How much do you budget for travel?

[LibStache]

Hi folks,
I realize this answer can vary wildly, but my family of 4 is just getting to the point where we’re considering traveling, post-COVID, and because our children are finally getting to an age where it seems like they could handle it. We’ve never traveled much before now but our goal eventually is to take at least one big trip per year (most likely abroad) and some smaller ones within the US. We’re learning all we can about travel hacking to save, but really have no frame of reference for how much to budget. I’d love to hear what all of you spend on traveling and what a reasonable budget would look like for a family of four. Thanks!

[GuitarStv]

Family of three here.  This year we've budgeted about 1500$.  4-500$ for gas (we will do some visiting of friends and relatives) and about a grand to rent a very bare bones cabin near a lake for a few days in the summer.  The cabin really puts us over the top this year.

[Cranky]

I have promised my dh that we will go to Denver for his 50th class reunion, and after that I’m budgeting $0!because I hate traveling. I like camping, though.

[seemsright]

Hubby is still working. But we budget 2 paychecks a year for our annual vacation, and more trips come out of our month to month money.

I would have to do math to tell you how much we spend on trips. Traveling is important to us. We are a family of 3 and try to get to use our passports at least once a year. Our goal is to get our kid to as many Countries and States as we can. This year is HI for 10 days. 

[Philociraptor]

We don't budget, but in the last 12 months we've spent $618/month for 2 adults on average; that works out to around 3.6% of our gross incomes and 5.6% of our spending. Our average since June of 2014 is $443/month; quite a bit compared to the forum average probably. This includes flights to/from places, plus all expenses incurred while there (hotel, meals, groceries, experiences, gifts, etc.).

[GilesMM]

Around 15% of spending, which I think is average.  Low would be 5%, high 25%.


Hope this helps.

[Blue Skies]

We don't travel hack, though it would probably benefit us greatly if we did.  Family of four.
When the kids were small our 8-10 day family trips would run $3k to $4k.
Now that they are older we are typically between $4k and $6k for a big trip.

We do several smaller trips throughout the year as well, but the costs for those are much less. 

[Freedomin5]

We don’t budget, but this year we are spending about $5600 for our family of three which includes four weeks at a waterfront cottage in popular cottage country a couple hours north of Toronto, gas and food, and a 10-day road trip to visit friends in Northern Ontario, which includes three overnight stays at hotels along the way and several visits to provincial parks that charge admission, and a hotel stay for a visit to DH’s parents.

We will also do small trips occasionally. It’s usually around $400-$500 per trip.

[Metalcat]

We have a summer home in a bucket-list vacation destination very far from our home. I can't take "trips" for several years due to a series of surgeries and recoveries, so I don't so much travel as run away to convalesce in a stunning cottage on the ocean for months at a time.

We could rent the place out as an AirBnB, so the cost to get there and the opportunity cost of not renting it out is...oh my...over 20K?

[Zikoris]

We're not completely sure since we didn't travel for several years due to the pandemic, but prior to that it was 9K/year for a household of two, which got us two overseas trips + a few local ones. I'm guessing it will be something like 10K now, but we'll see how this year goes.

[baludon]

Travel is one of those things I really need to watch out for.  It's looking like I'll be spending way more this year than I had planned for an Alaska and Hawaii trips. Along with several international trips planned for later this year and I'll be pushing 20K.  I don't think I've spent more than 8K in previous years.

[Sibley]

My sister instigated a family trip to the UK. We leave in about a week. Total, no more than $15k is what she said when I asked. I'm contributing around $6k I think.

In 2024 I want to go to a specific convention, and I plan for $3k for everything, but usually can cut that down quite a bit. Other than that, I don't travel much.

[YK-Phil]

I already blew our travel budget for the year ($4K for 2) by going on a Central America motorcycle trip alone for two months at the beginning of the year but since we live in Mexico, we generally feel we are on a permanent vacation. Still, we are planning to drive back home to Canada this summer for the birth of my first grandchild, that was not really planned but that's not something I want to miss. Our trip will be on the cheap, we are driving our old campervan and plan to free-camp on the way and will stay at my daughter's house when we get to our destination. Our van is on the gas-guzzler spectrum at 12L/100km but after checking airfare and car rental prices, it will still be cheaper to drive, plus I don't like flying and also we both really enjoy road tripping and camping in that part of the world (US Southwest). 

