What is your travel budget and plan for 2025?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:About $15,000 for a family of 4, less than last year when there was a lot of wedding travel.

- Tag along work trip over a holiday
- Weekend skiing locally
- Europe over spring break
- Week or so at a lake resort in the summer
- Will probably try and plan for a fall something but it's a hard time to travel due to work and also activities and sports

OP here - which lake resort are you looking at? How do you manage Europe with 4 for under 10k?

SAS was running a sale and does kids fares so all in on airfare with an island hop flight is just over $4k. There was a direct flight on United which was a little under $1000 each in the fall but I waited too long to pull the trigger. Airbnb in Athens is about $500 for three nights for our portion of 4/6 people and splitting a Marriott resort villa is about $2000 for our portion of the four of us for four nights. Plus another $700 or so for the other two nights of hotels. We'll still need to rent a car in the island and spend money on stuff to do and eat (minus four days of breakfast included) but pretty confident we'll do it all in for about $2500 especially splitting meals. Might be just over.

London we found super cheap flights but the accommodations are so much it balanced out.

Lake resort is in the Midwest where I will say lake culture rules. That will work out to about $1500. Skiing just over $1000. And the work trip is less than $1000 out of pocket with insanely cheap airfares and hotel included.

OP here - Thank you for this detail! Do you have any websites or settings you prefer for flights?

I set a Google flights for specific destination and dates but also a lot is just diligence in looking. Maybe start with a couple destinations and dates and go from there.

[Anonymous]

Will probably spend around $10k this year:
- 5 days in Spain for wedding - $5kish
- 10 days in OCMD - lodging paid for by parents - $1-2k on activities and food
- 5 days in Lancaster/Hersey - lodging paid for by parents - maybe $1k on food and activities
- $2-3k on 2 or 3 weekend trips (maybe va beach or Charlottesville - nothing fancy)

Used to spend more on travel pre-kids but have 2 toddlers right now!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We generally do

2-4 night February trip to Florida or Caribbean

5-7 night spring break trip

2 weeks Europe in summer

A few days to a local beach or to visit friends at end of summer

Quick weekend trip in fall - local mountains or Philly or somewhere else driveable.

5-7 days winter break trip.

Last year this meant Miami in February, Arizona/Utah for Spring break (Tucson, Antelope Canyon, Zion, France, Italy and Spain in Summer, Costa Rica winter break.

3 people, around $30k and a TON of points. Wouldn't be possible without points and credit card free nights like Marriott Bonvoy, Hilton Aspire. Able to fly business and stay at high end places planning way in advance.

OP here - WOW you really know how to stretch the budget, could you share more on how you manage to do 2 weeks in Europe without blowing more than half the budget? Are the Marriot Bonvoy and Hilton Aspire from transferring credit card points?

Np but I'm a travel twin to the person above. We're doing two weeks in Europe this summer and it's already fully booked- flights there and back using points. I jumped on a credit card transfer bonus to get very discounted (points) business class seats for my family of 4. We're flying home economy, about $800 total in fees round trip. We're spending a week in two different places, first at a rental apartment in the alps, second in the Italian lakes. Those will come to about $8k total. I'm budgeting about $1k for other travel costs, mostly public transportation on swiss rail. Staying under $15k all in.

I love to travel and plan trips and I often monitor prices for hotels, cars, flights even after booking. But planning ahead is key too.

OP this sounds like an incredible trip - I've seen Swiss Alps as a good trip for a busy toddler. Did you use Airbnb for the rental apartment? Are you using just Google Flights to monitor or another setup?

I was partially inspired by that blog! We're doing a local booking company that I found by exploring lodging on Google maps. The flights were found partially through travel points blogs advertising the chase virgin Atlantic travel bonus a few months ago, and also through Google bc I knew I would likely use AA miles to fly home from Milan. I booked this all in October/November but I had some flexibility with dates. For a more rigid schedule like spring break I'd book closer to a full year out. I have wishlist of places I'd like to go and check for deals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We generally do

2-4 night February trip to Florida or Caribbean

5-7 night spring break trip

2 weeks Europe in summer

A few days to a local beach or to visit friends at end of summer

Quick weekend trip in fall - local mountains or Philly or somewhere else driveable.

5-7 days winter break trip.

Last year this meant Miami in February, Arizona/Utah for Spring break (Tucson, Antelope Canyon, Zion, France, Italy and Spain in Summer, Costa Rica winter break.

3 people, around $30k and a TON of points. Wouldn't be possible without points and credit card free nights like Marriott Bonvoy, Hilton Aspire. Able to fly business and stay at high end places planning way in advance.

OP here - WOW you really know how to stretch the budget, could you share more on how you manage to do 2 weeks in Europe without blowing more than half the budget? Are the Marriot Bonvoy and Hilton Aspire from transferring credit card points?

Np but I'm a travel twin to the person above. We're doing two weeks in Europe this summer and it's already fully booked- flights there and back using points. I jumped on a credit card transfer bonus to get very discounted (points) business class seats for my family of 4. We're flying home economy, about $800 total in fees round trip. We're spending a week in two different places, first at a rental apartment in the alps, second in the Italian lakes. Those will come to about $8k total. I'm budgeting about $1k for other travel costs, mostly public transportation on swiss rail. Staying under $15k all in.

