Family of 5 Travel Budget

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You’re taking five vacations a year. That is a lot of vacation.

I get more weeks of vacation than you but we don’t go away every time. Just 2-3x a year.

Xmas break is family obligation, I don’t count it as vacation! (I would work if employer allowed it)

Spring break kids are home and it’s only time to go to places that are too hot on summer like Grand Canyon

Ski trips are long weekends — lots of families at our public school zip away for weekends, some even fly to Colorado or Florida

Beach and a big vacation is the only perhaps excess. Depends on what enriching vacation is or if we go to beach in spring time.

Kids are only young for a little while so trying make memorias.

[Anonymous]

Family of 5 here. Travel with 5 is super expensive because you need a big rental car, and two hotel rooms or a suite. I don’t think you can do the “big” vacation for 10K. We’re fairly frugal and those typically run more like 15K for us. Our trip to London that got scratched due to covid, the flights over spring break were going to be 7K for the five of us with taxes and everything (cheapest direct flights) plus another 4K for the vrbo and that’s before we paid for activities or food/. Our California trip before the pandemic was $12,500 without food, although that included 2 days at disney and one expensive activity at a national park, so probably could have kept it just under 10K before food but skipping those—but I think at least a couple of the flights were free. Try to actually cost it out and see.

On the other hand, the Xmas trip sounds high, if you are staying with family. We can usually get tickets cheaper than $600/pp to our family out west—we buy SWA the day the flights open usually and will adjust flight days based on price. The beach week might also be a smidge high but there’s a crazy amount of price variation in beach rentals.

If your kids are little, all those ski vacations seem like a lot but I guess if it’s important to you, then it’s worth it. I didn’t learn to ski until I was a teenager so all the people that think it’s really important their kids learn to ski at 4 always surprise me. It’s not like we live in Switzerland. I don’t think it’s an important life skill like swimming and isn’t even really an important social skill unless you are in the widely wealthy set that all seem to have houses in aspen or whatever. You could also just do day trips to liberty and not have to pay for overnight—that’s what most people O know do. I don’t really know any middle class families that take multiple ski trips a year where they stay overnight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sounds about right, a little low actually. I would cut out the skiing though and reallocate the funds elsewhere if the best you can do is WV.

Also, to clarify, I meant that the amount is right, not necessarily the destinations. You are spending a lot of money to visit family, go to a mediocre Mid Atlantic beach, and ski in WV. You could pack in a lot more culture and bang for those bucks.

I mean we drive to WV to ski so kids can learn to ski. Flying to Park City would be much more.

Same with beach, good destinations mean flights which add $3000 on top.

I guess we could drive to Cape Cod when kids are older. 4 hrs /day is about our max

You need to change that.

[Anonymous]

OP what do you want here? Five vacations a year is a lot. You can afford it and want to prioritize it, which is fine.

What do you want people on here to say?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP what do you want here? Five vacations a year is a lot. You can afford it and want to prioritize it, which is fine.

What do you want people on here to say?

Oh just wanted confirmation that our per trip cost made sense. I guess most people skip beach and ski trips.

[Anonymous]

So do most people not travel during holidays, spring break, and summer?! Just sene kids to camp?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP what do you want here? Five vacations a year is a lot. You can afford it and want to prioritize it, which is fine.

What do you want people on here to say?

Oh just wanted confirmation that our per trip cost made sense. I guess most people skip beach and ski trips.

Yes, because they are boring. Spend that money on more interesting trips OP. Do you guys not like museums?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So do most people not travel during holidays, spring break, and summer?! Just sene kids to camp?

We travel for holidays to visit family - so NY for Thanksgiving and NC for Christmas. Neither one costs us money besides gas and tolls.

We travel for spring break but keep it somewhere driving distance. Cabin in the mountains, Charleston, Williamsburg, etc.

In the summer our kids are in camp because both parents work full time. There is a week between camps closing down and school starting - we visit the NC relatives at the beach normally.

Yes, we could get more culture elsewhere but our kids are on the young side and I didn’t really want to fly before they were vaccinated. It’s always interesting to hear budgets from other households - we are at $300k HHI and our travel budget is maybe $1k a year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So do most people not travel during holidays, spring break, and summer?! Just sene kids to camp?

We travel for holidays to visit family - so NY for Thanksgiving and NC for Christmas. Neither one costs us money besides gas and tolls.

We travel for spring break but keep it somewhere driving distance. Cabin in the mountains, Charleston, Williamsburg, etc.

In the summer our kids are in camp because both parents work full time. There is a week between camps closing down and school starting - we visit the NC relatives at the beach normally.

Yes, we could get more culture elsewhere but our kids are on the young side and I didn’t really want to fly before they were vaccinated. It’s always interesting to hear budgets from other households - we are at $300k HHI and our travel budget is maybe $1k a year.

Well yeah. If you have relatives with a beach house and can drive to family it’s way cheaper.

