Dude ranch vacations seem like a lot of fun, but the prices I've seen seem outrageous! They want from $ 800- $1500 for one child for a week! Add airfare and a vacation for a family of 4 becomes out of our price range. Does anyone know of any ranch type family vacations that won't break the bank?

The New York Times travel section had a piece on this on Sunday. You can read it at http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/10/travel/DUDE.html
I can't remember the rates they quoted, but there were other resources and websites listed in the article for looking for ranch vacations.

I think you may not realize what these costs cover and probably have unrealistic ideas of what vacations should cost. Yes, the $1500 places are the more expensive, deluxe ones and that does seem like more than people with more than one kid might want to pay, but there are places available in your lower end ($800). That price isn't outrageous IMO, it is simply a little over $100 a day per person. That $100 typically covers lodging, all meals and all activities including horsebacking, pool, and perhaps even some riding lessons. Wouldn't you think $30 a day for food for a child on vacation is reasonable, as well as $30 a day for their share of a room? (and I might add, a lot of these dude ranches give you an entire cabin for that rate with perhaps minifrig, front porch, etc, they can be pretty nice) Well, that's $60 right there, and the remaining $40 is for all the sports activities. I've been to one at the upper end (probably around $1200 a day per person) and that rate included approximately 4 hours a day of riding, if you wanted it. Horse rental is not cheap anywhere (if you have a private stable near you, go check hourly rates), keeping horses costs money, and places that have riding (and good riding and good instructors) have to pay staff to oversee and accompany rides, plus liability insurance (which can be expensive for places that rent horses), etc. So, I don't consider $100 a day for all that to be outrageous at all. www.duderange.org is a good website to find ranches by location and price range.

Well I guess I do have unrealistic expections of what vacations cost. In the case of my children, no, I don't think it is worth $ 100 a day each with the exception of the riding portion. They barely eat $ 10.00 worth of food let alone $30.00. The room is typically the same cost whether there are 4 in it or 2, assuming there are 2 adults paying for it already. I do agree that riding is expensive so that would be worth $ 40.00 or so. When we went on a cruise the children were only $ 200.00 for the week. That included an excellent childrens program. I know it's not the same type of vacation and I may not be able to find a dude ranch in my price range. I estimate with airfare we would spend about $ 7000-$ 10,000 for the week. I don't know about everyone else but it does seem like an awful lot for 1 week.

It is too much to spend. I am planning a vacation in Hawaii for two weeks. This is the first time I am traveling with my sister's family. I know Hawaii and I am doing the planning. I will be spending double because I don't want to cut out activities that are out of a normal family budget. $80 for 1 1/2 on horse back, kauai. Keep searching I once found a book on dude ranches. Sorry now more help than that.