We go to work.

Neighbors trespass as if other properties with larger yards with well maintained shrub/ flower beds were public botanic gardens. Their staycation turns problematic.

We rented a small (and I mean SMALL- 2 bedrooms for our family of 7) beach house for a week every year. We were each given a few dollars a day for allowance to spend on candy or ice cream and we had the best time, we packed cheap picnic lunches and spent the days on the beach. It is some of my best memories.
We still go back with my extended family and it’s my kids favorite vacation, even though they have been to too many places to count. Sometimes it’s not about the money, it’s about the attitude and experience!

We go to a local beach and then visit relatives - luckily we have some in NYC which feels like a vacation, but we also go to random places to visit family (outside of Philly, NC). My kids have a blast seeing family and it’s free, so it feels like a win-win!

Day trips. Hotels and air travel are mostly umc luxuries. Not unusual for kids to never have flown in an airplane or stayed in a hotel.

Exception is kids with parents who are airline employees.

Anonymous wrote:Yeah I really think unless you make $350k+ with 2+ kids, you really are looking at national park and beach holidays. We do 1 really big adventure in summer and usually a nice $5-8k break in spring and that's the extent. We have long weekends but spending like $20k annually for a family of 4 is really it. I can't imagine doing more on that budget.

5k is an enormous amount of money to spend on a vacation. I know you think that that’s not a lot because you have a large family. It’s still a lot of money to drop on a week.

Yeah I really think unless you make $350k+ with 2+ kids, you really are looking at national park and beach holidays. We do 1 really big adventure in summer and usually a nice $5-8k break in spring and that's the extent. We have long weekends but spending like $20k annually for a family of 4 is really it. I can't imagine doing more on that budget.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We go camping or to visit family. Can not afford hotel / house at the beach.

This is what we did when I was a kid.

Same. Except we went camping at the beach. Meaning, we’d camp at a camp ground that was like a 5-10 minute drive to the beach. The camp grounds had swimming pools, showers/bathrooms, etc. This was Virginia Beach in the 80s-90s.

We did the same thing at chincoteague. I think the one in Virginia Beach is called seashore State Park and the one near Assateague is Tom’s Cove.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We go camping or to visit family. Can not afford hotel / house at the beach.

This is what we did when I was a kid.

Same. Except we went camping at the beach. Meaning, we’d camp at a camp ground that was like a 5-10 minute drive to the beach. The camp grounds had swimming pools, showers/bathrooms, etc. This was Virginia Beach in the 80s-90s.

Camping or cabins in state parks. If you go either other families it can be super fun

Camping and staying at grandparents house.

Anonymous wrote:We are make $200k+but feel MC people and we send our kids to overnight camp that is $10k+. This is why we don't take fancy vacations. We're going to the beach for a few days and that's about it. As a kid, we would go to nyc to visit family. that was basically our vacation. my parents never took us anywhere beyond that even though we probably could have afforded it.

You ARE umc. The camp is the vacation. Omg.

Anonymous wrote:I wonder if domestic travel will become more popular if/when the economy takes a major hit? I know numbers are down for US tourism but I think that’s mostly due to foreign visitors avoiding the US vs Americans trying to save money.

I prefer domestic travel over overseas travel. I do like an occasional trip abroad, but the Western U.S. is my happy place and I can never get enough of it.

I wonder if domestic travel will become more popular if/when the economy takes a major hit? I know numbers are down for US tourism but I think that’s mostly due to foreign visitors avoiding the US vs Americans trying to save money.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They don’t.

- kid who grew up lmc

Yeah we took very few vacations over childhood - like 2 that I can remember. We sometimes visited family. We were middle class - but parents grew up poor.

We used to visit family and drive to national parks and camp. The vacations themselves were essentially free, it was getting enough time off that my parents had to manage