What do you do with kids for a week in the mountains? We like hiking (did Yosemite, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon all before kids) but they are up for a day of hiking, maybe two if we are camping. A week would end in madness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So do most people not travel during holidays, spring break, and summer?! Just sene kids to camp?

We travel for holidays to visit family - so NY for Thanksgiving and NC for Christmas. Neither one costs us money besides gas and tolls.

We travel for spring break but keep it somewhere driving distance. Cabin in the mountains, Charleston, Williamsburg, etc.

In the summer our kids are in camp because both parents work full time. There is a week between camps closing down and school starting - we visit the NC relatives at the beach normally.

Yes, we could get more culture elsewhere but our kids are on the young side and I didn’t really want to fly before they were vaccinated. It’s always interesting to hear budgets from other households - we are at $300k HHI and our travel budget is maybe $1k a year.

Curious what kids age 4-12 would find interesting in Charleston? Older kids might like colonial Williamsburg.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So do most people not travel during holidays, spring break, and summer?! Just sene kids to camp?

We travel for holidays to visit family - so NY for Thanksgiving and NC for Christmas. Neither one costs us money besides gas and tolls.

We travel for spring break but keep it somewhere driving distance. Cabin in the mountains, Charleston, Williamsburg, etc.

In the summer our kids are in camp because both parents work full time. There is a week between camps closing down and school starting - we visit the NC relatives at the beach normally.

Yes, we could get more culture elsewhere but our kids are on the young side and I didn’t really want to fly before they were vaccinated. It’s always interesting to hear budgets from other households - we are at $300k HHI and our travel budget is maybe $1k a year.

Curious what kids age 4-12 would find interesting in Charleston? Older kids might like colonial Williamsburg.

Dolphin boat; beach combing; plantation with swamp garden and farm animals; aquarium; kayaking; children's museum; older kids learn about slavery, the Gullah culture, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So do most people not travel during holidays, spring break, and summer?! Just sene kids to camp?

We travel for holidays to visit family - so NY for Thanksgiving and NC for Christmas. Neither one costs us money besides gas and tolls.

We travel for spring break but keep it somewhere driving distance. Cabin in the mountains, Charleston, Williamsburg, etc.

In the summer our kids are in camp because both parents work full time. There is a week between camps closing down and school starting - we visit the NC relatives at the beach normally.

Yes, we could get more culture elsewhere but our kids are on the young side and I didn’t really want to fly before they were vaccinated. It’s always interesting to hear budgets from other households - we are at $300k HHI and our travel budget is maybe $1k a year.

Curious what kids age 4-12 would find interesting in Charleston? Older kids might like colonial Williamsburg.

Dolphin boat; beach combing; plantation with swamp garden and farm animals; aquarium; kayaking; children's museum; older kids learn about slavery, the Gullah culture, etc.

Yeah that works for the young elem set but we do a lot of that in DC on a regular weekend.

[Anonymous]

I don't think that's unreasonable for your income. If I made what you made I would happily spend that! I mean, yes, when you say $25,000 it sounds like a lot, but when you have to pay airfare for 5 people it adds up quickly. For 4 big trips and a bunch of weekends it's not a lot.

[Anonymous]

Your trips sound lovely OP! I think your costs are reasonable given your income and the size of your family. Also, if your family is not within driving distance it can be very expensive to fly over the holidays. It's nice that you make visiting family a priority. We have a much lower income than you (150HHI) and still spend about 10K for two trips a year. We also use points and miles or our costs would be even higher. Enjoy your travels!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So do most people not travel during holidays, spring break, and summer?! Just sene kids to camp?

We travel for holidays to visit family - so NY for Thanksgiving and NC for Christmas. Neither one costs us money besides gas and tolls.

We travel for spring break but keep it somewhere driving distance. Cabin in the mountains, Charleston, Williamsburg, etc.

In the summer our kids are in camp because both parents work full time. There is a week between camps closing down and school starting - we visit the NC relatives at the beach normally.

Yes, we could get more culture elsewhere but our kids are on the young side and I didn’t really want to fly before they were vaccinated. It’s always interesting to hear budgets from other households - we are at $300k HHI and our travel budget is maybe $1k a year.

Well yeah. If you have relatives with a beach house and can drive to family it’s way cheaper.

What do you do with kids for a week in the mountains? We like hiking (did Yosemite, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon all before kids) but they are up for a day of hiking, maybe two if we are camping. A week would end in madness.

We do lots of shorter hikes; we get a place with a hot tub and keep the temp low so they can spend time in there; they bring soccer balls and footballs and play like they would at home in our back yard. We fly drones and gliders, drive remote control trucks and make the kids chase them. We set off those mini rockets. They have fun playing with toy figures in a new space so they set up battles between transformers and Pokémon or whatever they are in to. We roast s’mores over a fire. We don’t always go for a full week; we come home a few days early so they can have true downtime before school, have play dates with friends etc.