[LibStache]

Thank you all for your input! This definitely gives me a better idea of how much to be budgeting. Here’s to lots of family traveling in the near future!

[MaybeBabyMustache]

It's useful to know a per person travel budget (or, at least how many people the budget covers), I think. Otherwise, we're comparing the budget of one person vs a family of 5 or whatever.

We have a family of 4 (two teen boys). We did a once in a lifetime trip to Dubai a few weeks ago, & spent $26k ($18k on travel, $8k on gifts), and we paid for 10 people. We can't see my husband's family any other way, and it had been 14 years since my MIL had seen her grandkids. Anyway, complicated. I call it once in a lifetime, but if my MIL is healthy enough for us to do this again in 2 years, we probably will.

A more regular travel year is typically around $30k, which includes 3-4 trips/year to visit my family (some version of me & the kids, just the kids, all four of us, etc), a family ski trip or two, and often an adult trip. This year, we also did a college tour.

Travel is by far our largest spending category, by design.

[pdxvandal]

As a family of 3, looks like we spent $4,500 on travel in the past year according to Personal Capital. We don't typically budget for it, but try to travel hack as much as we can. The $4,500 went a long way that included a flight to Chicago and car rental taking us to a nearby fancy resort, a road trip / car rental to a mountain getaway for 3 nights, a flight and two nights at a 4-star hotel in Las Vegas, a solo flight and hotel to a neighboring state, a weeklong trip to Florida (flight + 3 nights in hotel), and in a few weeks, train travel to Seattle + 1 night hotel (all travel points). If we paid full price for all of this travel, it would easily be double the cost.

That being said, I'd love to spend more on travel going forward, especially before DD leaves the nest in 5-6 years. If it's a priority in your life and you can afford it, I'd aim for $10k annually with a family of 4.

[Scandium]

I was afraid to post here, due to shame about our travel spending. Guess I assumed everyone else biked to BLM land to cowboy camp and annually spent  $9.99 on a bean can and 2 snickers bars..  (is this the unfrugal MMM everyone is complaining about?? :D)

Because of family in europe we have to travel there quite often unfortunately. These days the flight prices are obscene! Four people in summer is at least $4000+, possibly $4500. I've used Chase card churning to get it to $0-500 or so each time pre pandemic. Last year that didn't work so $4k went in flights, this year it was $50... Thankfully we stay for free, free car/boat usage, and some food covered by family (and don't eat out much there). So mainly flights. Not the worst, but can easily get expensive, especially as we plan to take the kids to other places in Europe, not just the grandparent's house.. Hotels is the big one.

Travel us definitely an budget post I'm worried about, since it can get absurd so quickly. Especially since we only have time for one big trip now and that's what I calculate "spending" based on. But if we FIRE, then have time to travel more? Several $5k+ trips a year would throw my numbers out the window! Domestic travel can be done cheaper, though lodging is still expensive.

[RetireOrDieTrying]

This is kind of tricky for me to answer. I live in my motor home, and wander around North America chasing views, experiences, people, and nice weather.

I only spend discretionarily on two things - some genealogy subscriptions, and travel. I can't carry around stuff with me, so my spending on "things" is $0.

I typically will go each location a month or so, to give me time to soak in what there is to experience, and it keeps a lid on fuel costs. I rarely stay at an RV park. Instead, I will camp on government land for free, or stay at a nearby Elks lodge (I'm a member), or a church parking lot, or in some cases visit family spread out here and there who have extended the invitation to park at their home. I'm fully self-contained, and can go about a month before needing to tend to tanks. Tanks I can take care of at most truck stops or rest areas, for around $10-ish.

Overall I'll average perhaps $500/mo. all in, which is about 2.7% of my income.

[Metta]

These days we don't really do vacations because our whole life feels like a vacation. But we do travel about 4-5 times a year for either writing conferences (1-2 a year) or because my husband has to travel back to Memphis for meetings (2-3 times a year) or needs to travel to teach.

