Willing to share your travel budget?

[Nemo2]

Our 'budget' is unspecified, but tacitly understood; everything is dependent upon our actual (and anticipated) overall financial situation at the time, while incorporating (to the best of our limited ability), the possibility of things sharply deviating in either direction.

We might be somewhat unorthodox in our approach to our 'nut'; we don't have a Withdrawal Rate, in fact quite the contrary, neither of us cares if our 'heirs' inherit the lot when we expire. Currently, (and hopefully 'forever'), we live on less than our dividend income/Government Pensions (Canadian 'Social Security', I guess...neither of us have employment pensions) brings in.......our 'net worth' is simply a perceived buffer that bolsters our 'comfortability factor'.

That said, if we feel we can afford to go somewhere...we go*...we travel cheaply, but a lot of that is personal preference....we have no desire to do otherwise.

(*An example of this was that, in 2013, we went to Mexico early in the year, then Prague in the Spring, Barcelona in the Fall followed by a westbound transatlantic repositioning cruise.......we'd hardly arrived home when we noticed another 'cheap' repositioning cruise, deked off to Rome, rinsed & repeated.)

[kcowan]

We have a travel strategy. 5-6 months in Mexico, 1 month in Europe. Since the time in Mexico saves us 40-50%, we are under-spending our total budget every year by 30%-40%.

[DrRoy]

I also do not keep a formal budget for travel. DW and I have been taking two nice trips per year for the last couple years. For an ~2 week trip where we fly out to the western US we would spend $3000-4000 including air, although sometimes I would use frequent flyer miles and it would be 700-800 less. We rent a car, stay in good but not luxury hotels, pay entry fees and maybe a bigger tour, plus souvenirs. Our biggest trip was 2 1/2 weeks in France where we spent $5500 without airline.

[bobandsherry]

Might be more interesting to also know how much of the budget the travel is. $10k travel on $100k planned annual household budget is much different than someone with $50k annual household budget.

One more week and wife and I week be joining the ER group, me at 54 and wife at 52. We'll be planning our travel, fortunately we have a good share already prepaid in a all inclusive resort vacation club for 30 weeks. That will help to stretch our retirement dollars. Also moving to Florida so cruising will be less costly.

[brett]

On retirement we changed our lifestyle completely to facilitate travel. We downsized to a rental condo. We disposed of one vehicle. Our monthly costs decreased, our investment income increased.

We changed our lifestyle. More exercise, better food, no processed junk, and our weight went down to the recommended targets. These alone make some of the 6,8 11 hour flights, and some 20 hour elapsed air trips in economy much more bearable. Surprising how much better you feel and how much easier it is to travel after loosing fifty pounds. This in itself has caused us to feel like traveling more...with the obvious impact on our budget.

[gerntz]

No budget, just trying to figure out how to pay for a $27K + airfaire, 7 person trip & cruise to AK in July. This is about 2x our typical, not budgeted, annual travel spending. Besides, I waited to retire so I didn't have to budget.

[Danmar]

Low six figures, not including travel between our homes.

[Alan]

No travel budget but over the 6 years of retirement we have spent between $20-$30k /year. Travel 5 to 7 months / year, mostly foreign travel.

[Nemo2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bobandsherry Might be more interesting to also know how much of the budget the travel is. $10k travel on $100k planned annual household budget is much different than someone with $50k annual household budget.

Don't have all the numbers consolidated but here's a glimpse:

- Our expenditures for 2015 came out at $40,011 Canadian, including condo townhouse property tax, but not income taxes.

- Included in the 2015 figures, our upcoming repositioning cruise from St. Maarten - Barcelona, (except for 'mandatory gratuities'), our airfares to St. Maarten from Toronto and our return airfares from Porto, Portugal to Toronto. Also included are the bulk of our accommodation costs in Spain/Portugal (and half of our one night in St. Maarten) for our approximately four week trip.

- Also included is a $900 US deposit on our Fall repositioning cruise from Malaga-Miami.

