Asked a few days ago but need more response: When your family rents a cottage do you generally eat out more?!

That's the main reason our large extended family loves to rent a house or cottage. We can save so much on meals! We also do a combination of taking some food with us and buying other things locally. (Obviously, this is when we are driving to a destination.) We'll often take a cooler with a large frozen turkey, ham or pork loin in it. Cooked up that can feed us for more than one meal. We take turns with meal preparation and mostly keep it pretty simple. Crock pot things that can be cooking while we are out hiking or visiting museums, etc. Pancakes for breakfast. Burgers and hot dogs on the grill.

We usually always enjoy one special dinner eaten out at our destination. We choose a place that is representative of local food specialties: seafood, barbecue, steaks, authentic Southern, etc.

We plan and take the food with us and then pick up, like milk and juice and things when we get where we are going. The reason for that, is most places we have gone, have been a tourist mecca and food cost is much higher than at home. When we have gone, all meals were cooked by us. We took turns doing it. We would cook a little bit special, but not much really, our vacations have been places that we hike and enjoy outdoors. So breakfast was a big deal, light lunches ( usually eaten by a stream ) and a nice family style dinner.
One night we will do burgers and dogs with potato salad and beans, another could be roast turkey breast with all the fixins

Both. Eat in and then eat out a couple of times. Since you have a kitchen in there you might as well use it and save sme money instead of eating out every night, as you would if you were in a hotel.