Traveling internationally is cheaper than domestic travel

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not pp. But those who don't think it is believable obviously don't know how to budget travel. Sure, if you refuse to have any flexibility, that will be true. But I have done many trips to Europe for less than $3k for my small family. It just takes some work. I did one trip to Japan for 3 people over cherry blossom season for only $2500; found a great flight, biggest other expense was the train pass. I have saved tons of money by going to Thailand for 3 weeks. Flights were about $2k total (fly on Thanksgiving or Christmas day), but rooms were only about $40 for amazing local places. Definitely came back to more in my bank account than had I stayed home.

The reason people don't have flexibility is the school schedule. If you are flying over christmas day, okay, how are you staying there for 3 weeks?

Thank you! I am side-eyeing the Japan for 3 for $2,500. Is one under the age of 2? How many days?

It was 6 days over spring break. I had been waiting for a good deal to somewhere. I had lots of trackers working for me. Then $500 tickets to Tokyo popped up. I bought them instantly (3 of them). There was only one night of a decent hotel in our price range (under $150) in kyoto because of cherry blossom season. Most of the time we stayed in Tokyo. But we never changed our hours, so we could get to everything super early when it was empty. On one day, we took the fast train to Kyoto at around 5am, checked our bags into the train station to not lose time in storing them, and just stayed the one night we found. Then we took a late night train back to Tokyo. Getting up super early (on our regular time schedule) allowed us to see all the major sites without anyone else there. You name it and we probably did it.

Sounds like hell honestly. Getting onto a 5 am train is not a vacation. And I don’t want to get up early ever on vacation. Lame.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not pp. But those who don't think it is believable obviously don't know how to budget travel. Sure, if you refuse to have any flexibility, that will be true. But I have done many trips to Europe for less than $3k for my small family. It just takes some work. I did one trip to Japan for 3 people over cherry blossom season for only $2500; found a great flight, biggest other expense was the train pass. I have saved tons of money by going to Thailand for 3 weeks. Flights were about $2k total (fly on Thanksgiving or Christmas day), but rooms were only about $40 for amazing local places. Definitely came back to more in my bank account than had I stayed home.

The reason people don't have flexibility is the school schedule. If you are flying over christmas day, okay, how are you staying there for 3 weeks?

Thank you! I am side-eyeing the Japan for 3 for $2,500. Is one under the age of 2? How many days?

It was 6 days over spring break. I had been waiting for a good deal to somewhere. I had lots of trackers working for me. Then $500 tickets to Tokyo popped up. I bought them instantly (3 of them). There was only one night of a decent hotel in our price range (under $150) in kyoto because of cherry blossom season. Most of the time we stayed in Tokyo. But we never changed our hours, so we could get to everything super early when it was empty. On one day, we took the fast train to Kyoto at around 5am, checked our bags into the train station to not lose time in storing them, and just stayed the one night we found. Then we took a late night train back to Tokyo. Getting up super early (on our regular time schedule) allowed us to see all the major sites without anyone else there. You name it and we probably did it.

Sounds like hell honestly. Getting onto a 5 am train is not a vacation. And I don’t want to get up early ever on vacation. Lame.

Stay home if you are mostly interested in sleeping. Some people want to make the most of their trips.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know why people think you have to be rich to travel internationally. If you visited other countries, you would realize the most expensive country in the world is America. In Europe, the costs of food, hotels, and transportation is cheaper than America. In Asia, you can get a five start hotel at Marriott for like $100 per night. Even in wealthy places like Singapore, restaurant food is like a quarter of the cost compared to America.

This is patently false. We were in Switzerland last summer and food is much more expensive than in the US. I’m talking even the lone McDonalds in Lucerne. What are you smoking?!

Newsflash: Europe consists of 44 countries. Switzerland is by far the most expensive country in Europe. There are plenty of other countries in Europe that have far cheaper costs of food and accomodation than Switzerland, and cheaper costs that say, a trip to Orlando. For example, Albania, Bulgaria and Turkey--all of which have terrific reasonably priced options for tourists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know why people think you have to be rich to travel internationally. If you visited other countries, you would realize the most expensive country in the world is America. In Europe, the costs of food, hotels, and transportation is cheaper than America. In Asia, you can get a five start hotel at Marriott for like $100 per night. Even in wealthy places like Singapore, restaurant food is like a quarter of the cost compared to America.

