Traveling in retirement survey?

[skyking1]

We want to do Australia and will do the HNL thing too. I want to do Thailand but DW is not interested, so I will be happy to get as far as NZ or Australia.

 

[brett]

We want to do Australia and will do the HNL thing too. I want to do Thailand but DW is not interested, so I will be happy to get as far as NZ or Australia.

I had the same issue. DW not interested in Thailand.

So, winter came. We had no firm plans. I saw a great offer on a last minute flight to Bangkok. It was early Jan. Cold and snowing that day.

I looked at DW and said why not. She agreed. A few days later we were in Bangkok. For the next five winters SE Asia/Australia was her first pick.

She felt the same way about Vietnam. Once we got there she loved it. So much so that we extended our stay to the full 30 days on our visa.

 

[Librarian]

Travel is our biggest overall expense!

DH 59, me 56. Both retired by May.

I am thinking annually about $20K/yr within our pension budget; occasionally higher for special trips & dip into investments for that.

June 2020-Oct 2021 we hit Vegas WAY WAY too much (6x/yr?). But DH was working until last May & I am until this May. Plus so little was open. And it was cheap to fly & cheap to stay. UNFORTUNATELY little else to do besides gamble so they were some of our priciest Vegas trips overall ever. Ugh. (tho I went the 1st week things opened there; rented a car & drove all over--even up & down the Strip! THAT was super cool). We used to do Vegas 2-4x/yr but truly I overdosed.

Did 2 week cruise last year. Pricey but worth it. DM joined me for the 2nd week (DH went home) & she passed this Feb, so worth EVERY penny.

I'd say we spent about $10K each of the last 2 years.

2022:
5 cruises booked (one done) so far; may add one more
(2 Caribbean, Bermuda, MX Riv, UK/ 2 comped)
FW to see DD
DH is doing Vegas w/ DS
I will do Vegas solo this summer as have SWA cr + free rooms
2 KC weekends
DH to Pitt for niece's med school grad

Looking at about $20K as planned

2023:
2 week Hawaii cruise comped
Summer Med cruise w/ our 3 adult kids FINALLY for ALL their college grad presents (
Looking to add Spring & fall cruises
Have some Asian Air Miles to use by fall 2023 so looking to do something international as well--I am a points nut. Credit card bonuses have paid for thousands of dollars of travel in the last 10 years.
(that Med cruise will take a big chunk of our budget...)

 

[mountainsoft]

62
2-3 trips
budget $4k, but we always go over.

We are frugal compared to everyone else it seems. Maybe $5-6k is what we spend on average. We do airbnb for some trips and also camp in our trailer.

Yeah, there seems to be a lot of big travel budgets here.

I'm 58, wife is 53. Neither retired yet.

We take maybe 1-2 big trips per year with lots of little day or over night trips in between.

We don't have a defined travel budget, but generally spend somewhere around $5-8K per year. I group recreation and restaurants into one large category, so even a dinner and movie out is included in that $5-8K total. I don't think we have ever spent more than $3-4K on a single vacation, even going to Hawaii, Mexico, or Alaska.

 

[Magus]

I’ll be 43 when I retire in 3 years. Travel Budget will be around $15-$20k a year and expect to travel around 3-4 months a year internationally and some domestically.

 

[skyking1]

Yeah, there seems to be a lot of big travel budgets here.

I'm 58, wife is 53. Neither retired yet.

We take maybe 1-2 big trips per year with lots of little day or over night trips in between.

We don't have a defined travel budget, but generally spend somewhere around $5-8K per year. I group recreation and restaurants into one large category, so even a dinner and movie out is included in that $5-8K total. I don't think we have ever spent more than $3-4K on a single vacation, even going to Hawaii, Mexico, or Alaska.

to be fair we have never approached the budget as working folks that I hope to spend in retirement. It is complete hopeful speculation. Leaving work for any length of time is too stressful for DW to really enjoy. She knows it will be a huge mess when she gets back, she is really the Lone Ranger of her department. They have not adequately backed her up in the 15 years she has had this position, and all the more reason to retire.

 

[Gumby]

Our one non-negotiable requirement for retiring was that our standard of living must stay the same or improve, and we were willing to work until that was assured. So, while we spent fairly lavishly on travel while working, we were limited to school vacations. Now we can travel more often and for much longer periods of time. Hence a larger travel budget.

