Affordable ways to spend Christmas: 10 Ideas for having fun without breaking the bank

Traveling at Christmas can be expensive—that’s true. But it’s also true that we’re often the ones who make the trip more complicated: four nights instead of two, a hotel right in the heart of the city, three restaurants a day, tickets for everything, and a schedule so packed it feels like we’re going on vacation just to check things off a list.

A Christmas getaway can be much simpler: a vacation rental shared with friends, a Christmas market you can visit and return from in a single day, a short road trip, or a weekend in a city you can explore on foot.

Here are some affordable ways to spend Christmas worth keeping in mind.

1. GO TO A CHRISTMAS MARKET AND COME BACK THE SAME DAY

You look for a city or town with a Christmas atmosphere, head out in the morning, have lunch there, take a stroll in the afternoon, and head home after seeing the lights. End of the getaway.

You don’t need to book a place to stay, you don’t have to plan out three whole days, and you can decide what to do as you go.

Depending on where you live, you can look for Christmas markets and fairs in big cities like Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, or Zaragoza, but also in much smaller towns. And if you’re near a border, it might even be worth crossing it: a day in France or Portugal completely changes the feel of the trip.

There’s one thing I’d do here: I wouldn’t use the market as an excuse to shop. You can just go there, stroll around, have a hot drink, grab a bite to eat, check out the decorations, and keep walking—instead of going into every stall and buying “just one little thing,” because then the outing stops being cheap pretty quickly.

2. A COUNTRY HOUSE FOR EIGHT DOESN’T SOUND THE SAME WHEN YOU DO THE MATH

Imagine you find a vacation rental for €700 for a weekend.

At first glance, it seems expensive. Now divide that by eight people. That’s €87.50 per person for two nights. It doesn’t seem so expensive anymore, does it?

Because the house isn’t just the place where you’ll sleep—it’s part of the trip.

Imagine this for a second: You arrive on Friday, go grocery shopping together, someone cooks dinner, another person brings out board games, and you end up talking well past your planned bedtime. On Saturday, you can go for a hike in the morning, visit a nearby town, eat out, and come back in the afternoon; and if you don’t feel like going out at night, you don’t have to.

The house doesn’t need to have a hot tub, a heated pool, or panoramic views of half the province. To spend a Christmas weekend with friends, a kitchen, a comfortable living room, and a large table where you can play board games or chat are usually much more important.

In Spain, there are options like this practically everywhere: the Pyrenees, Asturias, the Picos de Europa, Castile and León, La Rioja, Galicia, Andalusia, the mountains of Madrid…

Just one thing: before you book, make sure to calculate the total cost. Lodging, gas, tolls, groceries, cleaning, parking… The price of the house is only part of the total budget.

3. TAKE A SHORT ROAD TRIP AND LET THE JOURNEY ITSELF BE PART OF THE EXPERIENCE

There are trips where driving is just a means to an end, and then there are those that begin the moment you close the door behind you.

A short road trip can work really well at Christmas precisely because you don’t need a spectacular destination. What you need is a route with several interesting stops along the way.

You can choose a region and plan a sort of loop: a town with a Christmas market, another where you can stop for lunch, a scenic stretch of road, an easy route, and a place to stay for the night.

For example, a getaway through Castile and León, a tour of northern towns, a route through the Sierra de Gredos, or a trip through inland Andalusia can offer plenty to do without having to drive hundreds of kilometers.

And here’s a rule you’ll be grateful for when you get back: don’t try to see everything.

If you’ve jotted down seven towns, four scenic overlooks, and three restaurants in two days, you don’t have a route—you have a to-do list. The secret lies in picking three or four stops that, if chosen well, can offer a lot.

Plus, if there are four of you in the car, you can split the cost of gas and tolls. And if you pack some food for the trip, even better. A well-made sandwich right before you head out also counts as road food.

4. CHOOSE A CITY YOU CAN GET AROUND ON FOOT

Some cities are perfect for a short getaway, while others require you to keep an eye on public transportation from the moment you have breakfast. And to be honest, the former are ideal for this time of year.

Madrid, Salamanca, Toledo, Córdoba, Zaragoza, Santiago de Compostela, Granada, and Seville are good examples in Spain. Abroad, Lisbon, Porto, Florence, Prague, and Budapest also let you spend hours walking around and discovering things without having to hop on a bus every twenty minutes.

And here’s a pretty big advantage when you’re looking for a cheap trip: walking doesn’t cost anything.

You can leave your lodging, head downtown, stop by a market, pop into a church, stop for a coffee, take a detour down a street that catches your eye, and end up spending the afternoon quite a ways from where you expected.

5. GOING TO THE MOUNTAINS WITHOUT BUYING A SKI PASS

There’s a pretty obvious connection between Christmas and skiing. And between skiing and spending, because you start adding it all up: lift tickets, gear, lodging, restaurants at the resort, parking…

If you don’t want your budget to go down the drain, you can do the exact opposite: head to the mountains and don’t ski. Look for a charming village, a rural cottage, or simple lodging; a scenic or famous trail you can hike without any hassle; and a restaurant where you can enjoy a good meal.

