Vacation expenses

[Anonymous]

OP here. Our extended families are overseas and we make at least 1 trip every year to visit. It takes $10K including tickets and other things. Winter break trip which is usually within the US takes $3-5K including food, transportation and tickets to whatever the kids are interested in. DH loves to travel and thinks what we do isn't enough.
Thanks for your inputs!

[Anonymous]

Our income is higher now but when we had 300-400k, we would spend 10-15k per year. Travel costs feel like they have increased drastically after Covid.

[Anonymous]

It’s interesting to me to see what some spend a year for vacations and scream poverty for college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Zero.

How is this possible? You take zero vacations per year? No time away at all?

No vacations since before covid hit. Before that it was rare too. What do you mean how is it possible? With covid, colds and flu and people inconsiderate there is zero chance I'd get on a plane or go somewhere crowded.

It's your life...and if you want to look back on it with memories that you successfully hid away from viruses, so be it.

[Anonymous]

$450k HHI. Family of four. We do a bigger family trip, a long weekend trip or two, and maybe a parent's long weekend trip. The last few years the budget has been in the $20-25k range.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Family of 4. We budget 20k for travel every year. Normally 3 big trips - one to Europe, one to Asia/latin America, one to a national park in the U.S. We also do a few small trips like NYC, or road trip locally from time to time. The way to keep budget under 20k is that we use lots of points as we both travel for work a lot. We also do some tag along trips with one spouse’ business trip so that at least one big air ticket is covered etc.

Even with airline ticket help that’s a lot of vacation for $20k. How do you vacation in Europe for about 10k. Any pointers on how to do it?

Anywhere outside USA is incredibly cheap, including Europe. This summer we went to Spain for 12 days, six cities. Accommodation is on average less than $150 but very good. Food is amazing. Monuments are magnificent, max 10 euro for tickets, kids free or heavily discounted (on contrary any museum in New York such as MET/Mona is 30 dollar each). Food is amazing for half the price of USA. I see increasingly my friends are vacationing in Europe to save money.

[Anonymous]

2023 we spent $20k which was very high for us. Each parent took a kid on a spring break trip because they had different breaks (skiing trip, long distance city trip); two visits to grandparents that require house rentals (one popular beach vacation area, one rural area); and two long weekends to one set of grandparents where we also AirBNB-ed.

My kids want to travel more but the grandparent vacations/visits have to come first in our budgets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is eye opening considering how many people on DCUM act like it’s super pitiful if your annual vacations are to places like Rehoboth and Orlando. I also don’t understand how people are spending this little.

We are going to Key West for Spring Break and staying in 1 hotel room at a mid-level full service chain (Marriott, Hilton). Our flights and hotel alone are $6-7k once you factor in checking 1 big suitcase for all 4 of us, Uber to/from airport, resort fees and taxes, etc. It’s easily a $10k trip with a car rental, meals out, and excursions like renting kayaks and swimming with dolphins. And it seems like we always stay at really dumpy hotels compared to other families we know in a similar income bracket!

We’re traveling to a wedding on the West coast this summer and will tack on a national park trip afterwards. I’m sure the whole thing will cost $20k and we’ll be gone 2-2.5 weeks. A trip to Europe or South America would be equally costly.

We stay at dumpy hotels too. We went to London and found a place that was about $350/night. Great location, but wow, no one was enthused when we walked inside our room. The nicer places were $500-$700 and that definitely puts us over budget.

London is notoriously expensive for hotels and flights. You can do virtually any other city in Europe for far less money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is eye opening considering how many people on DCUM act like it’s super pitiful if your annual vacations are to places like Rehoboth and Orlando. I also don’t understand how people are spending this little.

We are going to Key West for Spring Break and staying in 1 hotel room at a mid-level full service chain (Marriott, Hilton). Our flights and hotel alone are $6-7k once you factor in checking 1 big suitcase for all 4 of us, Uber to/from airport, resort fees and taxes, etc. It’s easily a $10k trip with a car rental, meals out, and excursions like renting kayaks and swimming with dolphins. And it seems like we always stay at really dumpy hotels compared to other families we know in a similar income bracket!

We’re traveling to a wedding on the West coast this summer and will tack on a national park trip afterwards. I’m sure the whole thing will cost $20k and we’ll be gone 2-2.5 weeks. A trip to Europe or South America would be equally costly.

I like Rehoboth and Orlando, FYI. I am not a travel snob! I think those hotel rooms add up - especially at a popular time at spring break. Lately, I like to stay at VRBOs lately for more room and often lower cost.

But as I mentioned, we are in the income bracket stated in the OP, and once we went to Aruba and stayed in a house rental by owner near the Marriott there. We went to the beach near the Marriott and saw all the guests there, and I thought to myself - I could not justify the price of this hotel - does really everyone here make that much more than us that they're willing to drop that much on this hotel?! LOL.

That said - I like to travel often and I could spend more on ONE trip if I took fewer trips. I guess everyone is different - we are saving for college and retirement and pay for our vacations in cash. Maybe others put it on credit and aren't saving. Who knows.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is eye opening considering how many people on DCUM act like it’s super pitiful if your annual vacations are to places like Rehoboth and Orlando. I also don’t understand how people are spending this little.

We are going to Key West for Spring Break and staying in 1 hotel room at a mid-level full service chain (Marriott, Hilton). Our flights and hotel alone are $6-7k once you factor in checking 1 big suitcase for all 4 of us, Uber to/from airport, resort fees and taxes, etc. It’s easily a $10k trip with a car rental, meals out, and excursions like renting kayaks and swimming with dolphins. And it seems like we always stay at really dumpy hotels compared to other families we know in a similar income bracket!

