Runs in your browser. Your files and text never leave your device - nothing is uploaded.
Prefilled with a round United States planning figure, not a statistic. Illustrative figure for a 1-2 week international trip per person, actual cost depends entirely on destination and travel style.
| Category | % of budget | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Flights & Transport | 30% | $900 |
| Accommodation | 30% | $900 |
| Food & Dining | 20% | $600 |
| Activities & Excursions | 10% | $300 |
| Shopping & Souvenirs | 5% | $150 |
| Miscellaneous / Buffer | 5% | $150 |
| Total | 100% | $3,000 |
Plan a Vacation or Holiday Budget
The Tools Kit’s free Vacation Budget Calculator takes one number, your total trip budget, and splits it into the categories a trip actually costs: flights and transport, accommodation, food and dining, activities and excursions, shopping and souvenirs, and a miscellaneous buffer. Whether you call it a vacation budget, a holiday budget or a travel budget, it gives you a spending target for each part of the trip before you book anything.
Choose the United States, United Kingdom or Canada to show amounts in US dollars, British pounds or Canadian dollars. The calculation runs in your browser, with no signup and nothing uploaded.
How to Use the Vacation Budget Calculator
- 1
Choose a country
Pick United States (USD), United Kingdom (GBP), or Canada (CAD) to set the currency symbol. The total starts prefilled with an illustrative per-person figure, and switching country swaps it for that country’s figure as long as you have not edited it.
- 2
Enter your total trip budget
Replace the prefilled figure with your own total, typed as 3000, 3,000 or $3,000. Use a per-person amount or the whole group’s total, whichever you are planning.
- 3
Read the category breakdown
The table splits the total across flights and transport, accommodation, food and dining, activities and excursions, shopping and souvenirs, and a miscellaneous buffer, updating as you type.
- 4
Turn the split into spending targets
Use each amount as a ceiling when booking, and divide the food and activities amounts by the number of days away to get a daily spending allowance.
Switching country changes the currency symbol only; it does not convert your amount. To turn a home-currency budget into the currency you will spend abroad, use the currency converter first, then enter the result here.
How the Travel Budget Breakdown Works
Each category is a fixed percentage of the total: amount = total × percentage ÷ 100. Because the split is percentage-based, it scales to any trip, from a weekend away to a month-long trip. Here is the split on the US reference figure of $3,000:
| Category | Share | On $3,000 |
|---|---|---|
| Flights & Transport | 30% | $900 |
| Accommodation | 30% | $900 |
| Food & Dining | 20% | $600 |
| Activities & Excursions | 10% | $300 |
| Shopping & Souvenirs | 5% | $150 |
| Miscellaneous / Buffer | 5% | $150 |
Flights and accommodation together take 60%, reflecting that getting there and somewhere to sleep are usually the largest and least flexible costs. If you want to check what share a real quote represents, for example a $1,100 fare against a $3,000 budget (about 36.7%), the percentage calculator does that in one step.
Working Out Daily Spending Money
The split tells you how much to spend in total on each category; daily spending money is how much you can spend per day once you are there. Add the on-the-ground categories (food and dining, activities and excursions, shopping and souvenirs, together 35% of the total) and divide by the number of days away.
Worked example: a UK traveler with the £2,000 reference budget gets £600 for food, £200 for activities and £100 for shopping, £900 in total. Over a 7-night, 8-day holiday that is £112.50 a day. If you are not sure how many days your dates cover, the days calculator counts them for you, and the time zone converter helps when a long-haul flight means you lose or gain a day on arrival.
Remember that the food and dining category has to cover restaurant gratuities in countries where tipping is expected. The tip calculator shows how a 15-20% tip adds up over a week of meals.
