(Also, I should add that I ruled out any flights with very late arrival times because we're traveling with a toddler and I'd rather eat the extra costs than deal with the fallout while on vacation.)

Anonymous wrote:We are a family of 5. It usually comes out to about $1000 a day when we factor in plane tickets, hotel (we get two rooms now), car rental, eating out/entertainment. It is not cheap to vacation unless you can drive and stay with family/friends.

I found this also. Seems like a lot, but it is not much of a vacation if you have to economize everywhere.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This year's summer vacation to the West Coast (combining wedding with doing things we want to do) for family of 3 for 12 days:

Airfare: $2100
Lodging: $1500
Car Rental: $900
Ferries: $160
Admissions: $50

We're staying almost exclusively in places with kitchens so I'm not expecting food costs to be too much more than they would be at home anyway. Most of what we're doing is free/outdoorsy stuff so we won't have a lot of entrance fees and the like.

By the time you throw in gas it will be over $5000.

Wow, your airfare is high for 3. Do you fly first or business class?

No--we just waited too late to buy tickets and opted for a direct flight out of national (we could have saved $350 on airfare by going to BWI and having a connection, but adding 3+ hours of travel time each way and then having to pay for parking ($100) didn't seem worth it.) Unfortunately we were coordinating travel dates with other family members and couldn't buy the tickets earlier because no one else could make a decision about when they were arriving for the wedding.

Anonymous wrote:This year's summer vacation to the West Coast (combining wedding with doing things we want to do) for family of 3 for 12 days:

Airfare: $2100
Lodging: $1500
Car Rental: $900
Ferries: $160
Admissions: $50

We're staying almost exclusively in places with kitchens so I'm not expecting food costs to be too much more than they would be at home anyway. Most of what we're doing is free/outdoorsy stuff so we won't have a lot of entrance fees and the like.

By the time you throw in gas it will be over $5000.

Wow, your airfare is high for 3. Do you fly first or business class?

I feel your pain. Before marrying my DH I made it clear that while I love his family, visiting family does not count as a vacation to me! If we visit his family in Southern Ca. we often take a few days to stay in San Diego, or do something separate like Disney Land. Visited his family in June--$3500 (airfare, rental car, expenses, attractions). Rent a home in Martha's Vineyard for 10 days in August, cost with direct flights, rental car, house (for 3), meals (I don't cook much on vacation) and attractions, more than $6000.

we spent $6600 to go to ireland a week ago--graduation presesent for kid--lots of fun

This year's summer vacation to the West Coast (combining wedding with doing things we want to do) for family of 3 for 12 days:

Airfare: $2100
Lodging: $1500
Car Rental: $900
Ferries: $160
Admissions: $50

We're staying almost exclusively in places with kitchens so I'm not expecting food costs to be too much more than they would be at home anyway. Most of what we're doing is free/outdoorsy stuff so we won't have a lot of entrance fees and the like.

By the time you throw in gas it will be over $5000.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was looking at airfare to go visit my brother. Our youngest children have never met each other. Airfare alone is 1200 for the 4 of us. He lives in a 2 bed/1ba house. There is no room to accommodate 4 additional people. I'm guessing that hotel will be another 100-150 a night and I still need to add car and food. So far we haven't done anything but show up.

Look into renting a 2 bedroom house or apartment near your brother instead. That may cost less, especially with eating at "home."

Check out Air BNB--we've had great luck renting houses and apartments through it.

As a PP mentioned, you should look into credit cards for you family that offer perks such as companion passes. We have a US Air card (well, for now, until the merger) and have had success saving money on travel by using the passes to fly to California for example. The card we have offers two $99 tickets when you buy a ticket for US travel that costs over $250. Something to consider.

We also milk miles/points as much as possible, but that requires some degree of work. As well, you really need someone in the family who travels for business for that to work.

But seriously, look into CCs.

We travel a fair amount for work, so luckily we have miles and other deals that come with our credit cards, etc.

For a family of four for Hawaii, we have spent $1200 on tickets (one full fare, one $99 companion ticket, one miles), and $900 on rental house (we are staying three nights at a resort on points). We will have to pay for the rental car (about $1000) and food and other costs, but that's not bad for 10 days in Hawaii.

We try to make the best of our miles that come with our credit cards -- we save those for vacations and other luxuries to bring down the cost of travel

For years, we were spending 2-3K on visiting family... and I finally put an end to that this year and said we are going on a real trip. Before, we'd end up in CA for one week and FL for another week (where our families are) and that left us with no time or money to take real vacations. Now that DS is in real school (instead of daycare), I wanted to take some family trips!

We are a family of 5. It usually comes out to about $1000 a day when we factor in plane tickets, hotel (we get two rooms now), car rental, eating out/entertainment. It is not cheap to vacation unless you can drive and stay with family/friends.

Anonymous wrote:OP here - thanks for replies. I suppose I'm just uninspired about visiting DH's family in Phoenix. I think that's the issue more than the $ specifically; spending it on a fun trip to a place I really want to go would feel like money well spent. Another trip to his family feels more like, meh.

Phoenix in the summer? This summer with the heat wave? No wonder you are not excited.

Why don't you take a couple of days to go to Disneyland and California Adventure? It's a short, cheap flight from Phoenix to LA and it will seem more like a vacation.

$40,000

we once flew across the country for a family event during the school year-- spent $4-5k for a long weekend and realized we had blown our vacation budget. We decided next time we would have to tack on a week someplace we wanted to visit within reach of the airport.