Poll: What will you splurge on when you travel?

What are you willing to splurge on when you travel?

  • Upgraded airplane travel (1st class, Business class, Premium Economy, Economy Plus seating)

    Votes: 75 56.8%
  • Luxury accommodations

    Votes: 51 38.6%
  • Expensive restaurants

    Votes: 47 35.6%
  • High end organized tour

    Votes: 27 20.5%
  • Luxury cruise or sailing ship

    Votes: 19 14.4%
  • "Experiences"

    Votes: 84 63.6%
  • None of the above

    Votes: 12 9.1%
  • I don't travel

    Votes: 2 1.5%

  • Total voters
    132
  • Poll closed .
So far, most votes are for "Experiences," which to me is a vague, undefined term. What are "experiences"? There is a separate category for "expensive restaurants," yet to me, a meal in a 3-star Michelin restaurant or the travel itself to get there--could be an "experience."

Things that are distinct from the listed categories that I might call "experiences" rarely cost much money, and so could rarely be a "splurge." Hiking or cycling a scenic route, for example. Maybe a homestay or farmstay. Visiting remote historical/cultural sites. Stumbling upon a welcoming village and meeting people. Volunteering. To me, those are "experiences"--things I will remember for a lifetime, but generally don't cost much money. An "experience" that is ALSO a "splurge" probably overlaps with one or more of the other categories, such as "high end organized tour" or "luxury cruise"--I'm thinking something like an Antarctic cruise or a luxury African safari.

The "travel" itself isn't a listed category; rather, the categories apply "when you travel." For me, the travel itself is often the splurge--never mind "upgraded airplane travel" or "luxury accommodations." If I book a whirlwind trip to Asia to eat fun stuff and roam around for a couple of days it doesn't fall in any one of the listed categories, but the airfare itself is often a splurge based on my modest travel budget. That's another thing about how this poll is worded: "splurge" is relative to one's personal budget. My splurge may be another's regular weekend getaway.
 
better seats, private tours.
I found that in Mexico, just get a cab with the right driver for a day and you can have a great experience.
Things like that.
 
So far, most votes are for "Experiences," which to me is a vague, undefined term. What are "experiences"? There is a separate category for "expensive restaurants," yet to me, a meal in a 3-star Michelin restaurant or the travel itself to get there--could be an "experience."
Expensive Restaurants is the one category I did not select. We very much enjoy good food especially overseas, but that hasn’t corresponded to particularly expensive restaurants. We have never eaten at a Michelin starred restaurant as far as I know, and I have seen many expensive tasting menus that did not inspire me at all. Also not interested in reserving any restaurant months in advance. Somehow we find plenty of great meals while traveling. We tend to focus on regional specialties and that usually is not particularly expensive. We have no trouble paying up for quality, it just doesn’t work out to be necessarily one of the most expensive places in a given location.
 
Expensive Restaurants is the one category I did not select. We very much enjoy good food especially overseas, but that hasn’t corresponded to particularly expensive restaurants. We have never eaten at a Michelin starred restaurant as far as I know, and I have seen many expensive tasting menus that did not inspire me at all. Also not interested in reserving any restaurant months in advance. Somehow we find plenty of great meals while traveling. We tend to focus on regional specialties and that usually is not particularly expensive. We have no trouble paying up for quality, it just doesn’t work out to be necessarily one of the most expensive places in a given location.
I agree. Thinking more about the intersection of the "expensive restaurants" and "experiences" categories in the poll, I am reminded that some of my best (food) experiences were things like picnics that we put together from local vendors or ate in a fishmarket, or sitting on small plastic stools eating street food in Asia. But then again, there have been a few expensive restaurants that were high in both the "experience" and "expensive restaurant" categories. For instance, while it is likely that some people here with bigger budgets than mine have eaten more than once in high-end sushi restaurants in Japan, for us, the one time we splurged on that, it was an experience we will never forget.
 
