We've done both. Multiple times. And the honest answer is: it depends - on where you're going, when you're going, who you're visiting, how much flexibility you need, and how much faff you're willing to put up with.

We have family in Germany, Spain and Portugal, so some of our trips are predetermined in terms of destination and we have to book everything ourselves. We've also done two European road trips, which obviously can't be packaged. But for pure sunshine holidays, we've used both approaches and found real advantages to each.

Here's our genuine experience of both, including what's gone brilliantly, what's gone wrong, and how we've saved money with both types of booking.

What is a package holiday?

A package holiday bundles together at least two travel components - typically flights, accommodation and sometimes transfers or car hire - into a single booking at a single price. Most UK package holidays come with ATOL or ABTA protection, meaning if the operator goes bust, you're financially protected. You pay once, show up, and everything is arranged.

What is a bespoke or DIY holiday?

A bespoke or DIY holiday is where you book everything separately - flights, accommodation, car hire, transfers - yourself. You're in control of every element, but you're also responsible for tying everything together. There's no single operator protecting the whole booking.

The advantages of package holidays

Before getting into our personal experience, it's worth setting out the main benefits of package holidays:

• Everything is organised in one place - flights, accommodation and often transfers are sorted together
• ATOL protection means you're covered if the operator goes bust
• Transfers to and from the airport are included with many packages, taking all the stress out of arriving somewhere new
• Easier to compare total costs upfront rather than adding up individual components
• Good value during peak times, especially with offers like free child places
• Many packages include a holiday rep at or near the hotel who you can contact with any queries or problems - a helpful point of contact on top of the hotel reception itself

Our Jet2Villa holiday in Kolymbia Rhodes - stunning!

Our experience of package holidays

All-inclusive: convenient but not always the right fit for families

We've done a couple of all-inclusive package holidays and they take the stress out of everything. One price covers flights, accommodation, food and drinks. You arrive and don't need to think about anything else.

We stayed at the Atlantica Aegean Blue in Rhodes, a 5-star hotel booked with TUI during October half term. We chose it partly because it had good vegan options - rare for all-inclusive hotels. There were plant-based choices at every meal including themed dinners, which was a nice touch.

But we found some things didn't suit us as a family. The biggest issue: we were all in one room. With two kids, that means no real evening privacy for me and my husband. On our last all-inclusive, the kids were literally shushing us when we were whispering after they'd gone to sleep because they were tired and wanted quiet. It's funny in hindsight but not ideal at the time.

We also got a bit tired of the buffet restaurant every day. By the end of the week we were desperate to eat somewhere different or just in peace at home. Being surrounded by hundreds of other holidaymakers at every meal gets wearing.

Our partitioned room on holiday in Rhodes in an all-inclusive hotel - it was lovely decor, but the one room situation didn't work for us - me and my husband couldn't stay up in the evening talking, or even whispering, as we were keeping the kids awake!  We prefer more space and separate rooms.

Package villa holidays: our preferred package option

To solve both problems, we've since booked package holidays with holiday homes or villas instead. A villa gives you the privacy and space of your own place, with your own kitchen and often a private pool. We've used Jet2 Villas for this and found it works well because car hire is included in the price - and you can upgrade to a larger vehicle if needed, which we now do. The standard included car is usually tiny with no boot space for luggage. Paying a bit more for a decent-sized car or SUV makes a real difference for exploring and for comfort.

The trade-off with a villa is that you have to sort your own food. We usually go to the local supermarket and make a lot of our own meals, which actually saves us money and means we eat better than we would at a buffet every day. We eat out for some meals too, but not every single one. You need to factor this cost in when comparing a villa package against all-inclusive.

The advantages of bespoke bookings

And the main benefits of booking independently:

• Full flexibility on flights, dates, times and destinations - including places no package deal covers
• Complete choice of accommodation type and location
• Full choice of car hire company (we prefer SIXT and tend to go back to them across multiple countries)
• Often cheaper for off-peak trips or last-minute bookings
• Essential for visiting family in specific locations, or for road trips with multiple stops

Our experience of bespoke bookings

When DIY works better

For visiting family in Germany, Spain and Portugal, we have no choice but to book everything ourselves - there are no package deals to the specific towns and villages we need to stay near. Also, for our two European road trips, booking independently was the only option given our routes. If you're considering a European road trip, I've written about how to save money on a European family road trip which covers costs and tips in more detail.

But we also choose DIY for purely practical reasons sometimes: cheaper flights on different days, more flexible timings, accommodation in places that don't feature in package deals, or simply because the maths works out better when you add it all up.

For accommodation we usually use Booking.com or Airbnb. I always check reviews carefully and never book anywhere new or without a solid review history. For holiday accommodation specifically, I prefer actual holiday lets over someone's home while they're away.

We've had Airbnb accommodation cancelled on us twice in the UK - once in the Lake District when a pipe burst and flooded the property, and once in Bristol where we'd stayed before and loved it (it had a hammock in the bedroom!), but the owner cancelled because they ended up being there that weekend themselves. It was their flat that they rented out when they went away.

Both times we got full refunds and, being UK trips with our own car, we just booked something else. But it's a good reminder that when you book someone's actual home, their circumstances can change. A dedicated holiday let is booked for that purpose and won't be pulled from under you because the owner changed their plans.

Not all routes in Portugal are suitable for cars, no matter what the satnav says!

Car hire: bespoke gives you more choice (but things can go wrong)

When booking independently, you can choose any car hire company rather than being limited to whoever the package operator uses. We've had good experiences with SIXT across multiple countries and tend to go back to them. The package-included car hire has been more hit and miss - you're limited to certain companies and certain cars, the choice isn't as wide, and we've had some really awful experiences on more than one occasion as a result.

