Where do upper middle class families go on vacation?
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Anonymous
NP, we go to our DE beach house with free 2-3 day weekends. For vacation, usually 2 international trips in addition to winter break in Caribbean. Now that DS, 7, can ski, probably skiing out west during winter or spring break. We also do maybe 2 4 day long weekend trips domestically somewhere. We did 1 week at Disney for DS last year. That was enough for us and not interested in going again. |
Anonymous
| The difference is they are the types of people who enjoy spending a lot of time debating and researching "gear" that is in excess of their needs. Depending on where they are going, the gear could be something like those Travelon/Pacsafe slash-proof/RFID blocking purses which have way more safety features than they will ever need (similar to their Subarus), Yeti camping coolers that provide way more cooling than they ever need, hiking boots designed for the swiss alps to walk on a paved national park trail. |
Anonymous
| What family income qualifies as "upper middle class: in the DMV? |
Anonymous
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For the beach - Cape Cod & Islands, Maine, Jersey Shore, Delaware/MD beaches, NC beaches. UMC are likely getting nice beach houses, not staying at the high end resorts/hotels. For many of these places there are also differences by town - like Chatham and Wellfleet on the Cape, Stone Harbor or LBI on the Jersey Shore, etc.
For skiing - all the usual places on the east and west coast, but again it's the choice of lodging. We stay in nice places, but not the Four Seasons or Amangani. For Europe - anywhere. But again we stay at smaller hotels or in AirBnBs rather than big resorts or 5 star hotels. Which I prefer anyway. |
Anonymous
I consider this upper class not upper middle. We are upper middle (makes about gross about $270k/yr) and take 2 vacations one ski trip and one summer vacation- national park/Canada, hawaii, gave up on local beaches. |
Anonymous
I don't know, we're at about 240K per year, and everything the OP lists are places we have been. We take one or two vacations a year, and just stay at reasonably budget minded airbnbs and hotels. |
Anonymous
I meant more the 4 trips a year thing. The only people I know who travel/fly/take big trips for every break are more upper class. |
Anonymous
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We still go to the DE or VA coast for a week with family, just because we've been doing it family wise since before I was born. It's tradition. We also hit Disney once a year.
Otherwise we have a list of places and check them off as we go. Upcoming places include Australia, Africa and the Mediterranean. |
Anonymous
Ah, ok, gotcha. When I first read it, I thought the OP meant those were examples of different kinds of vacations. Not that they went on all four in the same year. But re-reading, I see how you read it. I always wonder where the upper class people, who presumably are working so hard to make the money they make, get the time to go on four or more vacations a year? |
Anonymous
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We are at about 240k and we have the following trips this year:
Disney NYC New England Safari in Africa |
Anonymous
How "cheesy" is your safari going to be? You going to Kruger, which is basically a glorified Great Adventure theme park, or are you going on a real one? Our safari cost nearly $100k. |
Anonymous
This is funny because we are UMC gear heads but we use all our gear! We ski about 20+ days a year, including DH and I try to go heliskiing once every other year, so we buy nice skis. We have expensive mountain bikes and use them. We use our Yeti cooler all the time, especially when we go boating (Lake Powell is my favorite place on earth). Happy to drive a Subaru because it gets reasonable gas mileage, fits my kids' sports gear, but also does well in the snow and on trips. When we got to national parks, which we do every summer, we stay in the national park lodges and bring our gear with us. |
Anonymous
NP You sound like such a nice person! |
Anonymous
By percentile? Probably $150k-$200K By lifestyle? $300K |
Anonymous
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I have determined after looking it up due to this forum that I have moved into the upper-middle class range. I used a calculator to give an estimate for COL from my area to northern va....My 127k income would be 234k in northern VA. We have pretty traditional middle-class fields: dh is a civil engineer (no PE) and I'm in social work. We really only moved into being upper middle class late 2017 and during that time we had a baby and then the pandemic happened so we haven't gotten to actually do a ton of travel beyond the east coast. We had PLANNED ultra-cheap trips to europe in 2020 but they were all lost.
I love travel, I value it for myself as a hobby and a way to reconnect with my family and an educational tool for my kids. I'm open to going anywhere if I can make it work with my budget and allotted time. Things we've actually done since moving into the upper-middle class range: budget couples winter trip to France, Maine, Quebec, WV, Florida beach, Adirondacks, camping: VA beach, Grayson Highlands, Douthat state park, Lake Moomaw, family visits around VA. We have lots of international travel planned this summer and winter. I have to be careful about budget and lay most of it out before purchasing flights. I don't get expensive lodging but sometimes I pick pricier places or a little bit more expensive lodging. |