How does anyone afford to travel now?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:PS - I have 2 teens and no, they don't need 4 meals a day. I suppose if your kids only know McDonald's they might? You have zero imagination if you can't figure out a list of places to take a family vacation in the summer besides the most expensive cities in Europe! Hell if you hate to travel and not prefer it that's completely reasonable too! But to suggest you don't do it because it's not worth the expense, or it's not worth it because nobody needs to see any other place other than the US, is proof you're a dimwit.

My teenaged boys eat 4 meals a day. Sometime 5.

I agree with pp, frankly. Travel expenses abroad for 5 adults when high schoolers can travel is absurdly expensive (June, July, Spring Break, Christmas break). It might be "worth it" for $3000, but not "worth it" for $20,000. We aren't talking about trips to Kings Dominion, we are talking about flying to other countries for travel.

I agree. We went to Europe over Spring Break with two teenagers and one under 10 and the trip easily cost us $15,000. Travel is very expensive these days. Granted we did stay in a nice hotel and did not rent an Air BnB but the tickets alone cost us $7K.

It feels like we must all be comparing apples with oranges. I travelled to Paris with my 16-year-old daughter last spring break and it cost $1365 for direct flights with United and 800 euros for 4 nights in a hotel in Paris. We stayed 3 nights with a friend. If we had stayed at a hotel for seven nights, we would have spent about $1,350pp on flights and accommodation. If you asked me whether it was worth it, then I would definitely say yes, but I didn’t need to spend anywhere near what you did.

To be fair to the PP above you, they mention traveling with 3 kids and you mention going with 1 kid. That's obviously going to have a very different cost when it comes to flights and accommodations.

Which is precisely why I said it cost $1,350 per person. For 5 people, that would be $6,700 but only for flights and hotel.

No judgement on them for spending far more - clearly they have a bigger budget. But different budgets and travel styles make it hard to compare costs.

Also the PP who only has one kid stayed for free for 3 nights with a friend - that’s not possible with a family of 5. Keep in mind a family of 4 or 5 also needs two hotel rooms in Europe (Europe only allows 2 per room usually). Also food and entertainment would be way more expensive for 5 people vs 2. The point still stands - Europe is very expensive for families.

There are hotels with family rooms, but depending where you are going availability may be limited. The Meininger chain is good- granted a long weekend is about the limit of how long I want share a hotel room with my two kids, beyond that we get an Airbnb or sometimes a hotel with adjoining rooms. We lived in Europe for a couple years so getting to wherever we were going was generally pretty inexpensive, but beyond that we had trips that were "cheap" and trips that were more of a splurge.