We are planning to spend about $10k for California, flights were really expensive for our dates/times/direct. We need two rooms (hotel or Airbnb) which also increases the cost.

10 years ago I feel like it would have been 1/3 the price...

We’re going to Europe for ten nights. Flights $4k (most expensive we’ve ever paid, unfortunately), car rental $500, accommodation total of $750 (rest on points). Expect we’ll spend about $6k total, (not including what we’d usually spend on food and activities if we were at home)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's so expensive and yet travel is not slowing down. Aside from the UMC, how are people affording all these vacations? Are we going to go back to vacations being traveling to grandma's or are people going into debt?

definitely about income level but also about priorities. We spend around $20-25K/year on travel - spring break ski trip, 2 week summer vacation and various weekends away. Also contribute aggressively to 401k and college funds. While we spend what seems like a lot on travel we don't drive fancy cars, don't have a cleaners and haven't done any major home renovations over 10K/project. I'd love a new kitchen/big renovation but would rather travel. So no going into debt here.

We are exactly the same.

How many traveling?

We are spending about $5,000 for spring break this year - staying in a VRBO condo at the beach in Florida and driving there from the Chicago area. The $5,000 covers the condo, gas, hotels on the way and some misc spending money - we'll eat most meals in. The condo we're renting is ground floor and walk out to beach, and I could have saved a little money by staying further away, but otherwise this is about as cheap as I could get this year (and the condo is tiny). Our spring break is always the last week of March and it's hard to find any inexpensive flights that week.

We normally do a beach trip for spring break, a week at a lake in Michigan in the summer, and a visit to family either right after school gets out or over winter break. We splurge on a bigger trip every few years but can't do big trips every year.

Anonymous wrote:It's so expensive and yet travel is not slowing down. Aside from the UMC, how are people affording all these vacations? Are we going to go back to vacations being traveling to grandma's or are people going into debt?

definitely about income level but also about priorities. We spend around $20-25K/year on travel - spring break ski trip, 2 week summer vacation and various weekends away. Also contribute aggressively to 401k and college funds. While we spend what seems like a lot on travel we don't drive fancy cars, don't have a cleaners and haven't done any major home renovations over 10K/project. I'd love a new kitchen/big renovation but would rather travel. So no going into debt here.

Anonymous wrote:It's so expensive and yet travel is not slowing down. Aside from the UMC, how are people affording all these vacations? Are we going to go back to vacations being traveling to grandma's or are people going into debt?

Points hacking with credit cards (check out travel hacking mom and 10x travel). Also home exchanges. Booking super far in advance and always scouring for flight deals (Matt's Going, Jack's Flight Club). I have paid around $600 or less for all tickets to Europe, including Greece last July. It also helps to take a few extra days off school for cheaper flights during spring break, Sat-Sun is just always the most expensive time. We travel a lot but only spend a few grand per year on flights and hotels.

OP- yeah we can’t stay in fancy resort rooms mainly because our trip budget only allows us to share a room and but that’s not fun with two bigger kids and only one bathroom to share. I’d love to be able to get two rooms but that’s where we have to just do airbnb or reveal vacation instead. The beach places would be about $1k a night or more for two rooms for the week, not including meals.

We were a well off family when I was growing up and traveled more than my friends did and we still only had I shared hotel room with my parents unless my dad’s company paid.

Yeah OP - that's good

I couldn't make anything work for less than $1200/night either as another PP said. I gave up. We'll prob do NYC by train. Stay in a hotel Lower E Side about $400/per night x4 nights. It'll still cost us about the same after you tack on the activities. Maybe we will drive v pay for train/bus tix though. That's about the cheapest I could come up with for about 5 days.

Even with miles for flights, the destinations you want to do in the places you want to be at and if you have kids - so multiple rooms = pricey. We do a lot of Airbnb stays but it still adds up

It's so expensive and yet travel is not slowing down. Aside from the UMC, how are people affording all these vacations? Are we going to go back to vacations being traveling to grandma's or are people going into debt?

$5-7k is what we have spend to go skiing in CO for the week. Most of costs are flights for 4, rental car, lodging, and food. We don't stay in fancy accommodations or anything.

3800 is cheap. I’m a relatively frugal traveler but I think we (4 ppl) still spend 5-6k for a week break with flights. Last year we went to Costa Rica for 8 days and stayed in more rustic accommodations. We still spent 1k/flights because two were free; 800 on car rental; lodging was about 150/night average; food was at least 100/day (including in our last farm stay) and we spent around 1500 on excursions and then stuff here and there. At least 6k. We have done cheapisg alll inclusive but really it all adds up.

way too much. Spending 4200 on flights and another 2K on lodging for 10 days. That isn't counting food or activities. I am very sad that I just calculated that lol.

Our family of three just did six nights (12/16-12/22) in Puerto Rico (Luquillo).

Flight for three (United) was $1050. Two BR Airbnb, two minute walk to beach, was $1370.

You don't have us beat, but it's Spring Break. $3800 doesn't sound that outrageous.

Family of 4 (kids are older teens) going to Northern Ireland for a week, and one night in Dublin. We've booked hotels (2 rooms) and airfare which comes out to roughly $4k. Car rental for part of the time is $300, we'll also need to pay for some train and bus rides when we are in Dublin and Belfast. Not sure yet how much activities/entrance fees and food will total, but everyone in our party will be paying full adult rate.
So I'm estimating maybe...$6k total? Probably a little more.