+1. For our family it’s the flights and the suite or 2 bed Airbnb that really do damage. Food, spending while there etc doesn’t make a big impact. |
Not everyone enjoys seeing their hard-earned 10k-20k evaporate over a 10 day period. |
| We are 400k HHI and budget 20k for travel for family of 4. I can’t afford this much to travel with 200k. Also, where do you find Airbnb/hotel to accommodate family of 4 for less than $500/day anywhere in the world? Please educate me, because I tried so hard for our summer Europe and East Asia trip but end up spending at least 500/night for accommodation only. So two weeks holiday even without air tickets is 10k (with modest food and sightseeing budget). I also travel a lot for work and get miles, but never manage to cover whole family trip with miles. Miles can reduce cost for 1000-2000 at most. So that’s still 6000-8000 air ticket cost there. |
Don’t you know that people have different priorities in life? |
You are joking with not being able to find places for under $500/night, right? We stayed in this area a few years ago and loved it (not this house, it's a newer listing). 3BR, great location, looks like a great place, $270/night all-in for a week at the end of July. https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/51265859?check_out=2023-08-05&check_in=2023-07-29&adults=4&guests=4 |
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We probably spend $10-15k but don’t budget closely
Ski trip out west, a couple weekend ski trips in the east, and then ‘cheap’ road trips that involve visiting family and/or camping and backpacking. Every couple of years we’ll do a bigger trip. The vast majority of our travel is ‘budget’ but we do a lot of it. |
I guess, but what DO you spend your money on? Can't take it with you. FWIW we spend closed to 20K/yr on travel and still save aggressively for retirement and college. Obviously we cut back in other ways, like on a kitchen remodel I'd love to, don't drive luxry cars, another way money "evaporates". |
Re:miles. Takes a bit of organization, but you can earn a good amount through strategic use of a few different credit cards for purchases in daily life. Probably not enough for multiple tickets per year though. For that you need to mix in some big sign up bonuses, which is another level, not hard per se, but takes more organization and effort- definitely not for everyone |
OMG thank you for educating me! This is a great deal~ I guess we were mostly traveling in major cities like London/Paris/Tokyo/HK so could never find a house for so cheap. Maybe next time we should try some more exotic places. |
This was posted in another thread, but it's in Rome, 3BR, $315/night for a week. https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/4338993?source_impression_id=p3_1662728176_ko4NdAW%2FDvp5cY%2Bz $500 is an easy to beat price point in Europe for sure, even in the biggest cities- we got a 2BR place in London in a great location recently for $375/night. Less sure about Tokyo or Hong Kong |
+1. We also feel that travel is one of the few things that doesn't evaporate upon completion. We carry the memories forever, the love talking and reminiscing with our kids, we learn, we try new foods, we have photos, etc. It's ingrained in our lives forever, which is a lot more than we can say for most of the other stuff we spend our discretionary income on. |
Very similar. One trip around $3k, 2-3 shorter trips around $2k each. Driving help save some money, or looking around for good flight deals. We generally stay in nice hotels with good amenities, not five-star but not motel 8 either. When we fly, and I research and find out whether renting a car or using a shuttle or Uber is most cost-effective. Parking fees at some hotels are insane, so if the area is walkable with a lot of ride options, we skip the rental. |
DP but our kids are in early elementary and preschool aged so still have quite a bit of childcare costs. Our mortgage is pretty modest for this area but consequently it's a 1940s house with old-house problems and it seems like there is always something that needs replacing/addressing (next year finally going to replace our crappy windows). Our circa-2003 car finally died and we had to replace, cars are expensive right now! DH is a cancer survivor so his life insurance premiums are high plus he has a disability and umbrella policy- maybe we are over-insured but he is pretty cautious due to his medical history. That's all probably a couple thousand per year that we could otherwise spend on things like travel. We do have a lot of accumulated miles from when we both travelled more for work (have a miles credit card too but we just don't accumulate as much from actual travel anymore). We are itching to go somewhere international but want to make sure it's "worth it"- I don't care so much about the kids remembering but I'd like my 3yo to move a bit past her threenager phase.... My guess is we still spent around $4k on travel last year but some of that was to visit our families. Then a week shared house at the beach and a few driving weekend trips, including camping. |
Exactly! We would much rather spend our money on experiences than stuff. |
This. We like to travel but there are always competing priorities. My best friend from childhood and her DH make less than this but are in a lower COL area so probably have roughly the amount of disposable income as us. They just aren't big travelers, every few years they fly to FL to visit family but otherwise most of their trips are driving and within their state. But one of their kids is competitive in a pretty expensive sport too. If travel is a priority it usually comes at the expense of something else. |