Author Topic: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?  (Read 32873 times)

sparkytheop

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #100 on: February 07, 2019, 07:17:32 PM »
It depends on the year and what else is on my plate.  Right now, the budget for travel is much smaller than I'd like, because I've been saving to build a new house on my property, and to help my son with college (I also had to replace my car much earlier than I'd wanted).

From the time he was 9 until he was 17, we did 4 trips to Europe.  Two two week trips, one 9 day trip, and one five week trip.  For the five week trip, I budgeted $15k, but spend $12k (including a Black Forest cuckoo clock for my parents, as a "thank you" for watching my dog).

Last year I only spent a few hundred on two road trips (one was a drive to Vegas with a friend, then a flight home, the second was a solo five day road trip to Utah-- two nights sleeping in my car, two nights in a hotel).

This year I have a 10 day, solo trip to Sweden and Finland planned for the spring (cost of flight+rooms+ferry between countries = $805, and 44 hours of vacation time.  I could have traded a 12 hour night with someone to make it just 32 hours of vacation, but just taking it was easy, and someone will be happy for the overtime.)  I have another $1k set aside to spend on everything else I'll need there (food, entertainment, souvenirs), but I don't plan to spend that much.

I'm hoping that I can continue to set aside at least $2k for travel until I get the house built.  I can take 16 days off in a row, 10 5 times a year (every 10 weeks), and only use 16 hours of vacation each time, if I want (if I don't want to block it off, I still get 14 days off in that stretch, and can work OT if needed).  Goal is to do at least one international trip every year until the house is built.  After the house is built (which would mean I could sell my current house, or just explore some other options), I hope to do at least 2 international trips each year, with a much larger budget.  I'm guessing I'd want to set aside at least $10k/year.

« Last Edit: February 08, 2019, 09:57:35 AM by sparkytheop »

Philociraptor

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #101 on: February 08, 2019, 07:20:52 AM »
No budget here, but if I look in Mint it tells me that we've (we = wife and me) averaged $248/mo (around $3k/year) on travel-related expenses since February of 2012. The amount spent appears to be trickling up each year.

Holy thread revival Batman! @v8rx7guy pulled up a nearly 3-year old thread, so I guess I should update my entry: last year we averaged $500/mo, and this year is looking to definitely beat that.

DadJokes

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #102 on: February 08, 2019, 07:38:57 AM »
Recycling old threads is a mustachian thing to do.

I second the old comment about how much people spend on travel. However, if we made more money, it would largely be split between retirement funding and travel.

We only make ~$90k/year and only take 1-2 trips per year. Our budget is around $1,000.

AMandM

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #103 on: February 08, 2019, 08:35:55 AM »
I can take 16 days off in a row, 10 times a year, and only use 16 hours of vacation each time, if I want

What?  You can take half the month off ten months out of the year? I don't understand.

Our family of 5 spends about $2500 on year on travel.  That includes about 10 nights of camping in state parks and 3-4 driving trips to visit family; some of those trips require motels and some eating out.

HPstache

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #104 on: February 08, 2019, 08:49:56 AM »
No budget here, but if I look in Mint it tells me that we've (we = wife and me) averaged $248/mo (around $3k/year) on travel-related expenses since February of 2012. The amount spent appears to be trickling up each year.

Holy thread revival Batman! @v8rx7guy pulled up a nearly 3-year old thread, so I guess I should update my entry: last year we averaged $500/mo, and this year is looking to definitely beat that.

That's weird.  It showed up on my unread posts feed and I didn't even notice the date!

the_fixer

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #105 on: February 08, 2019, 09:05:52 AM »
Travel / vacation is our largest expense after mortgage and food.

We average about $5,500 per year about 2.4% of our income.

This includes
2x  2 week vacations out of the US typically somewhere warm with good diving

2x 1-2 week trips to a different state typically somewhere with water or a beach

6+ camping trips in the summer

Ways we try to reduce the cost

We have the companion pass from Southwest so my wife flys for free with me and I have a bunch of points.

