The budget alternative to Lake Como which was perfect for my young family

With my husband’s summer birthday on the horizon – something he claims each year that he does not want to celebrate, but secretly does – I decided to plan a long weekend abroad.

I didn’t have many criteria for the trip: a house, so we could have some breathing space when our children (aged one and three) went to bed, and some water nearby, be it a pool, the sea or a lake.

Crucially, I didn’t want it to be expensive, so I started checking out the lowest-priced flight options from Luton that landed in destinations where our money would go far.

This led me to Budapest, to which flights started at around £40 without luggage (although they can go up significantly in the school summer holidays).

However, ever since a frankly awful trip to New York, I’ve avoided family city breaks – the bustle, public transport and confined spaces don’t gel with my lively brood.

Instead, I seek out quieter places in nature, where there are things to see during the day, but at a gentle pace. After scanning the Hungarian countryside around Budapest for options, my pin dropped on Lake Balaton – a two-hour drive from the city.

Central Europe’s largest lake is sometimes called the Hungarian Sea. It’s also popular with holidaying Hungarians as well as Czech, Slovakian and Polish visitors and is lively in summer when temperatures can reach the high 20°Cs and the water can be as warm as a heated pool.

Having previously been to Lake Como in Italy, I hoped Balaton would offer a similar, but cheaper, experience.

The visual differences alone are striking, though. Whereas Lake Como is framed by mountains, Balaton’s rolling hills, fields and farmland offer a more Tuscan backdrop.

And, like Tuscany, this area is home to many vineyards; we stayed on one on the north side of the 48-mile-long lake, just inland from the peninsula of Tihany. Here, Tihany village is filled with little thatched single-storey boutiques selling lavender from the surrounding fields, ice cream parlours line the main street, and an 11th-century Benedictine abbey looks out over the lake.

In the garden of our holiday rental – which cost £472 for a five-night stay – our children played amid butterfly-crowded lavender that’s typical of this part of the lakeshore.

We explored the towns and villages around Balaton, from the postcard-ready canal and pond of Tapolca – which are fed by an underground lake that you can explore by boat – to slightly further afield Székesfehérvar, with its cobbled streets and ornate, medieval buildings.

Unlike Lake Como, whose towns are pushed right up against the water by the mountains, the towns of Balaton are more spread out. Their allure isn’t quite as immediate, with several layers of mundane modernity to break through – McDonald’s, retail parks and communist era concrete apartment blocks – before you find yourself in an attractive historic centre.

However, while the towns of Como can be filled with tourists, there are fewer in this part of Hungary. And the restaurants are markedly cheaper.

Most days we spent less than £40 on lunch for the four of us (granted, including two small stomachs). On Lake Como a comparable meal would have cost almost twice as much. While we did have some Hungarian cuisine (pork knuckles, noodles and bacon), we often opted for Italian restaurants, all of which were pleasant and inexpensive.

Our afternoons were spent at the beaches that dot the shoreline. Like those on Lake Como, some are public and others private; we found the former too busy, and since the private ones only cost £6 for the four of us, we’d invariably end up on one. A private beach or “lido” in Lake Como would cost us about £35 – but they’re more polished than those at Lake Balaton.

The fancier options are often part of hotels, but on those we paid to use, we found activities scattered around, from slides into the water, to floating bouncy castles and basketball hoops.

The silty shores of Balaton’s beaches are certainly more child-friendly than Lake Como’s pebbles. The beach at Csopak – which was recently voted as the region’s best by Veszprém County – had a large, shallow swimming area, ideal for toddlers, and visiting it was easily the best part of our children’s days.

The Vonyarcvashegy lido on the lake’s western shore was named this year’s best beach by the Balaton Association for its cleanliness, green spaces and facilities, while Esterházy – just a few miles from Csopak – was recognised as the most family-friendly.

The lake also has new cycling lanes alongside most of the roads, and the relatively flat landscape lends itself to family bike trips on which you could hopscotch from one lido to the next, stopping for artisan lavender gelato on the way.

Our expenses, from the private beaches to restaurant prices and bargain ice cream (a scoop can cost as little as £1.50), felt remarkably good value. While our trip cost about £1,400 all-in, a comparable holiday to Lake Como would have been £2,200 – equating to savings of about £160 per day.

There’s no denying the Italianate appeal of Lake Como, but the Hungarian Sea has a bucolic charm of its own – something that more people are discovering.

In 2024, Lake Balaton attracted more than three million international visitors – a seven per cent increase from 2023.

And yet, it doesn’t feel crowded. For a budget-friendly family holiday that offers something a little different and plenty of space to roam, Lake Balaton ticks all the boxes.

How to get there
Wizz Air, Ryanair and British Airways all fly from the UK to Budapest. Tihany is less than a two-hour drive from the airport.

Alternatively, Adria InterCity trains run from Budapest-Keleti to the southern shore of Lake Balaton, and onwards to Split in Croatia.

Where to stay
The Houses of History, on the Tihany peninsula, has doubles from £68 per night.

More information
visithungary.com/category/balaton