Poll:What's your annual vacation/travel budget?

[Independent]

Before I retired, I planned on $20,000 or more. Health and the economic meltdown have cut that down dramatically. I answered $4,000 - $9,000

[haha]

I keep waiting for Prince Charles or the Sultan of Oman to clock in with $100,000+.

What are we, a bunch of pikers?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Independent Before I retired, I planned on $20,000 or more.

As for me, the only category that would get me to spend $20,000 /yr would be eternal youth.

Ha

[Tesaje]

I budgeted 8-9k per year but haven't yet used anywhere near that for 1 + pets (care or bring along).

[bob boag]

Our family of four takes one big trip a year. This year a 14-day December cruise from LA to Hawaii & back in a mini-suite for about $11,000. Maybe a half dozen mini-vacations a year each less than $500.

[FUEGO]

Quote:

Originally Posted by haha I keep waiting for Prince Charles or the Sultan of Oman to clock in with $100,000+.

I had to put the high dollar categories on there just in case. As you have pointed out, some people seem to spend A LOT of dough on traveling. I think we have a wide range of wealth and spending levels on here from the ultra frugal to the high rollers.

I know some have portfolios in the high seven figures and low eight figures here. And some have stated incomes extending well into six figures or the low seven figures. So a mere $100k/yr on luxury vacations doesn't seem out of the question.

I suppose if our family ever does that year round the world vacation I have been thinking of, we may be at least in the $50k-100k category for a year.

[haha]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FUEGO I suppose if our family ever does that year round the world vacation I have been thinking of, we may be at least in the $50k-100k category for a year.

Attaboy Sultan Fuego!

Ha

[Khan]

Pretty close to zero.

[jayc]

$1600 - 2 people - Seattle, Mt Olympus,Hood, Rainier
$1100 - 2 people - Colorado for 8 days, 5 days sking in Breckenridge/Beaver Creek
$950 - 14 days - 1 person - 6 days in Colorado, 6 nights in Yellowstone cabin in Canyon Area
$400 - 5 days - 1 person motorcycle trip in Indiana and Kentucky
$900 - 14 days - 1 person - San Diego (Projected)

Colorado and San Diego lodging is free.

[kaudrey]

I don't really keep a budget, but we usually do a winter trip to an island with friends, and then a bigger summer trip. And this doesn't count weekend trips, of which we usually do several a year (although now we just go to our cabin in the mountains...) Let's see:

2010:
St. Martin - 2 people, 1 week - $3000
Napa (1 person, 4 days) - $1000
New England trip (family/friends, 2 people, 10 days) - $1000

2009:
Dominican Republic (2 people, 1 week) - $2000
Yellowstone/GTNP - (2 people, 2 weeks) - $1200 (we camped)
Memphis (1 person, 5 days) - $700

2008:
Costa Rica (2 people, 1 week) - $2000
Alaska - $3000? - 2 weeks, 1 week cruise/1 week camping

[rescueme]

Quote:

Originally Posted by cardude Travelling with kids is expensive..........

In reality, kids are expensive (travel or not )...

[Independent]

Quote:

Originally Posted by haha I keep waiting for Prince Charles or the Sultan of Oman to clock in with $100,000+. What are we, a bunch of pikers? As for me, the only category that would get me to spend $20,000 /yr would be eternal youth. Ha

We always postponed travel as "someday, not right now". I could imagine myself buying the Class A motorhome and being a 6 month per year traveler. I think that, including depreciation and repairs, that's more than $20k.

[Orchidflower]

The moment I saw this question I thought, "people really take vacations?"
Took a few long trips to L.A., San Francisco, London, but basically worked 7 days a week. No time for vacations before. Maybe now.

[Gone4Good]

Our entire budget is now dedicated to what most people call "vacation."

[FUEGO]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gone4Good Our entire budget is now dedicated to what most people call "vacation."

Wiseguy, huh?