We have friends that dive / enjoy the beach so we sometimes share a condo with them and take turns cooking breakfast / dinner.

We have family in San Diego by La Jolla and they let us use their spare bedroom.


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sparkytheop

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #106 on: February 08, 2019, 09:56:14 AM »
I can take 16 days off in a row, 10 times a year, and only use 16 hours of vacation each time, if I want

What?  You can take half the month off ten months out of the year? I don't understand.

Our family of 5 spends about $2500 on year on travel.  That includes about 10 nights of camping in state parks and 3-4 driving trips to visit family; some of those trips require motels and some eating out.

Oops, I had a mistype there... I meant every 10 weeks, or 5 times a year.  But, yes.

I work a rotating 12 hour shift (that requires a calendar to keep straight).  The shift is on a 10 week rotation, and based on an 80 hour, 2 week, pay period (rather than a 40 hour week).  At one point in those 10 weeks, I work 6 12 hour nights at the very beginning of pay period 1.  The second week, I work one 8 hour day, so 80 hour in pay period 1.  The third week (pay period 2), I work one 8 hour day.  The fourth week, I work my 6 12 hour nights at the end of the pay period.  So, if I take those two 8 hour days off, I get 16 days off in a row.

I'll edit my original post...

partgypsy

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #107 on: February 08, 2019, 09:58:12 AM »
I don't have a "budget" but I have a category that lumps travel/entertainment together. So this also includes say bowling or movie tickets or other activities done either while on vacation or at home. This is actually an area I want to increase in the future.
Average over past 4 years (2 while married 2 while separated/divorced) average spend is 1907/per year.
The rest of my family lives in another state, so I and the 2 kids visit once a year (800-900 just for the plane tickets). I also go to the beach for a few days each year.
   

Travis

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #108 on: February 08, 2019, 10:07:36 AM »
Since we're still working full time we don't get large breaks, but we'll overnight drive back to our parents 3 or 4 times a year for a long weekend plus a "big" road trip to some national parks in the summer.  The last few years it's averaged out to about $4800/year.  My intent once we FIRE is to spend about $6000/year on vacations, but hack a lot of it which I'm only dabbling in right now. If I can figure out a good system for cheap/free plane tickets we'll travel even more at the same overall cost.

JoJo

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #109 on: February 08, 2019, 02:32:16 PM »
This year's budget was high.  Spent $1000 spending the month of January in CA  (but $0 expenses back home).  $12,000 for an antarctica cruise in November.  Doesn't include airfare and whatever I do before or after the cruise... will for sure do something since I'm already in South American.  Also plan some roadtrips but they should be cheap.


Cassie

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #110 on: February 08, 2019, 06:11:48 PM »
We didn’t travel much until retirement. The last 4 years we have spent between 9-14k/year.  We want to go while we both are in good health.

Fomerly known as something

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #111 on: February 08, 2019, 06:23:26 PM »
Until 2014, I either visited my parents or my sister on vacation so cost was $300-400 a flight 2-3x a year with less than $500 spent during the visit.  In 2013 I move back closer to home and went on my first "adult" vacation ever in my mid 30's.  I've spend anywhere from about $2000-8000 for a week to 4 weeks of vacation since then. I do offset some items with rewards points and I'm working on getting better at finding better deals so total costs should go down in the future.  When it comes to travel hacking I'm totally a novice and I have some brand loyalty I should probably get over.

Travel is one of my top three spending categories and I'm OK with that.

AMandM

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #112 on: February 08, 2019, 08:00:07 PM »
I work a rotating 12 hour shift (that requires a calendar to keep straight).  The shift is on a 10 week rotation, and based on an 80 hour, 2 week, pay period (rather than a 40 hour week).  At one point in those 10 weeks, I work 6 12 hour nights at the very beginning of pay period 1.  The second week, I work one 8 hour day, so 80 hour in pay period 1.  The third week (pay period 2), I work one 8 hour day.  The fourth week, I work my 6 12 hour nights at the end of the pay period.  So, if I take those two 8 hour days off, I get 16 days off in a row.

I'll edit my original post...