This is patently false. We were in Switzerland last summer and food is much more expensive than in the US. I’m talking even the lone McDonalds in Lucerne. What are you smoking?!

Newsflash: Europe consists of 44 countries. Switzerland is by far the most expensive country in Europe. There are plenty of other countries in Europe that have far cheaper costs of food and accomodation than Switzerland, and cheaper costs that say, a trip to Orlando. For example, Albania, Bulgaria and Turkey--all of which have terrific reasonably priced options for tourists.

Right but OP's post and some of the follow-ups are way too broadbrush- international travel is SOMETIMES cheaper than domestic, but it really depends where you are going and what you are doing.

Also, while I recognize that that this is a DC based forum, flight prices to Europe, Asia, etc. can vary quite a bit depending on where you are coming from in the US.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know why people think you have to be rich to travel internationally. If you visited other countries, you would realize the most expensive country in the world is America. In Europe, the costs of food, hotels, and transportation is cheaper than America. In Asia, you can get a five start hotel at Marriott for like $100 per night. Even in wealthy places like Singapore, restaurant food is like a quarter of the cost compared to America.

This is patently false. We were in Switzerland last summer and food is much more expensive than in the US. I’m talking even the lone McDonalds in Lucerne. What are you smoking?!

Newsflash: Europe consists of 44 countries. Switzerland is by far the most expensive country in Europe. There are plenty of other countries in Europe that have far cheaper costs of food and accomodation than Switzerland, and cheaper costs that say, a trip to Orlando. For example, Albania, Bulgaria and Turkey--all of which have terrific reasonably priced options for tourists.

Right but OP's post and some of the follow-ups are way too broadbrush- international travel is SOMETIMES cheaper than domestic, but it really depends where you are going and what you are doing.

Also, while I recognize that that this is a DC based forum, flight prices to Europe, Asia, etc. can vary quite a bit depending on where you are coming from in the US.

💯 but obviously they are too stupid to get that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know why people think you have to be rich to travel internationally. If you visited other countries, you would realize the most expensive country in the world is America. In Europe, the costs of food, hotels, and transportation is cheaper than America. In Asia, you can get a five start hotel at Marriott for like $100 per night. Even in wealthy places like Singapore, restaurant food is like a quarter of the cost compared to America.

This is patently false. We were in Switzerland last summer and food is much more expensive than in the US. I’m talking even the lone McDonalds in Lucerne. What are you smoking?!

Newsflash: Europe consists of 44 countries. Switzerland is by far the most expensive country in Europe. There are plenty of other countries in Europe that have far cheaper costs of food and accomodation than Switzerland, and cheaper costs that say, a trip to Orlando. For example, Albania, Bulgaria and Turkey--all of which have terrific reasonably priced options for tourists.

Switzerland is insanely expensive for food. But most of the other countries in Europe are not. There are so many videos of people eating ramen in their hotel rooms in Switzerland right now.

I will say though that DC is just outrageously priced, and then there's taxes and tips on everything.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t know why people think you have to be rich to travel internationally. If you visited other countries, you would realize the most expensive country in the world is America. In Europe, the costs of food, hotels, and transportation is cheaper than America. In Asia, you can get a five start hotel at Marriott for like $100 per night. Even in wealthy places like Singapore, restaurant food is like a quarter of the cost compared to America.

This is patently false. We were in Switzerland last summer and food is much more expensive than in the US. I’m talking even the lone McDonalds in Lucerne. What are you smoking?!

Newsflash: Europe consists of 44 countries. Switzerland is by far the most expensive country in Europe. There are plenty of other countries in Europe that have far cheaper costs of food and accomodation than Switzerland, and cheaper costs that say, a trip to Orlando. For example, Albania, Bulgaria and Turkey--all of which have terrific reasonably priced options for tourists.

Switzerland is insanely expensive for food. But most of the other countries in Europe are not. There are so many videos of people eating ramen in their hotel rooms in Switzerland right now.

I will say though that DC is just outrageously priced, and then there's taxes and tips on everything.

In Switzerland we bought spaghetti at the grocery and stayed in a hostel. We would never travel so frugally anywhere else. It makes me not want to go back.


In fact, we stayed in Venice longer than Switzerland in part because it was much less expensive.

Switzerland is an outlier. Which makes actually mentioned in an earlier post in this thread.