How much do you spend on vacation?

[Philly Mom]

I have a hard time spending on vacations too! We do a lot of travel for sports now so our only real vacation is spring break and we spend a few grand at most. We don’t splurge on resorts. We pay a lot for plane tix and rent a nice place and eat good food. I cannot stomach paying lots for a resort type vacay. Just can’t do it.


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I agree with some of this too. It's why I can't imagine doing any of the Orlando things or going to some other resort. The cost for a manufactured experience does not work for me. However, I don't even think about how much our annual trip to England costs or how much a road trip to Maine might cost. We will go see my brother in WA state later this year. I won't think about cost for everything we may do.

[ahisma]

I agree with some of this too. It's why I can't imagine doing any of the Orlando things or going to some other resort. The cost for a manufactured experience does not work for me. However, I don't even think about how much our annual trip to England costs or how much a road trip to Maine might cost. We will go see my brother in WA state later this year. I won't think about cost for everything we may do.

This is us. I cannot justify the resort cost because we really just don't like resorts. We do pay for experiences (and lately, airfare). We tend to split our meals between DIY (easier and more convenient) and nice meals. I have no desire to go out to eat 3x / day, I'd rather grab toast at our Airbnb, pack a lunch so we don't have to stop exploring, and grab a nice dinner somewhere.

[AnnieW625]

Probably between $1500-$2000 a year and the bulk of that is hotel or Air B N B if, and try to keep airfare at $200 or less per person or we drive. We stay on the west coast so that helps keep airfare prices lower. The only west coast states we haven’t done for vacation are New Mexico, Idaho, Washington, and Montana. We usually end up spending a day or two with family.

We are spontaneous travelers so I am pretty sure that Disney World wouldn’t be an ideal vacation for us. We would have fun as we love the rides, but the stress of having to trip plan excessively would drive us all nuts especially DH. I could see us road tripping for 3-5 days in Florida and then spending 2-3 days at Universal over Disney just because that seems less stressful overall.

This summer we are going on a cruise with my dad’s family to Scandinavia (just DH and myself) so that will be something special and the kids are going to Wyoming with my in-laws for 3 weeks. I haven’t set a spending budget for that trip as my Grandma is “spending our inheritance” on the trip so it isn’t costing us anything but spending money, but we have already bought tickets for Wyoming (the in laws are picking the kids up in their RV and driving there via Vegas, and then DH and I are flying there and picking them up after our trip) and those tickets will be paid for this month. We stay with my in-laws in Wyoming as well, and will be there for 5 days over 4th of July.

I am hoping we can pull of Hawaii in the summer of 2020. We will be moving and will have a lot going on and DD1 will be graduating from 8th grade and she has been wanting to go to Hawaii for years.

Dd1 also wants to go on the Washington DC trip that some classmates families are planning over spring break in 2020 and I really don’t want to deny her that option.


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[SASM]

What's a "skinny-ride"?

sorry...Autocorrected “Spinny ride”. 😉

[mom2binsd]

This is an interesting question. I don't nickel and dime vacations so don't necessarily have a firm grasp. We are lucky that two of our yearly vacation are to my parents who live in warm, vacation spot. The vacation is free, but our cats can cost up to $1000 per trip. We also take one two week vacation to England a year. We stay in the same cottage which runs around $2800 for the whole time. We also use hotel points for one night in London on our flight out. Our tickets are normally free either with Amex points or miles. DH travels a lot so that helps and our credit cards give us miles. If we use miles, we still have to pay for taxes so it's about $800-900 for all four tickets. While we are there, we tend to cook dinner in every night and breakfast most mornings. Lunch is often out. We also do whatever we want while we are there. We probably spend an additional $2000 while there. Plus we also have to pay for our cats care and one needs medical help so that is expensive. That can run us close to $1000 or more depending on health issues while we are gone.

I don't understand how cats cost 1000 dollars ??? That's my budget for our entire Spring break trip for 3 humans?

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[smiles33]

I don't understand how cats cost 1000 dollars ??? That's my budget for our entire Spring break trip for 3 humans?

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I bet it is to pay for specialized cat boarding at a vet hospital or an expensive house-sitter to accommodate her cats' medicine dosing schedule. Our dog's boarding facility charges $50/day (per pet!) and if we're gone for 6 days, that is $300 right there. If I had 2 dogs, that would be $600. But he doesn't need special medicine/attention so he's in a large facility. Specialized care will be even more expensive. A local dog walking service that we used to use charges $25/visit (and minimum 2 visits/day). We paid for 3 visits/day when we first adopted our dog as he wasn't used to being home alone for 12 hours at a time.

[Philly Mom]

I bet it is to pay for specialized cat boarding at a vet hospital or an expensive house-sitter to accommodate her cats' medicine dosing schedule. Our dog's boarding facility charges $50/day (per pet!) and if we're gone for 6 days, that is $300 right there. If I had 2 dogs, that would be $600. But he doesn't need special medicine/attention so he's in a large facility. Specialized care will be even more expensive. A local dog walking service that we used to use charges $25/visit (and minimum 2 visits/day). We paid for 3 visits/day when we first adopted our dog as he wasn't used to being home alone for 12 hours at a time.

That is correct. We have to medically board one cat because she needs insulin twice a day and she won’t allow cat sitters. Weekends and holidays cost extra at the animal hospital. She has been sick before while there so that is extra. We also have another cat who is home. We still have to have our normal sitter come in and feed her at our house. It is ridiculous but since two of our vacations are free when we see my parents, it isn’t as awful as it could be.


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[marinkitty]

We travel a lot. And travel is my first love, so I'll always put dollars there at the expense of other things that I don't care as much about. We have trips where we splurge and trips where we don't and lots and lots of trips that are a mix of both. I'd travel on a shoestring over not traveling at all. And I'd forgo buying any new clothes or a new car before giving up our travel plans. But I know that's probably a minority view.

With that all said, I remember our vacation to Disney back when the kids were small made me choke on the expense. It's so much money for what you are getting (IMO, I know Disney is the happiest place on earth for many). So I totally understand OP's hesitancy. That said, I also think going all that way and then sitting in the hotel would make for a miserable trip. If you are there, might as well go for it and then your kids will have the memory and you don't necessarily ever need to go back (we won't!). Seek out a mix of high and low cost activities - there is a lot more to do than just the parks, so focus on the one they will love the most and then find some other free or cheap things to do to go alongside and then use the resort to fill up the rest.

[SnuggleBuggles]

If the weather in Orlando had been warmer, we were thinking of a spur of the moment trip a few weeks ago. We wouldn't have gone to any parks. We were simply planning to hang at a great resort. We'd have probably stayed at a Universal hotel and hung out at the pool, played poolside games, went bowling, played some mini golf, and just relaxed and enjoyed some warmer weather. I don't see anything un-fun about a non park visit. I didn't want to drive otherwise there are plenty of things I could add (love Kennedy Space Center). In OP's case, she'd be tagging along on a work trip not just having randomly picked somewhere. That's just making the best of things- and making it easy. Relaxation+ warmth + a good book and fun= a great time.

[jgenie]

I would jump at the chance to tag along with DH. I’m used to having the kids on my own due to DH’s travel schedule so we wouldn’t have any trouble finding stuff to do. Having our lodging paid would take a huge chunk of the expense out.