I think there’s a ton of people who do a week at Hershey as a cheaper vacation. There are a ton of hotels most with some pool and you can squeeze two days out of each days ticket with their sneak peek program.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Camping, closest beaches, theme parks (smaller ones like Six Flags, Hershey and Lake Compounce, not Disney)

There are TONS of LMC families at Disney. Not sure how. I’m guessing they save for years as a dream vacation.

Lots of people who live in Florida or Georgia buy yearly passes and only go to Disney for vacation and stay in cheap hotels. Source: used to live in Georgia.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Camping, closest beaches, theme parks (smaller ones like Six Flags, Hershey and Lake Compounce, not Disney)

There are TONS of LMC families at Disney. Not sure how. I’m guessing they save for years as a dream vacation.

The LMC at Disney are almost all from Florida or driving distance. They don't pay for air or hotel and they pay instate rates and/or get a pass.

I would guess, on average, out of state visitors have at least twice hte income of the typical instate visitor.

Or they're military or the grandpa they bring along is military. Military get great rates at Disney

Even then you still have to pay for air and lodging if you're far away, so it stil lrequires planning and upfront payment of more.

But if you live in FL and have a season pass, it's really cheap per-visit and requires little to no planning or thought.

This- we have family in Orlando who are typical MC but a couple of my cousins with kids get the resident season pass. It’s their “thing” and other than an occasional weekend at the beach (which you can still do pretty cheap in parts of FL) they don’t really travel much elsewhere.

As an adult I realize now we were more LMC masquerading as MC (e.g., parents bought a house they couldn’t afford and refinanced mortgage multiple times, would lease cars because upfront payment was lower, etc.). But our typical vacations were camping or visiting family. We always had fun though and I think that perspective makes me feel less pressure to plan something amazing for our kids all the time. Whereas DH grew up UMC and their trips were generally somewhere more upscale.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Camping, closest beaches, theme parks (smaller ones like Six Flags, Hershey and Lake Compounce, not Disney)

There are TONS of LMC families at Disney. Not sure how. I’m guessing they save for years as a dream vacation.

The LMC at Disney are almost all from Florida or driving distance. They don't pay for air or hotel and they pay instate rates and/or get a pass.

I would guess, on average, out of state visitors have at least twice hte income of the typical instate visitor.

This, the "locals' at Disney are totally different from the non locals.

Yeah, I agree with this. My brother is a gay doctor from NYC and he does fancy gay Disney and it's a world away from the way locals do disney lol.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Camping, closest beaches, theme parks (smaller ones like Six Flags, Hershey and Lake Compounce, not Disney)

There are TONS of LMC families at Disney. Not sure how. I’m guessing they save for years as a dream vacation.

The LMC at Disney are almost all from Florida or driving distance. They don't pay for air or hotel and they pay instate rates and/or get a pass.

I would guess, on average, out of state visitors have at least twice hte income of the typical instate visitor.

Or they're military or the grandpa they bring along is military. Military get great rates at Disney

Even then you still have to pay for air and lodging if you're far away, so it stil lrequires planning and upfront payment of more.

But if you live in FL and have a season pass, it's really cheap per-visit and requires little to no planning or thought.

We were middle class growing up, on the lower side, too, and we almost went nowhere during the summers. On good years, we'd go to the beach.

I'm a single mom now and we're lower middle class again, especially by DCUM standards, we'll go to the beach for a few nights with friends and split the cost of a hotel or house.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Camping, closest beaches, theme parks (smaller ones like Six Flags, Hershey and Lake Compounce, not Disney)

There are TONS of LMC families at Disney. Not sure how. I’m guessing they save for years as a dream vacation.

The LMC at Disney are almost all from Florida or driving distance. They don't pay for air or hotel and they pay instate rates and/or get a pass.

I would guess, on average, out of state visitors have at least twice hte income of the typical instate visitor.

This, the "locals' at Disney are totally different from the non locals.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Camping, closest beaches, theme parks (smaller ones like Six Flags, Hershey and Lake Compounce, not Disney)

There are TONS of LMC families at Disney. Not sure how. I’m guessing they save for years as a dream vacation.

The LMC at Disney are almost all from Florida or driving distance. They don't pay for air or hotel and they pay instate rates and/or get a pass.

I would guess, on average, out of state visitors have at least twice hte income of the typical instate visitor.

Or they're military or the grandpa they bring along is military. Military get great rates at Disney

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Camping, closest beaches, theme parks (smaller ones like Six Flags, Hershey and Lake Compounce, not Disney)

There are TONS of LMC families at Disney. Not sure how. I’m guessing they save for years as a dream vacation.