Budgeting a Trip for a Couple, Family or Group
The calculator splits whatever total you enter, so it works for one traveler or many. The prefilled figures are per person, so for a group multiply first: four people at $2,500 each is a $10,000 trip, which splits into $3,000 for flights and transport, $3,000 for accommodation, $2,000 for food, $1,000 for activities, $500 for shopping and a $500 buffer. In practice, shared accommodation often costs less per head than this suggests, while flights scale with every seat.
If you plan to pay for the trip on a credit card and clear it afterward, any interest on the balance adds to the real cost of the vacation.
Common uses
- Getting a starting-point split for a trip budget before booking flights and hotels
- Checking whether an accommodation quote is in line with a typical share of the total
- Setting a daily food and activities allowance for a holiday
- Planning a family or group trip by splitting the combined total
- Comparing a trip budget against other big costs in the year, alongside tools such as the wedding cost calculator or more options on the calculator tools hub
Vacation budget terms explained
| Term | What it means here |
|---|---|
| Total budget | The full amount you plan to spend on the trip, entered per person or for the whole group |
| Fixed costs | Costs you pay before you leave, mainly flights and accommodation; here they take 60% of the total |
| Daily spending money | The food, activities and shopping money you spend on the ground, best set as a per-day allowance |
| Buffer / contingency | Money set aside for costs no plan predicts, such as a missed connection or a medical expense; 5% in this calculator |
| Reference figure | The illustrative per-person total the calculator prefills: $3,000 (US), £2,000 (UK) or C$3,000 (Canada) |
Frequently Asked Questions
Decide on a total, then split it by category. This calculator applies a fixed rule-of-thumb split: 30% flights and transport, 30% accommodation, 20% food and dining, 10% activities and excursions, 5% shopping and souvenirs, and 5% as a buffer. Each amount is the total multiplied by its percentage.
There is no single meaningful average, because cost depends on destination, season, trip length and travel style. The calculator prefills $3,000 for the US, £2,000 for the UK and C$3,000 for Canada as an illustrative figure for a 1-2 week international trip per person, not as a statistic. Replace it with your own number.
In this calculator, 60% combined: 30% for flights and transport and 30% for accommodation. On a $3,000 budget that is $900 each. Long-haul flights or peak-season hotels can push the real share higher, which leaves less for food and activities.
Add up the categories you spend on the ground (food, activities and shopping make up 35% of the total here) and divide by the number of days away. On a $3,000 budget that is $1,050; over a 10-day trip it works out to $105 a day.
Either. The calculator splits whatever total you type. The prefilled reference figure is per person, so for a group enter the combined total, for example four people at $2,500 each is $10,000.
No. The percentages are fixed so the split stays a consistent rule of thumb. If your flights cost more or less than 30% of the total, adjust the other categories by hand once you know the real fare.
No. Switching between United States, United Kingdom and Canada changes the currency symbol and, if you have not edited the total, the prefilled reference figure. It does not convert your amount at an exchange rate.
The calculator sets aside 5% as a miscellaneous buffer, which is $150 on a $3,000 budget. Many travelers keep a larger contingency of around 10-15% for longer or more remote trips; you can raise your total to create that cushion.
Yes. The field reads 3,000 as three thousand, and a leading currency sign such as $, £ or C$ is fine too. A $3,000 total gives $900 each for flights and accommodation. A negative total shows an error message instead of a split.
No. The split is calculated in your browser with JavaScript, and the figures you type are not sent to a server.
Reviewed by Raja Jahangir · Last reviewed: October 2, 2026
By country
Dedicated pages with a country-specific reference figure and currency.
How much spending money do you need for a holiday?
A realistic holiday budget splits one total across transport, accommodation, food, activities, shopping and a buffer of about 5%, with flights and accommodation usually over half. Daily spending money is the part most often underestimated, so check the food and activities share against what a day costs where you are going.
How do you plan a holiday budget?
Plan a holiday budget by pricing the fixed costs first - flights and accommodation, which are usually over half the total - then setting a daily allowance for food and activities and multiplying by the number of days. Add 5–10% on top for the costs no itinerary predicts.