We’re traveling to a wedding on the West coast this summer and will tack on a national park trip afterwards. I’m sure the whole thing will cost $20k and we’ll be gone 2-2.5 weeks. A trip to Europe or South America would be equally costly.

We stay at dumpy hotels too. We went to London and found a place that was about $350/night. Great location, but wow, no one was enthused when we walked inside our room. The nicer places were $500-$700 and that definitely puts us over budget.

London is notoriously expensive for hotels and flights. You can do virtually any other city in Europe for far less money.

Absolutely planning to for our next vacation. Any recommendations?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is eye opening considering how many people on DCUM act like it’s super pitiful if your annual vacations are to places like Rehoboth and Orlando. I also don’t understand how people are spending this little.

We are going to Key West for Spring Break and staying in 1 hotel room at a mid-level full service chain (Marriott, Hilton). Our flights and hotel alone are $6-7k once you factor in checking 1 big suitcase for all 4 of us, Uber to/from airport, resort fees and taxes, etc. It’s easily a $10k trip with a car rental, meals out, and excursions like renting kayaks and swimming with dolphins. And it seems like we always stay at really dumpy hotels compared to other families we know in a similar income bracket!

We’re traveling to a wedding on the West coast this summer and will tack on a national park trip afterwards. I’m sure the whole thing will cost $20k and we’ll be gone 2-2.5 weeks. A trip to Europe or South America would be equally costly.

We stay at dumpy hotels too. We went to London and found a place that was about $350/night. Great location, but wow, no one was enthused when we walked inside our room. The nicer places were $500-$700 and that definitely puts us over budget.

London is notoriously expensive for hotels and flights. You can do virtually any other city in Europe for far less money.

Absolutely planning to for our next vacation. Any recommendations?

I went with my husband only to Azores this summer while my kids were at summer camp. We found it cheaper there and I believe mainland Portugal (which we did not go to) is even cheaper than the island.

[Anonymous]

We are a family of 3 with HHI 1.2 mil

This year we start flying business class to Asia as we have to visit family overseas yearly ( usually we fly economy’s for this 24 h flight) . We r done with Economy for over 20 h flights.
We did two trips to Asia , one cruise , one domestic travel and one driving trip to Canada.
All in about 50k a year.

Before this usually below 20- 30k

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Family of 4. We budget 20k for travel every year. Normally 3 big trips - one to Europe, one to Asia/latin America, one to a national park in the U.S. We also do a few small trips like NYC, or road trip locally from time to time. The way to keep budget under 20k is that we use lots of points as we both travel for work a lot. We also do some tag along trips with one spouse’ business trip so that at least one big air ticket is covered etc.

Even with airline ticket help that’s a lot of vacation for $20k. How do you vacation in Europe for about 10k. Any pointers on how to do it?

Anywhere outside USA is incredibly cheap, including Europe. This summer we went to Spain for 12 days, six cities. Accommodation is on average less than $150 but very good. Food is amazing. Monuments are magnificent, max 10 euro for tickets, kids free or heavily discounted (on contrary any museum in New York such as MET/Mona is 30 dollar each). Food is amazing for half the price of USA. I see increasingly my friends are vacationing in Europe to save money.

That’s impressive. I’m wanting to go to Spain and my husband wants Italy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Zero.

How is this possible? You take zero vacations per year? No time away at all?

No vacations since before covid hit. Before that it was rare too. What do you mean how is it possible? With covid, colds and flu and people inconsiderate there is zero chance I'd get on a plane or go somewhere crowded.

It's your life...and if you want to look back on it with memories that you successfully hid away from viruses, so be it.

You can make memories without expensive trips. Rather save for college and pay off the house. Unfortunately with health issues, it’s not as simple for me as you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is eye opening considering how many people on DCUM act like it’s super pitiful if your annual vacations are to places like Rehoboth and Orlando. I also don’t understand how people are spending this little.

We are going to Key West for Spring Break and staying in 1 hotel room at a mid-level full service chain (Marriott, Hilton). Our flights and hotel alone are $6-7k once you factor in checking 1 big suitcase for all 4 of us, Uber to/from airport, resort fees and taxes, etc. It’s easily a $10k trip with a car rental, meals out, and excursions like renting kayaks and swimming with dolphins. And it seems like we always stay at really dumpy hotels compared to other families we know in a similar income bracket!

We’re traveling to a wedding on the West coast this summer and will tack on a national park trip afterwards. I’m sure the whole thing will cost $20k and we’ll be gone 2-2.5 weeks. A trip to Europe or South America would be equally costly.

I like Rehoboth and Orlando, FYI. I am not a travel snob! I think those hotel rooms add up - especially at a popular time at spring break. Lately, I like to stay at VRBOs lately for more room and often lower cost.

But as I mentioned, we are in the income bracket stated in the OP, and once we went to Aruba and stayed in a house rental by owner near the Marriott there. We went to the beach near the Marriott and saw all the guests there, and I thought to myself - I could not justify the price of this hotel - does really everyone here make that much more than us that they're willing to drop that much on this hotel?! LOL.

That said - I like to travel often and I could spend more on ONE trip if I took fewer trips. I guess everyone is different - we are saving for college and retirement and pay for our vacations in cash. Maybe others put it on credit and aren't saving. Who knows.

Disney used to be super cheap and easy so we went a bunch of times. I would not go to Orlando during spring break.