The LMC at Disney are almost all from Florida or driving distance. They don't pay for air or hotel and they pay instate rates and/or get a pass.

I would guess, on average, out of state visitors have at least twice hte income of the typical instate visitor.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m an immigrant and I didn’t realize camping was such a big thing in the US with families. I thought it was more of a scouts or adult only thing.

My family never went camping. I'm not sorry.

Same. I probably would have refused to go.

Same. Not a camper and not from a camping family. I don't want to sleep outside. My mom always said her idea of camping was the Holiday Inn and we weren't going there either.

Sounds like your mom had UMC standards? We were lower middle class and camping was all we could afford.

NP- We're UMC with multiple overseas trips with our toddlers yearly and we still enjoy camping. We also have a very rustic cabin in NY that we hunt out of. I grew up upper class and my family camped as well. My mom had gone to a lot of all girl summer camps in the NE when she was a kid and enjoyed things like that. Hiking, fishing, campfires, smores- it's quintessentially American. My inlaws are lower middle class and they don't travel other than camping. We've invited them on vacations we think they'd enjoy like Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon or even London, but they just aren't interested in flying or planning a trip. I'm not even sure it's a money thing.

I agree about avoiding the holiday inn though or the Motel 6. They can turn the light off because I'm not coming.

Anonymous wrote:Anywhere they want or they don't go. They either save for a trip or charge it and pay it off later. I'm sorry what other type of response did you want?

But some may go to visit relatives? I know some lower income families that take day trips over to OC, or to the amusement parks. Some go mid week in the summer, when hotels are less. Others drive to see family or drive to the family beach/lake/mountain house. Others do Disney on the cheap, drive to get there, stay off site in a lower ties hotel, don't buy souvenirs, take their own food. Some camp.

If you are looking for ideas of how to vacation on a lower income, that's a differently worded question. But you can save towards it or go in debt to go somewhere.

I agree on the cost of hotels at the beach. We try to use a timeshare instead (plenty of family or friends have one that they aren't using) and we will just pay their maintenance fee or less to use it, but we do plan ahead for that.

You can also rent unused timeshare units. I have used Skyauction before with good luck. They used to let you buy a certificate for a week for around $300 and then there's a site you can use it on for the week. Of course there are seasonal add on fees for many places, but we actually rented a week in Williamsburg for $299 or so several years in a row when kids little and bought the annual passes to Busch Gardens (which you can often get for around the same price as a day pass). We then could go to the park for only a part of the day and come back to timeshare and swim (and not eat the overly priced food) or do historical outings nearby, plus you can cook as much as you want and have breakfast before going anywhere. Sometimes they will have last minute weeks that are really inexpensive. Other sites do this as well, like eBay.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We went to Kings Dominion or wild world. Busch gardens was considered fancier. We mainly stayed home and played at the local parks

Again people are asking about current options.

But they are open?
https://www.kingsdominion.com/

Anonymous wrote:Camping, closest beaches, theme parks (smaller ones like Six Flags, Hershey and Lake Compounce, not Disney)

There are TONS of LMC families at Disney. Not sure how. I’m guessing they save for years as a dream vacation.

Anonymous wrote:I think how much and where you go is a combination of your values and your income; many LMC and MC families I know may have unusually nice cars or tvs but don't travel. Not everyone cares to and I certainly don't begrudge them their choices. My DH grew up more middle class than me and barely ever traveled beyond his own state until he was in high school and started traveling b/c of his extracurriculars.

This is kind of us. We're in the middle income wise. While we don't do extravagant travel, it's still pretty nice. The tradeoff is our cars. They're functional, but we drive them into the ground and don't make having a nice car a priority.

Grew up solid MC in western PA, family of 4. When I was 8-9, we drove down to a family reunion in Charleston SC. My parents loved it so much we kept going every summer until I was in my teens. So that was our yearly vacation. We drove, stayed in a budget (but clean) hotel on the outskirts of town, ate at the hotel buffets. We would pack sandwiches in a cooler if we were going to the beach or eat at mid-range chain sit-down restaurants, no fancy dinners out. We spent time and the beach and did lots of sightseeing and free tours. My brother and I would swim at the hotel pool and have a blast.

Sometimes on our way driving down to SC, we'd stop to visit family in MD and spend a couple days in DC. Couple times we drove down to VA Beach, another time went to Annapolis for a couple days. We may have went to Myrtle Beach a couple times.

All of my friends were MC and weren't doing fancy vacations either so I assumed what we were doing was normal for everyone. I have the best memories from those days, though.