That does NOT involve staying with relatives?

Dh and I would like to take the kids on a 'real' vacation.. but we don't want to spend a whole lot of money, since the kids and I are going to Mexico at the end of the year, and that's going to cost big $$.

Soo, any ideas for a inexpensive family vacation?

Camping is fairly inexpensive and a ton of fun. We do it in place of "real" vacations.

Dh would love that, buy unfortunately, my idea of camping is the days inn.

If I weren't so terrified of snakes, I think I would love to camp.

LOL I am terrified of snakes too but love to camp. I am yet to come across a snake, especially at a state campground. Have you ever thought of yurt camping? Where do you live?? That would help with some ideas!

There are many campgrounds that have cabins you can rent for really pretty cheap. You might check into it if a cabin would make you feel safer. Also, if you camp in the right places you do not have to worry about snakes. The "right" places are the ones that would be comfortable this time of year, not where I live. :)

nak LOTS of state caps have nice cabin you can rent for 40-60 a night. often have access to water, etc

beach can be done cheap if you find a place w a kitchen and do not mind being a block from it.

where are you again? what sort of things does your family like? how much driving is too much, and last, how cheap is cheap?
heather

I dont know how much the kids would like it, but dh and I camped in a tent on the maryland/dc border at a KOA campground, and took a tram everyday for real cheap right into DC, most all the museums are free to get into and we did a ton of exploring, we only had to pay for our meals and souvineers really, once we got into the "mall" area. We toured the White House, Capital etc.. it was fun!

with kids, maybe a beach vacation, if you had just enough to pay for a nearby hotel, food, gas, and just spent most of your time on the beach, and maybe some mini golf that could be inexpensive. Virginia Beach is nice, Cape Cod is great! but not so cheap.

where are you located? maybe you could get better suggestions if we knew where you were.

Or what about just driving to your next closest city, and touring museums, and zoo's? Alot of them have memberships so if you belong to one you can get into alot for free or half off.

How much is a lot of money? You could do a great roadtrip visiting all kinds of low cost family friendly sites and have a blast.
Beach camping is fun and there aren't any snakes.
You could go to a less expensive hotel/motel by the beach for a few days and make swimming in the pool and going to the beach the whole vacation. You can cust costs by bringing a cooler and not going out to eat.
You could go to a fancy resort hotel and get the cheapest room and stay for 3 or 4 nights. They always have lots of fun stuff (like kid's pool, etc.). Take your food and the only real expense is the hotel. Even $200.00/night would be a vacation for under $1000!

We're in Southern Illinois- We regularly go to St. Louis (about a hour from here) and visit the museums, zoo's, etc.

I would really like to stay at or under $1000. (preferably under!) but that would include gas in a Chevy Suburban (which really isn't too bad)

I'm in Western KY and every year the 3 of us go to Gulf Shores, AL. Michael driving, takes about 8-9hours. We budget $1000(kept back from taxes in April) for everything: hotel, gas, food, amusement, & souvenirs. We stay 2nights off the beach & one or two(depending on what are $ looks like on the 3rd night) on the beach. We also take a lot of our own food, nothing cold though that won't last in a cooler. We only eat at Burger King, Subway & a lil Chicago style pizza shop, we're not fancy eaters LOL.

You could go to the Smokey Mts. in TN. Plenty to do there(Dollywood) you could rent a cabin.

Umm, Kings Island in Ohio? Six Flags in KY(Louisville I think is where it's at)....