Thanks for the clarification. Wow, being able to have 16 days off in a row for the cost of two 8-hour workdays is terrific. But that rotation--whew!

MrThatsDifferent

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #113 on: February 08, 2019, 08:45:14 PM »
This, this is my non mustachian splurge, so for just me I have a budget of $7k a year. Travel is important and I do it when I can. I don’t spend all of that but don’t want to be constrained.

SKL-HOU

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #114 on: February 11, 2019, 10:01:34 AM »
I don't have a specific budget. It is just me and my 7-year old son. Every summer my mom flies here (from another country) to pick him up then brings him back at the end of summer. That is roughly $2500-3000 for flights depending on how early I buy the tickets. He spends the summer with my parents at their summer house (by the beach) so that is his main vacation.
Then we also do another vacation with either just the 2 of us or including my mom if she is visiting. In the past it has been Cancun (son, mom and me), Las Vegas (son, mom and me) and again Cancun this spring break (just son and me). Typically around $2500 total or so.

Basically we average roughly $5000 per year. Once our dog passes away (she is 12.5, hopefully we have at least 3-4 more years but she is a big dog so probably less :( ), we will probably do more 3 or 4-day weekend trips increasing the travel costs. It is just more difficult to just pick up and go when you have a dog. We also have a cat but cats are more independent.

Income is around 126k.
« Last Edit: February 11, 2019, 10:03:28 AM by SKL-HOU »

sui generis

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #115 on: February 11, 2019, 10:08:46 AM »
My early retirement budget is $1,000/mo just for myself.  It's a huge priority for me in retirement, but I'm in my first year, so we'll see how spending goes.  I definitely didn't have the time to travel as much when I worked so I could be overestimating how much I can spend. 

This year, we're going to Kenya and Rwanda, then to France "on the way back" for a conference for my fiancé.  The flights alone are enough to make me faint.  Also, Puerto Rico for our honeymoon and I'm planning a solo backpacking trip for 3 weeks.  Replacing some gear/supplies should be pretty nominal, but it'll come out of my travel budget.  But that's not even that much more traveling than I did while working and I don't project to have much leftover!  Hopefully some day in my retirement I'll have time to do more travel hacking, but for now we just look for economical flights and lodging, places where we can cook our own food, and of course a lot of our travel is backpacking, which usually costs about $15 per night for a permit (if not more like $15 per week). 

Travel hacking for flights would make a huge difference and it would be such a sweet, sweet feeling to not have to pay very much for what is always an awful experience anyway.  We had the Southwest Companion Pass last year and figured it saved us about $1500, but Southwest makes everything *so easy*.  From accumulating to using miles/points and being able to change flights, etc.  Reading materials on how to get miles on any other airline, and then use the different portals and transfer points between A and B and then the elaborate gymnastics you have to go through to find seats you can use those points on...it's like worse than studying for the Bar exam, TBH.  I'm not sure when in my retirement I will have the capacity to do that work. So I sort of made my travel budget to allow me to spend more time actually traveling than working on the intricacies and frustrations of seat selection and blackout dates on all the carriers.

Sugaree

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #116 on: February 11, 2019, 10:21:09 AM »
We put aside ~$3600 a year for travel and do a big trip every 18 months or so.  We do a little travel hacking with credit cards and whatnot to supplement the cost.  We try to make it so that one big expense for every trip is covered, or mostly covered, by points/miles/etc.  Last summer it was the airfare.  This xmas it will be the train. 

Sugaree

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #117 on: February 11, 2019, 10:25:29 AM »
Have you looked into either the BarclayCard Arrival MasterCard or the Chase Sapphire travel rewards card? Neither of these lock you into using a particular airline or hotel chain (you just buy your airline tickets and other travel-related costs with the card, and reimburse yourself for the purchase with your miles).

I love our BarclayCard--we don't spend nearly as much on travel as you, but so far it's saved us about $1,500 on the two trips to Europe we made in 2014 and 2015. With higher incomes, I bet you would rack up even more points than we do. :)

Honestly, if you've got one of the Sapphires, look into the Freedoms too.  They all earn the Ultimate Rewards points (UR) and with the Sapphire can be combined into one account.  It's almost always a better deal to transfer to airline partners if possible than to use the UR portal to book flights.  Hotels are more hit or miss, but definitely check out the exchange partners before booking something. 