 

[Markola]

^^^^^ Travel is a high priority for us but we approached FIRE a bit differently when we realized we could leave the full time w*rk that we’d lost interest in far earlier if we committed to perform enough part time, remote w*rk to fill the portfolio income gap identified in the retirement calculators to maintain our lifestyle. Three years in, and with some good luck finding enjoyable consulting for me and a pt, online j*b for her, the dimmer switch approach is working well for us. Different strokes for different folks.

Also, it’s a nice surprise that we can go away for longer affordably if we get a long term rental for 2-3 months with a kitchen in a single city of interest, thus minimizing the to and fro expenses.

 

[Koolau]

Both 75. We generally do one trip via air each year to the old homestead on the mainland. From there, we can travel virtually anywhere on the mainland via car. Including the cost of tickets, the cost of maintaining the homestead (rental from family) and the cost of maintaining a car, we're at about $12K. We are doing less driving trips now but have no problem going 1000 miles at a time to see family, etc. Add $150/day for a room and gas. Total for everything could reach as much as $18K though that would be high recently. YMMV

 

[gayl]

If I answered pre-covid I would have said putting aside 1k a month for 4 international trips a year, 3 cruises + 1 land. But right now I'm cruising on Future Cruise Credits. 2 long cruises last year + 2 this year + 1 next year and a few USA city trips (Seattle, Florida, NYC coming up).

 

[brett]

Playing catch up since covid had us grounded for so long.


Portugal next month for four weeks. Independent travel.

Tentatively planning a six week trip to Greece in Sept/Oct.

One week Mexico AI over Christmas with daughter and family.

Tentatively booked one week of a Jan-March winter snowbird trip to Thailand.

Some domestic travel to the west coast by car and some between flight days in Toronto to see family.

No budget. It will be whatever we spend however we are not flash travelers.

 

[mystang52]

More travel was in our plans after DW retired June 2019. But I was very ill at that point, so no travel then. We had an Eastern Europe trip booked for mid-2020, but COVID nixed that. We won't do that now, either, due to Ukraine war.
2 trips to Florida last year, and another Florida vaca in June. We are looking into London and Paris within the next year.

 

[Midpack]

I guess we're cheap, I can't imagine spending $20-50K like some early posts. We have no travel budget, but we spent just over $8K in 2021 and I'm guessing about the same this year. Covid totally disrupted our travel plans so our 2020 travel spending was less than $2K. And overseas trips are off the table for now, also until Covid reaches an equilibrium?

 

[tutan]

Just as an example, one can spend $100 a night in a Holiday Inn or Best Western...probably not enough around here and easily $60-80 a day for two on meals. So a road trip is about $1200 a week not counting gasoline and other costs. Oversea month-long trip I am looking at at least $3000 for accommodations. I believe these are reasonably low estimates for my kind of travel.

 

[COcheesehead]

Domestically I figure $250 a day all in. Obviously you can do it for less, but that’s a budget number.
Internationally is a different story with currency rates and so forth. We could easily drop $7000 -$9000 for a 10 day trip - all in. We also have an added expense of dog boarding which adds $40-$50 a day.

 

[tmitchell]

+1

My last trip pre-COVID was 31 days in Colombia for $3500 USD for everything - flights, accomodation, tours, meals etc. Now mind you, I travel with a couple of others and we stay in multi bedroom apartments or houses, but we usually pick central locations close to public transportation. Two years before that we did 21 days in Peru for $2800 including a full guided tour to Macchu Pichu. So it can be done.

I just did a week in Columbia and it was awesome. I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed it. I should have planned for 2 but now I have a reason to go back.

Budget wise I splurged on a business class seat for $1200 but otherwise I only spent $1k all in. Had a fantastic hotel & amazing food. Avianca was the only one with direct flights, but they suck! Won't fly them again.

 

[tmitchell]

Ok next up: camping! Now that I have all this time on my hands I decided to give it a try. We used to go all the time when I was a kid but it's been literally decades since I've been out there.

To start I'm just doing car camping on a road trip from CA to CO where I'll visit mom & friends.