The traveling for teaching is paid for by the government, so that costs nothing. Our writing conferences cost about $2500 for everything (gas, hotel, food, conference fees, etc.) for both of us and usually include a side trip to see family. The Memphis trips cost about $500 each. We bring our own food and eat in our hotel room. According to Mint we spend about $6000 a year currently.

We budget about $10,000 a year and keep a go bag just in case family has a catastrophe and we need to get there quick.

[Metalcat]

Thank you all for your input! This definitely gives me a better idea of how much to be budgeting. Here’s to lots of family traveling in the near future!

You shouldn't base your budget on anything we say here.

Everyone has different circumstances and different reasons for their particular types of travel. Different people are also at different stages financially.

[Arbitrage]

My travel category is combined with general entertainment and gifts.  Maybe doesn't completely make sense (particularly the latter), but that's how I set it up historically and I'm not about to go tease the different items out.  All told, those items are $700/month...and travel maybe works out to $400-500 of that?  Not a ton of travel by most people's standards, but since we now live in a place that would be my ideal travel destination, I don't feel a strong desire to travel.  Mostly we just do it to see family, and occasionally friends. 

Perhaps we'll feel stronger about wanting to travel more extensively once the kids are out of the house. 

[ChickenStash]

I don't exactly budget for travel but I try to do a nice international trip every few years and a few domestic trips every year. Whether or not I go really depends on what else is going on in life. If I have other large expenses planned, I skip the travel.

Domestic trips are usually just driving to see family for a few days so just the cost of gas and wear on the car, maybe a few hundred bucks. I think I'm going to do a train trip to NYC for a week of sightseeing over my birthday this year so that will exceed my usual spending - not sure how much, yet.

The international trips are pretty spendy, unfortunately, so I try to limit them to only every few years. Flights and lodging a killer. I "budget" for ~$4k for solo traveling for a 2-week stretch but try to come in under that. It depends on where I'm going and how well I think I can get around.

[lutorm]

We're planning an international move this year, so I think our "travel" budget will blow sky high. Just flights across half the Earth for a family of 4, plus various other non-recreational travel, will probably be over $6k.

[Ron Scott]

Thank you all for your input! This definitely gives me a better idea of how much to be budgeting. Here’s to lots of family traveling in the near future!

You shouldn't base your budget on anything we say here.

Everyone has different circumstances and different reasons for their particular types of travel. Different people are also at different stages financially.

This.

Better to look to your personal finances, your family’s interests, and weigh your priorities. Some people would rather not travel or do so only on a really tight budget to retire earlier. Others feel they’re creating priceless family memories by loosening their wallets a bit on travel. There is no right answer.

[Cassie]

I have been retired for 12 years. When married we spent anywhere from 4-14k/year depending if we took the motor home or flew to Europe. Now single and no longer wanting to do DIY travel a friend and I take tours. Last year was Ireland for 11 days for 5k, this year 4 countries in Europe for 5k and next year France for 11 days for 6k. That completes my bucket list. Recovering from jet lag gets harder every year as I approach 70.

[sparkytheop]

Currently only 2% of my take-home, which makes me sad.  But it's still enough to do some smaller fun stuff.  I'm saving for another big-ticket item right now, but after that is achieved, I hope to bump my travel budget closer to 35-50% of my take-home.  By the time I retire, I hope I can have it be closer to 55% (retirement income will be similar to current working income).

I really enjoy traveling, but it's also just me.

I've done 5 weeks in Europe for $12k (son and me, each with a carry-on only), and had an amazing time, in 2015.  Solo travel cuts expenses by quite a bit, but I do hope to take my now-adult son some places in the future, as long as he can get the time off.

[J.R. Ewing]

Our kids are old enough to travel to Europe, but our problems are the same as other parents face.  We can travel during summer and fall, winter, spring vacations.  Flights are punishingly expensive during those times.  If we could travel mid week in April or Oct we could find flights for less than a third of what it would be during the peak times. 

[clarkfan1979]

We are a family of 3. For 2022, our gross income was around 100K/year and we spent around 10K/year on travel.

Flights: We use credit cards points and fly mostly on Southwest with the companion pass. I think we get around 10K worth of flights, but only spend around $3,500, including the credit card fees.