Rosy

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #118 on: February 11, 2019, 06:04:04 PM »
This is the first time in years that I am not either spending or saving up for next years trip - anywhere from $5K to $10K. Usually, one or two months trip to Europe.

No real travel budget at all for this year. Regardless, we might take like a one week vacation for two, stateside, and a beach weekend or two which shouldn't require any extra savings.
   

exterous

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #119 on: February 11, 2019, 08:00:51 PM »
It's not something that we actively track and we change credit cards enough that the year end summaries don't really help either (I'm too lazy to aggregate them). Still its significant with 2018 coming in around $13k-15k even with a fair bit of travel hacking. 2018 was a little high though with New Zealand, two European trips and a trip to Africa in the same year. 2019 will probably be less as we'll be more focused on North and South America travels. Both my wife and I are on the same page that we'd rather spend more on travel now even if it means working a little longer. It helps that we both have jobs we don't mind at companies we like. There's just so much beauty out there to explore and amazing cultural exchanges to be had.

This year, we're going to Kenya and Rwanda

(snip)

Travel hacking for flights would make a huge difference and it would be such a sweet, sweet feeling to not have to pay very much for what is always an awful experience anyway.  We had the Southwest Companion Pass last year and figured it saved us about $1500, but Southwest makes everything *so easy*.  From accumulating to using miles/points and being able to change flights, etc.  Reading materials on how to get miles on any other airline, and then use the different portals and transfer points between A and B and then the elaborate gymnastics you have to go through to find seats you can use those points on...it's like worse than studying for the Bar exam, TBH.  I'm not sure when in my retirement I will have the capacity to do that work. So I sort of made my travel budget to allow me to spend more time actually traveling than working on the intricacies and frustrations of seat selection and blackout dates on all the carriers.

Our trip to Kenya ranks #2 on my 'most memorable and impactful trips' that we've taken so far. I hope you guys have a great trip! Hopefully you have some time to head out to somewhere like the Masai Mara.

Travel hacking is easier if you're not tied to specific destinations. Even though my wife has fairly prescribed vacation times during peak travel periods because she's a teacher I've had excellent luck going to United's award search portal and just looking up what award flights actually are available. "So no award flights are available to anywhere in the Caribbean or South America but we could choose from quite a few African countries."* YMMV but United award space had been good to us out of DTW - despite not being remotely close to a United hub.

*It can help to look at alliance route maps like this one: http://onw.innosked.com/ so you don't waste time looking at airports you can't get to with the miles you have

MaybeBabyMustache

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #120 on: February 11, 2019, 08:08:28 PM »
I'm taking a sabbatical this year, so I'll likely spend more. I'm taking my sister to Hawaii, for example. We generally try to keep it to around $10k. This includes 3-4 long weekends or visits to my family (requires flights for four), an adult only trip (we're driving to Napa for a weekend) & skiing.

2Birds1Stone

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #121 on: February 11, 2019, 09:45:23 PM »
I'm taking a sabbatical this year, so I'll likely spend more. I'm taking my sister to Hawaii, for example. We generally try to keep it to around $10k. This includes 3-4 long weekends or visits to my family (requires flights for four), an adult only trip (we're driving to Napa for a weekend) & skiing.

You're supposed to be retired by now!

MaybeBabyMustache

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #122 on: February 12, 2019, 07:00:57 AM »
I'm taking a sabbatical this year, so I'll likely spend more. I'm taking my sister to Hawaii, for example. We generally try to keep it to around $10k. This includes 3-4 long weekends or visits to my family (requires flights for four), an adult only trip (we're driving to Napa for a weekend) & skiing.

You're supposed to be retired by now!

