeks in 2023, we priced up 2 weeks in a villa in Croatia, booked our own flights, car hire and eating out in local restaurants every night for less than £5,000.

Food

We like to explore the local restaurants and try the local cuisine when we go travelling. Hotel buffets really aren’t our thing – So often the choice is limited, with meals repeated several days per week. As a foodie family, we know we like good quality food – we are prepared to pay that bit extra for a good meal and find that the restaurants that the locals use are often brilliant to visit. We have stayed in some wonderful hotels on our travels but its rarely because of the food they serve.

Last Minute

We are renowned for being last minute when booking holidays. It just suits us – we also like the element of surprise of not being quite sure where we will end up. Often we only book our actual holiday 1 to 2 weeks before we actually go. We book flights a couple of months in advance but somehow never get round to sorting accommodation. If we were hoping for hotels, we would really struggle to find somewhere suitable with availability for us all, especially to fit in with our flights. I know this is an us problem!

Space

I’ve already mentioned that our girls love their own rooms on holiday – This is a real luxury I know but really helps stop any bickering. We are a typical loving family that get completely sick of each other about 4 days into any holiday and a bit of time alone in your own room, really helps with family harmony! Not to mention that in most villa holidays, you have access to several en-suite bathrooms – a necessity with three daughters!

Different locations

We like some areas of interest to explore when we are on holiday but not necessarily the super busy tourist areas. Villa holidays like Majorca Villas are great for catering for each family’s needs – for us, it would be somewhere to explore with fabulous local restaurants, with enough bedrooms and a good sized pool. For other families, it might be a bustling nightlife and close to local transport.

Flexibility

Next year, we are hoping to travel around Europe, taking in several different locations. Traditional hotel package holidays would make this more difficult as it would be likely that we would be tied in to full week bookings. The beauty of villa holidays can be so much more flexibility around lengths of stay.

Privacy

The first time we tried a villa holiday, I’ll admit to some concerns whether the girls might find just our company a bit boring. We aren’t exactly nighttime entertainment people but I did wonder if they would miss pool activities and the odd game of water polo. Happily, both teenagers at the time declared a couple of days in how happy they were that we weren’t sharing the pool with other families. Our own family pool games wouldn’t be nearly as relaxed (or potty mouthed) if we were being observed by other families too.

Personal Touch

We have stayed in some villas more than once, getting to know the family owners and even meeting their wider family. This personal service is so lovely – We’ve been given food hampers and gifts on arriving and leaving (reciprocated by us too) and even met at the villa as the owners have watched our flight arrive.

For us, family villa holidays really work – We have tried through villa booking companies and also through private rentals and both ways have worked brilliantly.

We do check out the reviews (make sure they are recent) and spend time checking out the local area before we go. I’d really recommend considering a villa holiday for your next family holiday – Give it a go!