Hotels: We spent around $900 on hotels. Albuquerque was around $450 for 3 nights. Salt Lake City (3 nights) & Las Vegas (3 nights) was $75/night because we split the cost with friends. For Austin, my wife's friend used her points for the hotel. The rest of the trips we stay with family/friends or at our long-term rental on Kauai.

Car Rental: I think we spent $1350. Ely, MN was $600 for 11 days, Kauai was $500 for 2 trips and Fort Myers was $250 for 2 trips.

Airport Parking: I think we spent around $400 for around 50 days at airport   

Uber/Taxi/Gas: I'm ball parking $500.

Camping: About $1500 total. Around $500 on camping fees & gas. Another $1000 on RV registration, insurance and repairs (new batteries).

This totals $8150. However, I think the true cost is around $10,000 because we spend more money on food when we travel. We either spend more money at restaurants or we buy extra groceries when we stay with family/friends.

2 family trips from Denver to Fort Myers (10 days & 20 days)
2 family trips from Denver to Kauai (14 days & 8 weeks)
1 family trip from Denver to Albuquerque (3 days)
1 family trip from Denver to Ely, MN (11 days)
1 family camping trip from Pueblo West, CO to Steamboat Lake, CO (7 nights)
3 weekend guy trips for husband (Boise, South Lake Tahoe, & Las Vegas)
3 weekend girl trips for wife (Salt Lake City, Austin & Seattle)

We do about 7 family trips/year and then my wife and I each do another 3 individual trips with our friends. I think we are planning on doing a little less travel in 2023.

[2Birds1Stone]

$10k/yr. We offset this with travel hacking quite a bit.

Household of two with no kids. Lots of international travel (slowly).

[FireLane]

Family of 3. We've been traveling domestically since COVID, road-tripping to national parks and other points of interest.

I spent $6000 on travel in 2022. I've spent $8000 so far in 2023 (although that'll be most of our travel spending for the year, we prepaid for hotel stays). The majority of that was for accommodations.

[Metalcat]

Fucking necropost just about got me!!

GOD DAMMIT!

[BrandonP]

Varies considerably depending on the year.

[classicrando]

Fucking necropost just about got me!!

GOD DAMMIT!

Maybe that little paper icon next to the topic title (the one that has a thumbs up next to the Best Post I Saw Today thread) could be set to automatically change to a skull or zombie icon whenever someone comments on a thread that has been dormant for 6+ months?

[NorthernFire]

it changes year to year. The base would be about $4K, max around $15K.

[footwear]

family of 4, both parents working, depends on the year but probably between $6k to $8k per year.

[Turtle]

Fucking necropost just about got me!!

GOD DAMMIT!

My answer right now is very different than it would have been 2 years ago.  Given the way the markets have been in the past two months, I’ll be cutting as much as possible to avoid working OMY.  (Current retirement plan is a little over a year from now.)

[Zikoris]

We're still around 9K/year. It seems like a good amount. That gets us overseas once or twice, and then some Canadian road trips and camping trips.

[Freedomin5]

Even if the thread was resurrected via necropost, our thinking has changed, and this year it’s a bit different.

We’ve already spent 2k on a week-long vacation, and plan to spend another 2k on a week-long cycling trip. Other than that, we are cutting costs as much as possible and spending most of the summer at the cottage. If the current environment remains the same, we will stay close to home and not travel for the foreseeable future.

[HPstache]

$4,200/yr is the budget, but we often throw random chunks of money into the travel budget when we get a monetary christmas gift, unexpected tax refund, etc.  Mostly RV (travel trailer) trips, sometimes international like Mexico or tropical like Hawaii.

[vand]

I don't budget. So £0.

[Redherring]

As much as time allows, we take 10-15 trips/year including 3 overseas trips. We happily spend 30k+/ year. Want to travel full time in RE and see the world slow-travelling, will 100-150k/ year then

[Dicey]

We don't budget. It's so baked in to our DNA that it's not necessary. We have been invited to Ireland this summer. We're going gleefully. It costs whatever it costs. We're actually thinking of splashing out on sleeper seats, since it's a long, overnight flight and we use cpaps.

Fucking necropost just about got me!!

GOD DAMMIT!

