Every school holidays I sit down with the bank app and try to work out where the money went. A vacation care booking here, a Movie World ticket there, three days of “can we just get Maccas” — and somehow four weeks off school has cost more than the mortgage.
If that sounds familiar, you’re not overspending by accident. School holidays in Australia are genuinely pricey, and how much you end up spending depends almost entirely on what kind of holiday you’re having. A local, low-key break costs a fraction of a trip to the Gold Coast, and a Gold Coast trip costs a fraction of flying somewhere. Below is what each of those actually costs, based on current prices and a fair bit of trial and error in our own house.
So what’s the average, really?
There isn’t one number that means much on its own. Research from ING found parents spend an average of $55.45 a day on family activities, or $110 a day per child if they’re in vacation care. A separate survey of over 1,000 households put average holiday spending closer to $600 per household, with families in the ACT and NSW spending the most.
Neither of those figures includes accommodation or travel, though, which is where the real cost difference shows up. So instead of one average, here’s what three different kinds of school holidays actually cost.
Staying home or local: around $200–$800 a week
This is what most of our shorter holidays look like — autumn, winter, spring — and it’s the version where vacation care does most of the damage.
Day rates for holiday camps and vacation care generally sit between $60 and $105 a day, though sport-specific and “adventure” style camps can run higher. Send one child three to five days a week and you’re already at $180–$525, before a single ice cream. One Mamamia writer worked out she’d spent close to $400 on just three days of tennis camp for two kids, and called it one of the cheaper options going around — which tells you a lot about the rest of the market.
If your provider is CCS-approved, the Child Care Subsidy can bring that daily rate down a lot, and it’s worth checking before you write vacation care off as too expensive. We’ve broken down what families actually pay after the subsidy in our vacation care costs by state guide, and if before-and-after-school care is part of your routine too, our OSHC costs guide covers that separately.
The weeks we lean on museums, libraries, local pools and free council programs cost a lot less — mostly petrol, parking and lunch. Budget $100–$300 for the week if that’s most of your days, which lines up with the ING daily figure above.
A short trip away: around $1,500–$4,000
This is the “let’s actually go somewhere” version — three to five nights at the Gold Coast or Sunshine Coast, which is what a lot of Queensland and northern NSW families do at least once a year.
Accommodation is the biggest swing factor. A cabin or apartment can be $150–$300 a night in the shoulder season. Book the same room for the school holidays and it’s not unusual to see it jump to $400–$600+ a night for identical dates a fortnight apart. Some parks and apartment operators do run stay-longer deals, so it’s worth checking before you pay the peak rate.
Then there’s the theme park day. A single adult ticket to somewhere like Warner Bros. Movie World runs $120 or more, before parking, lunch and the gift shop on the way out. Add a couple of dinners and fuel, and a short trip for a family of four usually lands around $2,000, with plenty of families spending closer to $4,000 if more than one paid attraction is involved.
Long-haul, interstate or overseas: $5,000–$15,000+
This is flights territory — Sydney to Perth, New Zealand, a longer trip through Southeast Asia. Once you add flights, accommodation and daily spending money for a family of four, five figures comes up fast. Tourism Research Australia’s own data shows families already spend an average of $836 per trip on short domestic getaways under four nights — stretch that to a week or two and swap the car for flights, and $5,000–$15,000 stops being a stretch.
One option I don’t see mentioned much: some overseas families use the school holidays to enrol their child in a short-term Australian school stay — a couple of weeks at a local primary school with a homestay family, mostly to give kids a taste of Australian school life and a bit of English immersion. All-in, tuition plus homestay usually comes to around $2,000–$3,000 AUD for a two-week stay, if that’s a holiday option you’re weighing up.
Ways to actually spend less
A few things that have made a real difference for us:
- Book camps early. The good ones with proper wet-weather plans and decent staff ratios fill up 1–2 months out, and early-bird pricing is real money saved. Leave it to the week before and you’ll pay full price for whatever’s left.
- Use whatever membership you’ve already got. A BIG4 or Discovery Parks membership, Woolworths Rewards, Qantas points, even a library card — most give you a real discount somewhere.
- Check your CCS eligibility before assuming vacation care is out of reach. A lot of families never check and end up paying full price for no reason.
- Mix paid days with free ones. One or two paid activities a week, balanced against council events and playgrounds, keeps a two-week break well under budget.
- Move your dates if you can. The same room can genuinely double in price between shoulder season and the first week of the holidays. Shifting by even a few days sometimes makes a real difference.
If you’re after ideas for the cheaper end of things, have a look through our things to do with kids directory by suburb, and if a theme park day is on the cards, our guide to Australia’s best theme parks is a good place to compare ticket prices before you book. It also helps to plan around the calendar — check the 2026 school holiday and term dates for your state early, and if you’re trying to stretch a trip without burning extra leave, our guide on maximising your annual leave is worth a look too.
Don’t stress about matching the “average”
There isn’t really an average school holidays in Australia — there’s a local one, a short-trip one, and a long-haul one, and they cost completely different amounts. What surprises most families isn’t one big expense, it’s how fast the small daily stuff adds up, especially vacation care. Once you know which kind of holiday you’re actually planning, and you book early within it, the whole thing gets a lot easier to budget for.