(Our 2014 expenditures came to $43,358 Canadian and included total or partial payments for our two 2015 European vacations, each of which were 3-4 weeks in duration.)

[W2R]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rbmrtn $0 for me.

+1

No desire to travel, although I could easily afford it. BTDT

I would rather establish roots somewhere, because when it comes to having roots in a community I *haven't* BTDT quite yet, to my satisfaction.

By now I have lived in South Louisiana a couple of decades, though, and my roots here are starting to flourish which I love.

[aja8888]

No budget, but no real long trips in the last few years. DW has severe COPD and we need to be careful to be near medical facilities on any trips that are far from home. Last few trips long were to North Carolina to visit BIL and one trip to Wisconsin to visit SIL. Also went to a wedding in St. Louis last year.

Out of the country trips are not in the equation at this time.

Note to many posters here:

Take your trips/vacations while you are young and healthy as things that can limit your travel have a high probability in happening when you get older.

[Nemo2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aja8888 DW has severe COPD

Sorry to hear of your wife's condition - as we age we are inundated with news of illnesses & death.

Quote:

Originally Posted by aja8888 Note to many posters here: Take your trips/vacations while you are young and healthy as things that can limit your travel have a high probability in happening when you get older.

I'll be, (if I make it), 74 in September, DW will be 64 in October......your note is our mantra.

[hnzw_rui]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aja8888 Note to many posters here: Take your trips/vacations while you are young and healthy as things that can limit your travel have a high probability in happening when you get older.

Yeah. First six years living in the US, we never went on trips/vacations at all. After seeing a great aunt wheelchair bound due to a stroke, we've loosened the purse strings a lot when it comes to vacations at the expense of reaching FI more quickly.

Dad went to the Philippines last year and got sick there so we were faced with a PHP 4M medical bill (~USD 80K). Thank goodness they had good insurance so even though it took months, we were eventually reimbursed the full amount. Once they're off company insurance and are on Medicare, I think mom is going to limit their trips to within the US only.

[GravitySucks]

Budget is $12,000 a year for one, but this is the most fluid part of my budget. If other expenses go up it goes down. If things are going well it goes up.

[Alan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by aja8888 Out of the country trips are not in the equation at this time. Note to many posters here: Take your trips/vacations while you are young and healthy as things that can limit your travel have a high probability in happening when you get older.

Couldn't agree more.

6 weeks before our 5 month mostly Canadian trip this year I found myself in the ER with a heart condition, A-Fib as it turned out. We are so pleased to have done as much traveling as we have in this 6 years of retirement.

[brett]

That is exactly why we are travelling 4-6 months each year. We can do it now, who knows what tomorrow will bring.

[Sarah in SC]

We don't have a budget, really. Mostly we think of something we really want to do, and then figure out how to pay for it.

And follow that wonderful advice to travel while we are comparatively young, in case we can't do some of this stuff when we are older.

[braumeister]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bobandsherry Also moving to Florida so cruising will be less costly.

I have a friend who lives in southern Florida. He and his wife love cruising and they take an incredible (to me) number of them every year. He told me his rule of thumb is that a cruise shouldn't cost much more than $100/day per person, and he has no trouble finding such great deals.

[Nemo2]

Quote:

Originally Posted by braumeister ....a cruise shouldn't cost much more than $100/day per person, and he has no trouble finding such great deals.

Our upcoming 12 day trip St. Maarten - Barcelona, oceanview cabin, base price & taxes, but not including 'mandatory gratuities', works out to $29.13 US, p.p. per day. (It'll be our third time on this ship and we love it.)

[Teacher Terry]

We retired 4 year ago at 53 & 58 and have been vacationing more because of the same reason others mentioned. Our budget has ranged from $5000-14,000 year. Last year we spent $6000 on a month RV trip and $8000 on a 3 week trip and 2 weeks of it were a cruise. This August we will go on a Alaskan 10 day cruise.