As if I could love you more...

However, I do loves me a good necropost, especially when a voice from the past checks in with an update. That's not the case here, but it's still a germane topic. This will be our first trip out of the country since before we got married in 2012. I don't really care how much we spend, as long as we get decent value for our bucks.

[Sandi_k]

@Dicey - you'll have the added benefit of an updated passport! So when the SAVE act passes, you will already have the documentation needed to, you know, actually vote.

< insert angry face and eyeroll here >

My sister has been out of the country for one night in her life. She is getting a passport.

[Duke03]

We don't budget for travel.... it's essentially free due to credit card churning. My job is very liberal with time off.  I can disappear for 10 days with zero notice at least once a month and nothing will be said so we look for last minute deals and jump at a moment's notice.  We just got back from a 5 day trip where we used Vegas as a base camp.  I know what you are thinking, but flights are cheap and we get comped stays and comped meals at the Palazzo so I'm not turning that down.  Next month we plan on doing the same in Denver, but staying in Blackhawk on comped nights. We also do at least 2 Mexico/ Caribbean trips each year that are paid for with points at all-inclusive resorts.

[AuspiciousEight]

For some reason I thought I already answered this thread.

We don't really travel much, except to visit family, but we do a lot of things locally. Zoos, museums, amusement parks, water parks, pools, lake beaches, festivals, biking, hiking, etc.

I have a few different family members who own a few different farms and property that we go and visit to ride 4 wheelers, go karts, dirt bikes, go boating and hunting, etc, so the kids get to experience country life for a couple weeks out of the year. We probably spend..idk 200 dollars on gas a year to visit family?

Honestly we prefer this setup over extensive travelling. Travelling with four children is sorta stressful.

[FIRE Artist]

I have been using ChatGPT to estimate future travel costs by destination for snowbirding in the winter. You can get as detailed as you like, costing out flights, hotels, attractions, local transport and dining options. 

I intend to use this or similar when finalizing travel details in retirement. I asked it to give me a 15 year snowbirding plan, for 12 weeks annually, different locations excluding US destinations, and based on my art hobby. It is pretty awesome for that kind of thing. It gave me a reasonable cost to add to the retirement plan for the years I expect to be travelling.

Travel planning is forever changed for me.

[sparkytheop]

Currently only 2% of my take-home, which makes me sad.  But it's still enough to do some smaller fun stuff.  I'm saving for another big-ticket item right now, but after that is achieved, I hope to bump my travel budget closer to 35-50% of my take-home.  By the time I retire, I hope I can have it be closer to 55% (retirement income will be similar to current working income).

I really enjoy traveling, but it's also just me.

I've done 5 weeks in Europe for $12k (son and me, each with a carry-on only), and had an amazing time, in 2015.  Solo travel cuts expenses by quite a bit, but I do hope to take my now-adult son some places in the future, as long as he can get the time off.

Well, I may end up being FIRE this year <insert happy dance>.  If so, the vacation budget will remain small and I'll continue with frugal trips (small stuff nearby, and occasional bigger trips that I can find deals for).  I'm fine with this, because retiring 10+ years earlier than truly expected would be amazing and worth it.

[lifeisshort123]

Its a big part of our expense - basically all of our discretionary goes into travel as well as some modest streaming services... (rarely eat out of the home for example)

We oscillate between putting less into travel and more into savings... Since we don't have a lot of other big spending, we feel okay with it... Still... it is a balance...

We use points to cover some of the cost, but even that I feel like is a little bit silly to say because you could use points just to reduce your overall spending...

[Fomerly known as something]

I’m surprised I didn’t answer before.  But color me again as someone whose answer would have change greatly.  My Travel spending, I don’t have a budget per se, has gone up greatly in the past couple of years.  I’m totally overfunded for RE because my inner bag lady won’t let me retire until I get my pension in less than 90 days now.  Because of this I have more money than I need.  So I have willingly upped my travel budget by about 3-4x.  It’s one of the few places where I want to spend money and I feel it does improve the experience/thing.

I was reminded this weekend why I’m willing to pay for fancy seats by traveling in economy across the US this weekend for work.  But I do still make m6 flight on flexible midweek days so that it’s a tad less.