2026 - mapping a year of travel
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Anonymous
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We've never had the funds to map a year of travel in advance - in the past, we have cobbled together funds on a quarterly (or less) basis and quickly booked trips. We know that booking travel 6 months to a year out is much more economical and now that we have a bit more disposable income to think that far ahead, I'm interested to hear how others are planning to use PTO in 2026. It'd be great to see yearly travel budget, number of people per trip, number of days of PTO for each vacation, budget per trip, and any useful commentary on how to keep costs low.
Separately, aside from Black Friday, are there any other holiday sales that are useful to target to bring costs down? To kick this off, for next year I'm budgeting $25-$30k for 4 people for the year as follows. Interested to see other ideas for the Q2 and Q3 trips in particular, and also how to keep costs low in general. Q1: Sun Valley (3 days PTO) - 3 people, family accommodation, lift tickets + airline tickets ($3000) Q2: Scotland (5 days PTO) - 3 people, all in budget of $10,000 Q3: Maine (4 days PTO) - 4 people, driving to Maine, AirBnb, budgeting $5,000 Q4: Turks & Caicos (2 days PTO) - 4 people, budgeting $10,000 as our friend is having an event at Beaches (ordinarily not what we would spend this much on) depending on how much scotland and turks and caicos end up costing, we will add a few additional weekend getaways budget (and point accumulation) permitting - Hershey, Eastern Shore, etc. |
Anonymous
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Why are you sharing pto days instead of actual travel/vacation days? Weird. Aren’t you trying to budget for meals each day?
Fwiw, I’ve always been surprised by how expensive nonstop flights are to Scotland. They are consistently more expensive than London, Paris, Rome, etc. Have you priced them out yet? Play the points game if you can for flights and hotel to keep costs down. Fwiw, we tend to book certain big trips well in advance (we booked Xmas break 2025 several months ago and already booked some pieces of a 2.5 week trip to the Mediterranean in summer 2026. We used to book spring break a year in advance, but now we tend to wing it. We also do several long weekend trips throughout the year and typically book those 3-6 months out unless it’s more of a spur of the moment thing. |
Anonymous
| Why such ridiculously expensive places for a person with acknowledged financial struggles? TBH I have been to all of these places and they are nowhere near my favorite vacations. |
Anonymous
Depends on where you're based, I guess? 
Nonstop flights to EDI from EWR, JFK, BOS, YYZ are super cheap. Get yourself to NYC, Boston, or Toronto (train to NYC or Boston, or positioning flight to Boston or Toronto if you're daring). I think the OP's travel plans are kind of silly and shortchange the destinations. Instead of a both a 5-PTO (LOL PTO) trip to Scotland and a 4-PTO trip to Maine in one year, take a 9-PTO trip to Scotland this year and a 9-PTO trip to Maine next year. |
Anonymous
Why is this? Workarounds? |
Anonymous
| PP. Or for Scotland fly into London. The train ride from London to/from Edinburgh is lovely. (Or make one leg London + train and the other direct to/from Edinburgh, however it works out cheaper.) |
Anonymous
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January-short trip to Florida
June- 2 weeks visiting family August-10 days New England Road Trip |
Anonymous
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September - 5 days in Puerto Rico December over Christmas holiday - England. Have friends that can get us Tix to a Boxing Day soccer match. February - week in Florida to visit family April - week in Aruba 2 weeks at end of June/beginning of July - New Zealand August - week at Cape Cod We will throw in a few 3 and 4 day weekends to NYC and up North to go skiing (live in New England) |
Anonymous
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I would have no interest in spending that much money on the places you've mentioned, but great if it works for you.
We will not be traveling over Christmas/New Year, because everywhere is overcrowded and cold. Instead we ar planning a longer stay in Germany, France and Spain in May 2026. Then maybe a late season trip to a local beach and some weekends away over the year. |
Anonymous
| Why not do one longer trip to somewhere special? You’re spending a lot of money ( and carbon!) on all those flights. Personally, we mess around with flights until we find a cheap one, and that tells us how long our vacation is and where we’re going. For example, you could fly to Scotland and then take a train to Ireland while you’re there. |
Anonymous
Two weeks is not enough for NZ. |
Anonymous
| Maine budget is tight. We’re looking for a week this summer and anything not totally disgusting is $3500. |
Anonymous
You don’t have to hit every site! I’d just go to the South Island. |
Anonymous
I don’t think that was the question and this is pretty rude. |
Anonymous
Bad advice. |