Anonymous wrote:We usually go on two international trips per year. Family of 4, $180k HHI. We use credit card miles plus miles my DH accumulates from work travel and we do home exchanges with other families so flights and lodging is usually $0 or very close to it.
Because we stay at houses, we always have laundry machines and just bring a few days worth of clothes and travel light, we have kitchens so we usually eat out once per day, many of the families leave us their museum passes or other memberships to use while we are there, we do lots of free or low cost things like markets, hikes, beaches, rent bikes, explore around. Our hosts usually hook us up with cool things too. In Rome, their grandmother who owns a restaurant came and gave us a cooking class with local ingredients. In Barcelona, the neighbor kids included my kids in a massive water fight and then they invited us to the neighborhood block party that night with local food, drinks, live music, and dancing. In Stockholm, we overlapped with our hosts for a day and the mom owns a vintage boutique so she took my DDs and I sourcing with her. In Starnberg (outside of Munich) we arrived early on Christmas Eve and our hosts had cookie dough ready to go and our kids made and decorated Christmas cookies together while us parents got to know each other over mulled wine before they left.
Probably not 99% of dcumers style, but we LOVE it.
Sounds fantastic to me! All those local connections, priceless!