I love to travel and plan trips and I often monitor prices for hotels, cars, flights even after booking. But planning ahead is key too.

OP this sounds like an incredible trip - I've seen Swiss Alps as a good trip for a busy toddler. Did you use Airbnb for the rental apartment? Are you using just Google Flights to monitor or another setup?

I was partially inspired by that blog! We're doing a local booking company that I found by exploring lodging on Google maps. The flights were found partially through travel points blogs advertising the chase virgin Atlantic travel bonus a few months ago, and also through Google bc I knew I would likely use AA miles to fly home from Milan. I booked this all in October/November but I had some flexibility with dates. For a more rigid schedule like spring break I'd book closer to a full year out. I have wishlist of places I'd like to go and check for deals.

OP here - I need to get better about booking far in advance - I think that seems to be a reoccurring theme!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Will probably spend around $10k this year:
- 5 days in Spain for wedding - $5kish
- 10 days in OCMD - lodging paid for by parents - $1-2k on activities and food
- 5 days in Lancaster/Hersey - lodging paid for by parents - maybe $1k on food and activities
- $2-3k on 2 or 3 weekend trips (maybe va beach or Charlottesville - nothing fancy)

Used to spend more on travel pre-kids but have 2 toddlers right now!

OP here - that's so nice that your parents help and thank you for being transparent!

[Anonymous]

In 2024 we did:
London for 4 days in February
Ireland for spring break in March
California for 9 days in July
local beach for Labor Day and a long weekend in October
NYC for Thanksgiving (3 nights)

Total spent for all of the above was $24000.
I am obsessed w google flights and jump on cheap flights when I find them and do a lot of apartments, no fancy restaurants, discounted tours, etc.

[Anonymous]

Good brag. Zero

[Anonymous]

June Costa Rica 12 days/4ppl: 10k (rescheduled from this winter)

July:2 adults, 10 day dolomites; Slovenia; ; 7- 8k; flights on miles)

August: beach week obx 3500-4k

Xmas 2025: visit family on west coast 5k

So c25k; ; more than usual as we usually do one international; one west coast and one beach trip a year . This year we will take a second international trip since we skipped winter.

[Anonymous]

Trying to get inspired to travel again. I used to love it and we’d do 4-5 trips a year but since 2021/2022 there’s been a huge shift and I find travel more stressful and less enjoyable. So many flight delays, cancellations, harried travelers, everywhere is overcrowded. Globalization truly makes it feel as if almost nowhere is special. There’s very little spontaneity because you have to pre-book, reserve a time slot, etc for EVERYTHING. I enjoyed planning trips but it became so overwhelming in the last few years that I stopped enjoying any of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In 2024 we did:
London for 4 days in February
Ireland for spring break in March
California for 9 days in July
local beach for Labor Day and a long weekend in October
NYC for Thanksgiving (3 nights)

Total spent for all of the above was $24000.
I am obsessed w google flights and jump on cheap flights when I find them and do a lot of apartments, no fancy restaurants, discounted tours, etc.

OP here, this is amazing - do you look for tour discounts or discount tours?
Can you expand on the Ireland trip?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
June Costa Rica 12 days/4ppl: 10k (rescheduled from this winter)

July:2 adults, 10 day dolomites; Slovenia; ; 7- 8k; flights on miles)

August: beach week obx 3500-4k

Xmas 2025: visit family on west coast 5k

So c25k; ; more than usual as we usually do one international; one west coast and one beach trip a year . This year we will take a second international trip since we skipped winter.

OP here, where in Costa Rica did you manage for 10K for 4 people for 12 days? Was this a package?

[Anonymous]

Our budget is roughly $10K per year for a family of 3 to take one 10 to 12 day vacation, usually in an international destination. We also spend a week every summer with family on the west coast. That costs roughly $2k for flights and some meals, but we use points to cover that.

I thought that travel budget was pretty average, but judging by this thread, it's quite low.

[Anonymous]

5 nights in so fl next month - 5-6k
Large beach house rental with parents + sibling family - 3-4k share
solo family summer beach trip - 3-4k

maybe a few 3 day trips to nyc, philly, etc

Have a 1.5yr old so not the best time to travel

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our budget is roughly $10K per year for a family of 3 to take one 10 to 12 day vacation, usually in an international destination. We also spend a week every summer with family on the west coast. That costs roughly $2k for flights and some meals, but we use points to cover that.

I thought that travel budget was pretty average, but judging by this thread, it's quite low.

I think it’s just that the people who hang out in a Travel forum tend to spend more on travel than the average household.

[Anonymous]

We are pulling back. The splurge will be Disney cruise in spring break - mother/son: $4000( cruise, flights, hotel, transport).

A solo trip to Sicily end of July 9 days: $3000. Flight was the biggest fee - but I’ll be doing Airbnb close to the beach and eating snacks.

This time last year we did California, Thailand, New York, day trips to Delaware, Florida, Colorado. It was too much.