[Tom57]

So far, I am the only poster who answered the poll between $50K and $100K. My poll answer is not a mistake.
My wife and I are ER'd for about 10 years, in our early 60's, and have strong opinions about traveling now when we physically can. We have seen older people struggle too many times and we want to travel while we still can. I remember my first trip to Europe in 1989 and saw a mother in her 70's with her 2 daughters
in their 30's. Mom died half way through their trip in Switzerland. It was her first (and only) trip to Europe.
When I worked, I had a traveling job and flew over 100,000 miles most years. Been to all 50 states and all the continents except Antartica.
We both are tall people so we buy Business Class airfare on our 2 or 3 annual trips to Europe, first class for 2 annual Hawaii trips, and first class for a few domestic air trips. Of course, we do some driving trips also.
We travel aout 2 to 3 months a year, and we don't do cruises much anymore. Our last cruise was August 2009, a 14 night Alaska cruise from Seattle on the Pacific Princess.
Since you are interested in what we get for our money...advance purchase business class from the US West Coast to Europe is between $3K and $4.5K per person roundtrip depending on the year and specials. The 14 night cruise total cost was about $12,100 in a suite. We stay at 4 star hotels most of the time and they cost about $300 a night.

[kramer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gone4Good Our entire budget is now dedicated to what most people call "vacation."

Yes, same here. I have lived on 3 different continents for each of the last 3 years.

All of my air fare expenses, including side trips plus to/from airport costs, are typically under $200/month. I am flying Los Angeles to Manila R/T for $940 on a good airline, and that comes with a free date change on the back end and with the option to stay a full year. I never fly business class. I actually figure that the most intensive cost savings thing that I do as a retiree is to not fly business or first class since I save such a great deal of money in a small period of time (and tax free). I bought one-way tickets to/from LAX to Colombia (did not want to lock in my return date until much later) for a total of about $650.

Most of my lodging is typically by the month (at discounted rates) and usually comes to less than $600/month (and sometimes a lot less). That would be much higher in expensive places like Europe.

I know that most people cannot or don't want to live in this manner, preferring a long term USA FIRE-base and shorter vacations. My FIRE budget is less than I ever thought it would be because I don't have a home base as I had originally planned, so my only real fixed expenses are my USA health insurance, Skype phone number, and mail forwarding.

Kramer

[WanderALot]

We currently spend about 7500 a year. In general, that's for two vacations of at least 2 weeks each. We travel frugally, but definitely not budget. If you were to look at a Lonely Planet guidebook for our destination, our lodging would be under "Mid Range". Most all of our vacations are overseas and we rarely go at prime time (never July in Europe for instance).

Our last vacation of 22 days only costs us about $2500 for three of us (DW, me and a toddler). That's because we used FF tickets, went to cheaper destinations (Argentina and Chile) and were able to get better rates due to it being a shoulder season. We stayed at nice places and averaged about $70/night.

[KanDo]

We are in the just above $10,000-19,000 category (for two of us). We are frugal in most areas, but splurge more on vacations (especially to the French Polynesian islands).

[KM]

Until kids left home, most of our "vacation" money was going away to sporting events (theirs....not ours....), then spent on taking them to look at colleges, and then spent on visiting them there, taking them to or from, and/or visiting them there.

Now that that is over - we are spending it on ourselves.

Current budget is $5200. We generally take a 2 week cruise, but we don't feel the need to do it with a balcony and we don't drink much, so we can usually do this at a reasonable price. The rest is generally spent on 3 trips to go visit DD and 1 trip for her and SO to come visit us. (OK, so I guess we are still spending some of it chasing our kids, but I wouldnt have it any other way.)

Any other small things we do that cost >$100 (day trips, admissions, etc) also come out of this fund. We've done pretty well staying close to this, with the exception of the Alaska trip where we splurged on a couple of pricey excursions.

Not yet retired. Vacation funding in our retirement budget is currently set at $10,000. We expect most of that will be spent traveling the USA in our RV.

[fisherman]

$3600 per year gets us one five or six week camping trip plus several smaller ones and two weeks in south FL each year.

This does not include any other costs for the travel trailer so is low but that is the vacation line item amount we use.

We also have the lake house where we spend from 80 - 120 days per year over the last seven years. We could take some serious trips with that money but its not what we want.

If we included all the cost for the travel trailer and lake house but not dollars invested it would be around $12000 per year.

We have been to 49 of the 50 states and eight foreign countries. We have not been to NJ yet! I realize many people have done much more but for us Europe was fun to see but I definitely understood why my forefathers came here and I am not interested in returning to Europe at this time. I do enjoy hearing about other peoples European and Asia trips however.