That said, even bespoke car hire has had its moments. In Portugal once we got completely lost trying to find our Airbnb - the satnav took us somewhere completely wrong and we were hours late.

We've also ended up in tiny authentic village streets barely wider than the car, having to reverse back out because we simply couldn't fit through. Ben was driving - I'd have been absolutely freaking out if it had been me.

Once in Cyprus a mountain road was closed and the diversion took us completely off-road, straight through a farmer's field in our hire car! It was absolutely not built for it.

We laugh about it now and it's become part of the adventure, but it's worth knowing that when you book independently, you're genuinely on your own if things go sideways. With a package holiday and transfers, you just get on the coach and know you'll arrive at the right place!

Is it cheaper to book a package holiday or separately?

This is one of the most common questions - and the honest answer is that it varies every time. Here's what our actual holidays have cost:

• All-inclusive Rhodes (TUI, 2024): £4,728 including flights - booked during October half term
• Villa Rhodes (Jet2Villas, 2025): £2,676 including flights and car hire - booked the week before October half term, with a free child place offer unavailable during half term itself
• Villa Cyprus (Jet2Villas, 2025): £4,401 including flights and car hire - booked in school holidays
• Salema Portugal (online travel agent, 2024): £2,184 for flights and hotel - booked in school holidays through an agent who pieced together the components after booking, an unusual experience compared to booking direct through TUI or Jet2
• European road trip (2019): £1,400 for 8 days including travel insurance - bespoke, taking the ferry from Dover to Dunkirk (the better route for Belgium and the Netherlands) with our own car
• European road trip (2026): £4,560 for 12 nights - bespoke via overnight ferry Plymouth to Santander return (£1,597 alone). We didn't enjoy the long crossing and wouldn't do that route again. Next time we'd take the much shorter Dover to Calais or Dover to Dunkirk ferry, or the Channel Tunnel, then drive further through Europe with a cheap overnight stop - considerably cheaper overall.

The villa Rhodes at £2,676 versus the all-inclusive at £4,728 is an interesting comparison. You might assume a luxury 5-star villa with a private pool would cost more than an all-inclusive hotel - but it was actually £2,052 cheaper. Two things combined to make that happen: it was a self-catering villa rather than all-inclusive (so food costs are on top, but we save money shopping at the supermarket), and we went the week before half term rather than during it. The timing alone saved us significantly - that same villa in half term week would have been considerably more expensive and the free child place offer wouldn't have applied.

Off we go!

ATOL protection and travel insurance: what's the difference?

ATOL protection covers you if the holiday operator goes bust before or during your trip. It's a genuine safety net and a good reason to consider package holidays, particularly if booking far in advance.

Travel insurance is different - it covers you for cancellations due to illness, injury or other personal circumstances, as well as medical costs abroad, lost luggage and more. Importantly, you need travel insurance even if you book a package holiday - ATOL doesn't cover personal cancellation, medical emergencies abroad or lost luggage. They're not interchangeable. We've always taken out travel insurance for every trip regardless of whether it's a package or bespoke booking.

We learned first-hand how important this is when we had to cancel a family holiday abroad at the last minute because our daughter was hospitalised here in the UK. We claimed on our travel insurance - not ATOL, as that only covers operator failure rather than personal cancellation - and received a full refund. Always get travel insurance, and make sure it covers medical cancellation specifically.

The pros and cons of package holidays vs booking separately

Package holidays - pros:

• Everything in one place, less to organise
• ATOL/ABTA protection
• Transfers included
• Easier to budget upfront
• Can be very good value during peak periods with offers
• Holiday rep available at or near the hotel for queries and problems

Package holidays - cons:

• Less flexibility on dates, times and destinations
• Limited to mainstream destinations and hotels
• Car hire included is often budget quality - small cars with limited choice
• All-inclusive can feel repetitive by the end of the week
• Shared rooms with kids in hotels means no adult privacy in the evenings - unless you can afford to book two rooms at double the price! (This is why we now prefer villa packages over hotel packages)

Bespoke/DIY - pros:

• Full flexibility on everything
• Essential for visiting family or road trips
• Full choice of car hire company
• Can be significantly cheaper off-peak or with timing flexibility
• More adventurous and personalised

Bespoke/DIY - cons:

• More planning and research required
• No single operator protection (travel insurance covers most risks but it's different)
• You're on your own if things go wrong on the ground
• Accommodation cancellations do happen

A picturesque Airbnb we stayed at in Sedella, Spain

Which should you choose?

Choose a package holiday if: you want everything sorted in one go, you're going to a mainstream destination, you're nervous about tying everything together yourself, you want ATOL protection, or you find a deal that genuinely beats DIY on price.

Choose bespoke if: you need flexibility on dates or times, you're visiting somewhere off the beaten track or going to see family, you want full choice of car hire company, you're doing a road trip or multi-stop itinerary, or the DIY maths simply works out cheaper.

Whichever you choose, there are important things to sort once you've booked your family holiday abroad that apply to both types of booking.

We genuinely enjoy both. Check out our money saving travel tips and family travel tips for more advice. The package villa holiday takes the planning stress away. The DIY trips give us the memories - including the ones where we end up being diverted through a Cypriot farmer's field or reversing out of impossibly narrow Portuguese village streets wondering how we got there.

If you want to read more about our actual holidays - including full travel diaries, honest hotel reviews and day by day accounts of many of the trips mentioned in this article - you can find them all over on my family travel blog Travel Vixta.