The Pyrenees are the most obvious choice, but you can also check out the Cantabrian Mountains, the Picos de Europa, Gredos, Guadarrama, Sierra Nevada, or many other mountain regions where winter offers exactly the atmosphere you’re looking for.

In addition, looking for accommodations a few kilometers away from the most touristy areas can significantly lower the price. If you have a car, those extra fifteen minutes might be worth it.

6. IF WHAT YOU ENJOY MOST ABOUT TRAVELING IS EATING, MAKE IT THE FOCUS OF YOUR TRIP

Not every trip needs to include monuments, museums, and twenty places to visit; there are getaways that start with a much simpler question:

“Where are we going to eat?”

And that’s not a bad thing either.

You can choose an area known for a specific product, find a couple of restaurants you’d like to try, and let the rest of the trip unfold as it goes. Some examples of destinations that fit this type of trip might include:

• Asturias offers plenty to explore if you like cider, cheese, a good cachopo, and traditional cuisine.
• La Rioja lets you combine small towns, wineries, and cuisine that’s hard to beat.
• Andalusia can provide a whole weekend centered around tapas and local cuisine.
• In Galicia, with its markets, seafood, octopus, and traditional restaurants, it’s pretty hard to run out of ideas.

And best of all, you don’t even have to go very far. You can also choose a city closer to home, which will let you sample the local cuisine while fitting in a few sightseeing stops along the way.

7. DO YOU WANT A EUROPEAN CHRISTMAS? STAYING OUTSIDE THE CITY CENTER CAN MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE IN YOUR BUDGET

At Christmas, the first destinations that appear on any list of potential getaway spots for this time of year are usually:

• Colmar
• Strasbourg
• Nuremberg
• Vienna
• Prague

And the cost of lodging is also mentioned right away.

One way to lower the cost is to not stay exactly where everyone else is…uristas. Es decir, buscar una localidad cercana, una zona periférica bien comunicada o un alojamiento que permita compartir gastos. En Alsacia, por ejemplo, hay viajeros que hacen base fuera de Colmar y se desplazan para visitar los distintos mercados.

But let’s not kid ourselves here either, since staying twenty kilometers farther away doesn’t automatically make an international trip a cheap one. You have to factor in transportation to get there, travel expenses during your stay, meals, and lodging.

This option makes more sense if you’re traveling in a group, sharing a car or an apartment, and don’t need five nights to enjoy the destination.

8. LOOK FOR A CITY WHERE THE CHRISTMAS ATMOSPHERE IS ALREADY THE PLAN

This is one of my favorites for those on a tight budget: instead of looking for a city with ten paid activities, look for a city where just being out on the streets is entertaining.

• Lights.
• Markets.
• Squares.
• Decorated streets.
• Store windows.
• Architecture.
• Bars.
• Cafés.
• Strolls.

During Christmas, the downtown areas of many cities become a sort of continuous stage, and—aside from whatever you choose to buy—you can enjoy much of it without paying admission fees. To give a few examples:

• Madrid has its holiday lights and markets.
• Málaga transforms its downtown into one of Spain’s greatest Christmas settings.
• Vigo has been investing heavily in holiday lighting for years.
• Zaragoza concentrates much of its programming around the Plaza del Pilar.

And you’re sure to find examples much closer to home.

The idea is simple: before you start buying tickets, see what the city has to offer on its own—because you might discover that your day is practically all planned out already.

9. CHANGING THE DATES CAN COMPLETELY CHANGE THE BUDGET

If you can choose when to travel, don’t assume you have to leave on December 24 and return on the 26th. You can go the previous weekend, or leave on the 27th, or travel in early December or during the first few days of January, depending on the destination.

The lights will still be up, and any markets with events scheduled during those dates will still be part of your trip. Christmas doesn’t disappear just because you’ve shifted your getaway by a couple of days. Plus, expanding your date options does something very useful: it lets you compare.

Before deciding on a destination, try three different time frames. Because sometimes you don’t need to look for another place—just another weekend.

10. TWO NIGHTS GO MUCH FURTHER THAN YOU’D THINK

There’s a fairly widespread misconception that a trip is only worth it if it lasts several days. Nothing could be further from the truth—for a Christmas getaway, that’s not necessarily the case.

• Friday afternoon.
• You arrive, drop off your things, and head out for a stroll.
• All day Saturday.
• Sunday morning: another stroll, one last meal, and then back home.
• Two nights.

And you’ve already had a place to stay, broken out of your routine, eaten out, seen a city, and spent time with the people you wanted to be with. Plus, two nights help keep other expenses in check—the ones that add up almost without you noticing: breakfasts, lunches, transportation, parking, impulse purchases…

You don’t always need more days—you just need to make the most of the ones you have.

WHICH OF THESE PLANS APPEALS TO YOU THE MOST?

What’s your priority?	Recommendation
Spending as little as possible	A day trip—that alone can give you that feeling of having broken out of your routine.
Going with a group of friends	A shared vacation rental—that’s probably the option that will give you the most flexibility.
You enjoy driving	A short road trip—that makes the journey itself part of the getaway.
Eating	You can plan an entire weekend centered around food without having to go far.
A European Christmas	You can travel for fewer days, share accommodations, or adjust your dates slightly to lower the cost.