Of course it doesn’t seem complicated if you know how to do it and don’t find it intimidating. I am not making this up. There are people I know who DO NOT feel comfortable going a place they have never been and just winging it themselves. So they don’t. They know how to vacation. They do not know how to travel. |
Grew up in southern Virginia. We'd take overnight or two-night trips to Williamsburg/Busch Gardens, Outer Banks, Luray Caverns, North Carolina mountains, Washington DC. We'd stay in budget motels like Econo Lodges. This was pre-internet, so my mom spent a lot of time writing to chambers of commerce at our destinations to score coupons and discount tickets. I never went on a week-long vacation until adulthood.
When kids are little, they can be just as happy with those trips as something grander. |
Please, just because they have no desire to go to London doesn’t mean they don’t know how or that there is much skill involved. Effort yes, skill no. Some people prefer familiar things and there is nothing wrong with that, nor is there anything inherently virtuous about “cool” or international travel vs OBX. |
I think you missed pp’s point. Obviously there are lots of people who are well traveled internationally but would prefer to sit at their beach house in MD. Nothing wrong with that at all. Doesn’t change the fact that planning an international trip is intimidating for those who never traveled farther than the smoky mountains. |
I like the planning so much, sometimes I think I enjoy it more than the actual trip |
Millions of possibilities. Sounds like you’re fixated on what you don’t have. |
I feel like people who say this usually have plenty or at least enough. It’s like saying money doesn’t buy happiness while living in a McMansion and being well off… |
I disagree. We are firmly middle class (HHI last year was 121k) and I definitely don't feel restricted to Ocean City and staying in Econolodges. We don't eat at 5 star restaurants or stay in $300/night hotels, either, but we do lots of things. In the last few years, we've done: NYC (stayed in AirBnB, hung out with friends, did some Central Park, the Highline, the Met, and the ferry) Nashville (AirBnB, saw live music at the honkeytonks during the day, visited the big gardens outside of town, hit up western and consignment stores, ate amazing food) Outer Banks, twice (group house rentals with friends) Montreal (crazy affordable, including cheap short flights) New Mexico (ABQ, Santa Fe, hiking in the mountains, great food) Charleston (weirdly the least kid-friendly of the places we've been recently, but we did like the beach and Fort Sumter) Florida multiple times, typical Florida stuff but not Disney because kids are still a bit young to enjoy it New Orleans (more live music, lots of walking around, eating crawfish and jambalaya, etc.) Plus weekends in Richmond, Baltimore, Philadelphia, as well as visits to family. None of this stuff is that expensive if you know how to scout cheap flights, go outside of peak times of year, and don't get sucked in for pricy tours or do lots of shopping. We like sightseeing, walking/hiking, seeing gardens and museums, and so our kids have grown up doing and enjoying those things to. None of them are pricy. Some of our favorite family memories are things like having a picnic on Mont Real or eating beignets in the park in NoLa. My DD still talks about sitting on the beach with me early in the morning and letting the tide roll up and slowly bury us in the wet sand as we sang songs in the Outer Banks. Planning vacations on a budget is not even a particularly unique skill and I am super grateful to live in a place so convenient to so many neat, affordable places. I grew up in a remote town out west with no local airport and all our vacations involved like 12 hours of driving each way. Meanwhile, we can save money and do a trip to London with our family for under 5k, and be there in less time than it used to take my family to drive to the nearest major city. Everything is relative. |
When we were stationed in Germany with the military our military neighbors took all their vacations at euro Disney. Saw nothing else in Europe. Strange. |
Enlisted? |
Exactly. We are talking about two different groups of people. Yes some people can and know how to travel and don’t by choice. Some people LITERALLY DONT KNOW because they’ve never done it. I have no idea why people are pretending the first group existing means the second doesn’t. |
Nope. Fairly senior level officers. |
Yup. This is my DH's family to some extent. They talk about wanting to travel but simply don't know how. I have planned and gone on some trips with them and it's hard. Even stuff like "how will I get to and from the airport", they need help with. They worry a lot about money when they travel, even though they have plenty of money for the kinds of trips we take, simply because they are very nervous about the unknown. I think they are also very ripe for getting taken advantage of because of how inexperienced they are -- I think about the grifters who prey on travelers in a lot of popular tourist destinations and how some of my ILs might not understand the grift at all. My DH is not this naive, but before we met, most of his travel was arranged by other people. He'd been on great trips organized by friends and classmates where his job was to show up on time and book his own air travel, which he can handle. Even now, I definitely do most of the planning because I'm just better at it, though I definitely encourage him to do a lot more of it simply so he understands how it works a bit more. We are absolutely showing our kid how to travel, and that it doesn't have to be expensive or fancy, so that she has more options as an adult. |
There are gay days. He likes to do princess brunches. The princesses LOVE dealing with the gays after dealing with families all the time lol. |
I just don't know anyone like this, despite growing up poor/LMC. When and if they do decide to do new travel that they have never done before, they book trips and figure out transportation to and from the airports in Disney and Pigeon Forge. I personally have never met an individual who desires a different type of travel but are unable to execute it due to "they LITERALLY DON'T KNOW how to plan for a trip to a city or country they’ve never been to". |