Family Vacation Ideas for Under $2500 - Richardson,TX

The Atlantis in the Bahamas is running a promotion of only 199 dollars a night. It is really fun and not too far away.

Camping. The state park was only $18 a night. We spent a week in VT for $800, included a few meals out and lots of sight seeing and some souveniers..

look into Cheap Carribean. Hubs, baby and I went to an all inclusive resort in the dominican republic for 7 days last May for under $1500 (airfare included). I can't remember the name of the resort, but it was great for our purposes, and once we booked 4 nights, each additional night was only $20 per person more.

Good luck to you and yours,
F. B.

Houston! Yes its hot but you won't melt :) You can get a 4/5 star hotel room for less than $100-75/night on Priceline or Cheaphotels.com. We do it all the time. There's Space Center Houston, Kemah boardwalk, Houston Children's Museum, Discovery Green, Downtown Aquarium, George R Ranch, the Oil Ranch in Hockley, lots of fountain parks and tons of great places to eat. There's also Galveston, which is also a cruise port.

You can also get a City Pass in virtually all major cities. In Houston its $40 adults $30 kids.

There's lots to do in San Antonio/New Braunsfels/Austin area, and have you considered Grapevine?

Also, Wild Oak Ranch in San Antonio and Lost Pines in Bastrop are both family friendly resorts. All rooms are suites, huge indoor/outdoor pool, crazy huge water slides, lazy river w/your own private cabanas/sandy beach for the kids and beach bar for the adults :), arcade, workout room, TV hut, hiking, family movie nights, s'mores, restaurants, kids camp, etc. Very nice 1st class amenities. They are both worth the money. Oh, Wild Oak Ranch is literally a hop skip and a jump from Sea World.

You could do SoCal for that. Fly into LAX, Burbank, Long Beach, San Diego or SNA Orange County, depending on cheapest fares. Rent a car. (alamo is cheapest and close at LAX and BUR) Do Disneyland, San Diego, Knotts, go to the beach, aquarium. Take the metro to downtown LA, see Olvera Street and Chinatown. Drive South. Take an afternoon off at Doheny Beach, walk Dana point harbor, Stop in Carlsbad, spend the day at Legoland. Spend a few days in San Diego, zoo, museums in Balboa Park , Horton plaza, and tour the USS midway. Have fun.

Wow, I would think you could do a lot with $2500 for 3 people... but I have never had $2500 to spend in that way since that is almost 1/4 of our yearly income and there is 8 of us. We love the outdoors & love camping and it is well within out budget.

I know this will sound kind of crazy, but we just went to visit family in the Salt Lake City area (and no, we are not Mormon ;) and had a fantastic time! There is a TON of stuff to do there with young kids, as you might imagine. They have the biggest dinosaur museum in the world (in Lehi), the Natural History Museum (which also has tons of dinosaur stuff, along with many other hands-on, kid-friendly exhibits), next door to that is the Red Butte Gardens (which has a spectacular children's garden - take a picnic lunch, and you can't beat it!), "This is the Place" Heritage Park (which is kind of like a Pioneer Village - complete with homes, businesses, farm animals that kids can pet and feed). We went to the Clark Planetarium, which also shows really cool kid-friendly movies. We went to the Mormon Tabernacle (nobody tried to convert us ;) and saw the (free) Organ recital there - wow! That was really neat. They have a lot of wonderful restaurants in SLC, and they all actually seemed happy to see we had kids with us (quite a change from the top-tier restaurants in SF, let me tell you!). SInce there was still snow, we went skiing, but a lot of the ski resorts have summer activities (hiking, picnics, riding horses) too. We stayed for a full week and came in well under $2500. The kids had a blast, and I am pleasantly surprised that I'm pretty excited to visit there again someday!

Rent a cabin in the Smokey Mountains. Then you can do all the stuff around there. Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg has tons of activities (paid and free stuff). Hiking trails galore (some with waterfalls at the end) with various levels of difficulty. Ice skating rink at Uber Gatlinburg. Multiple mini-golf places. Shopping. Dinner theatres (Dixie Stampede is neat). Comedy Barn is fun and family friendly (our kids LOVED it). Go kart tracks. Dollywood (amusement park) and Splash Mountain (I think it is called--it's the attached water park with Dollywood). Gem mining. Horseback riding. Tubing/kayaking in the rivers. Even white water rafting is within a short drive.
And most of the cabin rentals have pool access somewhere. And private hot tubs. Pool tables, Air hockey, Gaming systems, etc.
And the views are beautiful.

You could EASILY do a week there for under $2500. And have TONS of fun.

Oh my gosh... I have four kids now and they all remember one mini vacation the most. we live in Michigan and had a weird Michigan book (they make them for every state) we picked something out of the book and went. They were older so it was a creepier thing. But there are tons of things weird, funny, historical. We had so much fun. Now every year they want to look something up and go see it! Look into it...it'd be close by inexpensive and teach you neat things about your state! Have fun whatever you do!

I am thinking you could drive to the coast/beach and rent a house for a few days? Nothing better than down time playing in the sand and surf! IMO, that is!

Rent a place with a kitchen and make your own meals...sounds like perfection to me!

~But I am a Cali girl transported to Washington State where we have NO beaches and it's always my 'go-to' vacation! Miss the beach SO much!

Galveston? Sea World (San Antonio)? Memphis? Hot Springs?

We're doing a Carnival cruise and I also wanted to keep it under $2500. We got an amazing cruise leaving from Miami for $3200...so it was a little more than I wanted, but it's a full week and it goes to a lot of places I wanted to go.

Now we have to add in the airfare (probably another $2k) and a hotel the night ahead of time, but it really shouldn't be too bad.

Cruises are a GREAT option and I know a lot of ships go out of Texas...

Otherwise, find local places you haven't yet discovered. For example, we are about an hour away from National Harbor in MD and it has become our new favorite getaway. We feel like we are a million miles away but we're so close and it's so affordable that we got a few times a year :).

I would go somewhere outside Texas! Too hot in Texas in June. How about Washington, DC

Colorado is really nice in June and not that far by plane - just a few hours and there are almost always reasonable flights.

Lots to do but not necessarily "amusement park" type activies - think great outdoors - rocky mountains - etc.

Good luck.

Have you tried any of the train rides? They can be breathtaking. I saw some of the most beautiful mountainsides and animals on our train ride. Find a rail near you and drive. I bet you will have $$$ left over!

I would take a 7-day cruise. Carnival, Princess and Royal Caribbean have excellent kids programs. Your son will have a wonderful time.

There are ports in Galveston, New Orleans and I think Houston. You and your husband can relax and enjoy while your child spends some time in the kids program so you can have so relax time before the rigors of Med School. My son just graduated from Med School. He and his family and and my wife and I went on a 7-day cruise together and we had a wonderful time. AND he got the relax time he needed just before Med School. (They had three kids at the time and the kids program on the ship was wonderful for them.)

Good luck to you and yours.

It really depends on what your family enjoys. I am a big fan of state parks because my family like camping and hiking, and alot of them have beaches open in the summer. Plus its under $50.