Just hit country number 40 in May (Panama for the Memorial Day Weekend)!! Last 6 years or so have been travelling with the kids (currently 7 and 3). Love to travel with my family, or by myself, with friends, with my husband. Like someone said, it is the eternal battle of #YOLO x FIRE. For fun and added challenge, my goal is to hit 45 countries before I turn 45 (end of next year).
I love planning trips and it is amazing how much I get out of it. Not only the trip itself, but the planning stage (takes me about 6-8 months between researching modes of transportation, AirBnBs / hotels, costs, everything about the city/ country). I take out travel guides from the library and read tons (not to mention Internet resources). Figuring out all the logistics, factoring in children, it is a pretty cool exercise in strategy. Usually I schedule 1-2 activities a day and the rest is wherever luck will take us. So I have it extremely well structured (don't want to waste time and money with things that are easily resolved with advanced planning, but also don't want to go over board - there is plenty of opportunity for spontaneity :-)
Then the trip itself. It lasts usually about 10 days to 2 weeks, or if it is a closer destination an extended weekend (2-3 days), because: kids school schedule and costs, of course. I find it AMAZING how we go on a time warp on vacation. One day seems to last a week. A week feels like a month. That is why even short trips are completely worth it.
Lastly, coming back I spend about 2 weeks on a high vividly reliving the experience. To top it off I make a photo book of each of our trips within a month of being back. To me travelling is truly the gift that keeps on giving (major rush lasts about 9-10 months for me for each trip). By the way, as a souvenir for each trip I buy one Christmas ornament. At the end of the year I get to see my tree decorated with all the places I have been over all the years. It is truly awesome. :-)