I have to say it seems a lot more complicated than it did back in the old days. The apps appear convenient but so many sites are already booked, especially on the weekends. I may end up in a hotel half the time, but I'm hoping to keep it to the tent and keep costs down and enjoy the scenery. We'll see how it goes

 

[brett]

That's not such an easy question to answer. We are 63 and 61 and retired in June 2019. Originally, I had budgeted $25k per year for travel, and we made good progress on that in the first 7 months of retirement, with long trips out west and down to the Florida Keys. But then we were locked down like everyone else. Over the past two years, we have taken one driving trip for a long weekend this past September (my 40th year USNA reunion in Annapolis) and that's it. Now we're finally ready to travel again and have booked a three week trip to Egypt and Jordan in October, which will be substantially over that budget.

What I have realized in this time of Covid is that I have a lot of money but not a lot of time left. So, from here on out, it is time to loosen the purse strings. We are shooting for two main foreign trips a year and several shorter domestic driving weekends. Our normal living expenses are fully covered by income from pensions and social security, so we can spend as much as we like out of our portfolio on travel. In essence, our limiting factor is just time. We have a cat and a garden to tend and other things we like to do around our home.

We are in the same boat with one exception. When we retired 10 years ago we downsized and re-arranged our life to facilitate travel. We are in a community where snow removal and gardening is taken care of. No pets, no plants. Essentially lock and leave.

We have compromised on travel. We limit our trips to 8-9 weeks. I would be happy to be out for 3-4 months at a time. After two months DW is ready to come home. We both travel with carry on only. She gets tired of wearing the same clothes after a while.

One thing that we have found over ten years is that NA travel has become expensive. More so than some of the international travel that we have done and that we do. That is not a deterrent, rather comment on our experiences.

We are going to Portugal later this month. Car rental prices in Portugal , as an example, are just about half those that we have been pricing in NA for a similar period. We are pricing Crete for October and have found the same pricing delta. Accommodation prices in NA seem to have skyrocketed over the past few years.

 

[Magus]

We both travel with carry on only.

My wife couldn't travel with just a carry-on for a 3 day trip, much less 2 months!

Car rental prices are still much higher than pre-pandemic due to used car prices, shortages of new cars and so many rental companies sold a huge amount of inventory in 2020 to stay afloat.

 

[brett]

My wife couldn't travel with just a carry-on for a 3 day trip, much less 2 months!

Car rental prices are still much higher than pre-pandemic due to used car prices, shortages of new cars and so many rental companies sold a huge amount of inventory in 2020 to stay afloat.

We used to travel with the kitchen sink.

Where and how we travel, along with physical restrictions, has dictated how much we pack in retirement. There is often no assistance with our bags ... we have to carry them on and off ferries or longtail boats. It was a challenge at first. Now we view it as plus as opposed to a restriction. DW stopped coloring her hair and how has it short. Cuts out a lot of the things she used to drag along for hair care.

We certainly make up for it on car trips from home. Then the kitchen sink does get loaded into the trunk because we have no restrictions.

 

[Katsmeow]

Wow! Some of you sure like to travel.

68 (DH 74)

Budget for travel: 0

How many trips per year: If you mean a "vacation" where you aren't doing anything except vacationing, we went on a 2 week trip to England in 2011. That trip with 2 of our kids cost about $25k.

4 years ago we traveled to visit family and spent a few nights in a hotel. It was a little over $1000

Since then we have occasionally driven to see kids about 5 hours away. That has been a day trip that cost about $200 each time.

Last year I traveled the same distance for cataract surgery and some other medical stuff. We ended up staying in a hotel overnight a few times. The overnight trips were more like $400 each.

We are planning to take a vacation soon though. Will probably cost under $5k.

FWIW, we used to go on trips a couple of times a year when kids were small. But, haven't had as much interest in long trips the last 10 years or so. I always miss the cats and just have other things I would rather spend money on.

 

[frayne]

Age, older than dirt.

Budget, whatever it takes.

How many trips, as many as I want.

 

[brett]

I keep telling DW that if I drop dead on a beach in Thailand/Australia, or on a Greek Isle just leave me there. Better to fall off my perch doing something I enjoy rather than exiting in a rocking chair somewhere.

Cremate me and chuck my ashes in the ocean. Don't bother with any other nonsense. Kids will understand that this is what I wanted.

 

[wearefinishedworking]

We just got back from a very enjoyable, unplanned, 10 day road trip. Got in the car and headed south! Ended up driving about 2000 miles and cost us only about $2000. First time ever without an itinerary.

 

[INTJ10]

We are 63 and 64.

We bought a boat and are going on a 5,200 mile cruise called the great loop. It should take about 7 months.

Budget is about $1,000 per week but that includes food. Some other expenses such as car are going away.