Don't I know it! We've settled on the sabbatical to start with, so I'm busy planning that. So many trip options!

jlcnuke

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #123 on: February 12, 2019, 07:52:33 AM »
Single - plan to spend $8-10k/year on personal vacation and travel most years. Most of my vacations consist of flying to somewhere nice and warm to go diving and/or sailing, neither of which is a cheap hobby in general.
« Last Edit: February 12, 2019, 08:28:06 AM by jlcnuke »

mountain mustache

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #124 on: February 12, 2019, 08:00:43 AM »
I live in a place many people vacation to, so I don't really travel much. I probably spend $100-$200 on gas to drive to various trailheads in CO to camp and climb mountains. Once a year I drive to the desert to camp somewhere warm and ride bikes. I love taking little road trips around the southwest to ride bikes...but it's super cheap car camping type travel.  I love where I live though, so being at home usually trumps any kind of traveling. Seems like it saves me a lot of cash, too! I've just never had the "travel bug" I guess...but I've also always made sure I am living in an amazing place with endless outdoor adventures, surrounded by mountains, etc...then I don't feel like I need to leave.

I wanted to comment also on the international travel before college thing. Seriously? Is this a thing that people think kids "should" be doing? My parents could barely afford to help me a little with groceries in college (paid for college with a scholarship). My only focus in high school was getting into a good college, not paying for it, and graduating as soon as possible. I'm sure it was a good experience for kids to do that type of travel before college, but I firmly believe I did not miss out on anything, and honestly from my perspective I was a lot more grounded than most of my classmates.

Cooper62

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #125 on: February 12, 2019, 09:11:47 AM »
Currently about $5,000/year out of the regular budget.  If I get a bonus we may put some of that towards additional travel.  This year taking a four day cruise over spring break with some of the bonus.  The travel budget has definitely crept up that past five years as my two kids entered their teens.  We used to spend a couple thousand a year on a week long trip often to the beach.  My Mother passed away several years ago and made me realize how short life is and I should see some of the places I've been wanting to.  Now have a child in college so may need to cut back.  I love to travel and we live in a low cost of living area and keep expenses low with paid off cars, public schools, packing lunches, etc.  Travel is where I splurge. 

MrThatsDifferent

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #126 on: February 12, 2019, 01:42:32 PM »
I live in a place many people vacation to, so I don't really travel much. I probably spend $100-$200 on gas to drive to various trailheads in CO to camp and climb mountains. Once a year I drive to the desert to camp somewhere warm and ride bikes. I love taking little road trips around the southwest to ride bikes...but it's super cheap car camping type travel.  I love where I live though, so being at home usually trumps any kind of traveling. Seems like it saves me a lot of cash, too! I've just never had the "travel bug" I guess...but I've also always made sure I am living in an amazing place with endless outdoor adventures, surrounded by mountains, etc...then I don't feel like I need to leave.

I wanted to comment also on the international travel before college thing. Seriously? Is this a thing that people think kids "should" be doing? My parents could barely afford to help me a little with groceries in college (paid for college with a scholarship). My only focus in high school was getting into a good college, not paying for it, and graduating as soon as possible. I'm sure it was a good experience for kids to do that type of travel before college, but I firmly believe I did not miss out on anything, and honestly from my perspective I was a lot more grounded than most of my classmates.

Well, if you didn’t do it, how do you know the benefits? I did a language trip abroad when I was in high school. Few things are better or more enriching than seeing the world. We tend to think of education as showing up in a box everyday to learning things most won’t use. It’s a big world, life is short. Meeting different cultures, eating different foods. Life, social and survival skills all get tested. You learn that it’s not all about you. You learn how lucky you are. You meet people you never would. You become less racist. It’s an amazing gift to give. True, not many can give it, but mustachian aren’t like everyone else.

FreelanceToFreedom

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #127 on: February 14, 2019, 10:20:21 PM »
I'm FIREd so do longer trips (month or 2 at a time) and spend about $1500/month on average travelling solo (less if with someone and splitting costs). That's been for mostly camping road trips with occasional motels in the US or for a monthly vacation house rental in one place. So probably around $6k/ year for 4 months of solo travel.

I expect it to be the same for longer overseas slow travel I plan to do this year. lf solo I budgeted approx $2k/month all in but believe it will be less -  and probably half if travelling with someone else. At this point I already booked a 3 month solo  trip to Europe with r/t airfare for $360 and plan to either bike tour or do a 3 month Eurail Pass (about $300/month). Probably Hostels or cheap AirBNBs or some kind of low cost longer term apt rental. So should easily be able to stay on a budget of $1500 -$2000/month.

ETA currently my travel expenses ARE also my living expenses since I sold my house to travel full time. But back when I owned a place I spent about $6k/ year once FIREd - much less when working as I didn't travel much then.

Nice! That sounds like a great retirement plan. I'm transitioning into full time traveling (still working, just remotely) and I'm interested to see how my expenses change. It obviously depends on the locations you choose, but it's pretty easy to spend a lot less traveling full time than you would living a normal existence most places in the US. Particularly with travel hacking, it can become quite cheap.

For example, we're starting with 4 months in Eastern Europe. Just finished booking all our AirBNB's. We're staying for 1-3 weeks in each city, so slow traveling. Our average monthly "rent" is about $700 - and of course there are no utilities, internet, maintenance costs, etc. Can't really beat that!

itchyfeet

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #128 on: February 15, 2019, 03:46:00 AM »
I am guilty of spending a bomb on travel.

DW and I know we have a spending problem here, but as we are Expats living on the other side of the world from our homes, we are drawn into a lefestyle of constant world exploration.

We have had many trips of a lifetime over the past 5 years and this year will be the same. $$$$$

In FIRE, once we have repatriated, we will have to spend much less. Before we became “ expats” we spent much less.

But at the moment there is always another flight just around the corner.

This week I’ll be in europe for work and DW will tag along at our expense. I’ll fly back to australia next month for a family event. In April we will be in Portugal. In august we will be in Sweden. It’s a bit ridiculous, but will all be over soon.

Our future will be slow travel, at a far lower cost/day.

londonbanker

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #129 on: February 15, 2019, 08:44:22 PM »
We spend about £10k on average a year on travel. We live in the UK, but my parents now live in France and my in laws retired in Thailand. The kids spend most holidays on the sea side in France (3-4 trips a year) and we spend Christmas in Thailand to get some much needed winter sun. That Thai trip is usually £5-6k alone.
Although it is quite a material amount,  we always felt it was important for the kids to see their grandparents.

DeltaBond

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #130 on: February 16, 2019, 05:02:47 AM »
Hmm, this is easy, $0.00 lmao

What do I win? lol

MrThatsDifferent

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #131 on: February 16, 2019, 01:09:39 PM »
Hmm, this is easy, $0.00 lmao

What do I win? lol

As the kids would say “weird flex but ok”

MonkeyJenga

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #132 on: February 16, 2019, 08:18:03 PM »
For half of 2018, travel expenses replaced rent. I can't get into my cc transactions to verify, but rough guess is $1,600-$2,600 for 5 months.

$1,000 - $2,000 for a whole bunch of bus, train, and plane tickets Jan-April (stayed with friends, family, and campaign housing)
$30 for a NY > DC bus ticket in September (had a ride DC > NY, stayed with friends)
$600-ish in December for 3 weeks in California (flights and some cabs, stayed with a friend)

clarkfan1979

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #133 on: February 17, 2019, 01:09:44 AM »
We are normally around $10,000/year. We spent $16,000 last year because we had our first child and paraded him around to family and friends. We should go back to $10,000 this year.

Just Joe

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #134 on: February 23, 2019, 12:03:58 AM »
Generally we take a "big" trip every two years or so.

Last year it was NYC for our family of four plus a friend of one of our teens. We drove to NYC, ate out some, tickets for museums, bike rentals, Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, hotel in the city, etc. About $4K. Left our family car with friends outside the city and rode the train in.

Big trip before that was a beach trip. A week of near beach condo rental, grocery store trips, a little eating out, a little seafood from the fresh market, gas money, maybe a museum trip (fort exploring last time) and some fun amusement stuff for the kids. Less than $2K for the week.

Then once in a while we'll do a weekend trip to a tourist town we like. Couple nights in a hotel, restaurants, gas money, hiking, etc. Few hundred dollars.

Trips to see family involve gas money. We do the trip in a day, spend the night with family - try to help with groceries or occasionally eat out if the extended family group wants to. Not much tourist stuff done b/c its all old hat to them. When the kids were little we'd take them to a trampoline park occasionally.

We don't budget for these trips, we just take the cost out of savings b/c we don't invest every last cent. Nothing we do with that money affects our retirement plans at all.

AlotToLearn

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #135 on: March 30, 2019, 09:11:37 AM »
This post is eye opening for me. Income range is 160K annually, and last year I spent approx 5k on travel just for me.
That was for 7 trips, including 1 cruise.

This year I have prepaid a few trips for later in the year, however will look to cut the budget by 10 percent.


One question for all - Is everyone solely including the costs of travel or what you spend while on vacation? I can get to Disney and stay for 4 nights for 1000-1500, but might spend another 500 while there.

OtherJen

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #136 on: March 30, 2019, 12:29:58 PM »
We’ve never budgeted, but we aren’t frequent or extravagant travelers. This year, I expect that we’ll spend about $1800 total on a couple of in-state multi-night camping trips, a hotel room for 2 nights at on-season rates so that we can attend a family reunion in a resort town on the other side of the state, and 3 nights on Mackinac Island at off-season hotel rates (plus ferry tickets). We always try to bring our own food or stock up at local grocers as much as possible, and both hotel rooms will have a fridge and microwave. Still, we’re not going to turn down a big dinner out with family during the reunion weekend, and Mackinac Island has too many good restaurants not to have dinner out every night.

Cranky

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #137 on: March 30, 2019, 04:17:45 PM »
I don't especially enjoy traveling, being a Homebody Extrodinaire, but I *do* enjoy spending time with my family, and I good way to do that is to lure them into a Fun Vacation situation. So we do something vacation-y every summer. Last year we went to a water park resort.

This summer we are meeting my sister and her dh in Florida for the purpose of interring our mom's ashes in the family plot, but we are spending the week at the beach as well. I'm budgeting about $5000 for this (I've got the accommodations all paid for at this point) for the 5 adults and one small child from my family, and really will pay for most of my sister and her dh's housing expense as well.

Dh and I will probably go to Wisconsin a couple of times to see dd, as well, but that's cheap.

Villanelle

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #138 on: March 30, 2019, 06:45:30 PM »
We've had years that were $10k+, and years where it was probably $300 in gas money for a handful of trips to see family less than 2 hours away. 


BlueMR2

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #139 on: March 31, 2019, 04:37:44 PM »
$0 budgeted for travel.  Just not a thing we do anymore.  Did some traveling in our earlier years, but no longer have much interest in it (or at least our interest in it is lower than our interest in having money to invest).

JGS1980

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #140 on: March 31, 2019, 06:11:52 PM »
We spent about $6500 last year, $3500 the prior 2 years, and $6500 3 years ago.  My guess is our family of five probably have 10K in travel per year, but travel hacking mitigates this quite a bit. We just booked $2500 in flights for about $500. Hotels and AirBNB for our coming 2 week trip will be mostly covered by credit card points. A few nights at friends' homes will help as well.

Travel makes us happy. It's definitely pur thing worse splurging on. I look forward to spending MORE on travel when we FIRE.
« Last Edit: April 01, 2019, 09:54:16 AM by JGS1980 »

Just Joe

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Re: What is everyones travel/vacation budget per year?
« Reply #141 on: April 01, 2019, 08:19:07 AM »
Our budget varies b/c our vacation preferences are changing as we get older. Clean and quiet is important. I don't enjoy traffic or crowds. I have no idea how we'll ever visit some of the famous places. ;)

This year DW will fly to the west coast to see friends. I'll stay at home - we have a number of projects that need attention. We'll likely do a few weekend trips over the course of the year - camping, landmark exploration, hiking, etc.