One notable experience in Prague had us visiting a kind of food court/cantine that I had read about in an article about local food specialties. It was great. We also ate in one of the fancier restaurants because this was also mentioned for certain specialties, and it happened to be in our amazing Art Deco Imperial Hotel. It was outstanding, however costs in Prague are quite low compared to Western Europe cities, so it still was a deal.

Every day traveling is an experience for me.
 
We will splurge on upgraded airline travel for overseas trips, and will also splurge for hotel accommodations when the stay is 3 nights or more. For those stays we prefer suites (which sometimes are not that expensive), and stick as much as possible to Hilton brands due to the rewards we have with them.

We really do not splurge for meals. On a long vacation we might splurge for one or 2 very nice dinners, but in general we do not. We do not want to spend a lot of time at meals, we prefer being being active on our trips. One reason we like staying in suites is the option to have a refrigerator to stock up on breakfast/lunch items. If we have a big breakfast we will have a small lunch, and vice versa.

We base our experiences on interest and not the cost. For example, the sights we saw and the dinner river cruise in Paris were picked because we wanted to see them, regardless of the cost.

For tours, it depends on the locale and how much we feel comfortable getting around. For example, the first time we visited Israel we took a tour, but the next time we did not, we felt comfortable getting to the places we wanted to see on our own.

We still have yet to take a cruise. When we do, we will probably splurge on it, as we want to avoid one of those huge ships with tons of people, and will look for something smaller, or a river cruise.
 
We will splurge on upgraded airline travel for overseas trips, and will also splurge for hotel accommodations when the stay is 3 nights or more. For those stays we prefer suites (which sometimes are not that expensive), and stick as much as possible to Hilton brands due to the rewards we have with them.

We really do not splurge for meals. On a long vacation we might splurge for one or 2 very nice dinners, but in general we do not. We do not want to spend a lot of time at meals, we prefer being being active on our trips. One reason we like staying in suites is the option to have a refrigerator to stock up on breakfast/lunch items. If we have a big breakfast we will have a small lunch, and vice versa.

We base our experiences on interest and not the cost. For example, the sights we saw and the dinner river cruise in Paris were picked because we wanted to see them, regardless of the cost.

For tours, it depends on the locale and how much we feel comfortable getting around. For example, the first time we visited Israel we took a tour, but the next time we did not, we felt comfortable getting to the places we wanted to see on our own.

We still have yet to take a cruise. When we do, we will probably splurge on it, as we want to avoid one of those huge ships with tons of people, and will look for something smaller, or a river cruise.
Your priorities are much like mine. I don't spend a lot on food because fine dining is utterly lost on me. But having a fridge and/or a microwave in the room is a huge plus.

The first cruise we ever took was on a Holland America ship that held something like 800 pax. Today that would be called a small ship, but we hated it so much that we never even considered something like that again. About ten cruises since then, and the biggest ship was only 250 pax, and sometimes less than 100. Small is beautiful.
 
For cruises small is beautiful but quite expensive, and well worth it!
 
Now that I’m alone I spend money on tours so I don’t have to worry about anything. One time I was offered economy plus a few days before my flight left from Ireland and I took it as it only cost 150. It was well worth it.

. I usually pay for the optional tours on my trip instead of taking the free time. On the last trip it included both a private tour of a castle, private dinner and performance of musicians about a hour outside of Vienna. It was definitely worth the money.
 
Expensive Restaurants is the one category I did not select. We very much enjoy good food especially overseas, but that hasn’t corresponded to particularly expensive restaurants.
While we DO make a point of hitting higher-end restaurants when we travel (we were at "Blu"...twice...in Bermuda last week), it was nineteen years ago next week that DW and I had a fantastic afternoon down the street from where we lived in Paris.

I had just learned that I "would be part of the redundant team" and my last day would be December 31. We spent and entire afternoon...maybe 4 hours...at a sidewalk café. We ordered wine, cheese, charcuterie, salad. And then more wine and then more cheese as the world walked by.

Maybe it was the context, but it was one of the more memorable afternoons of our lives. We talked about the future, what might be to come, how we'd manage and just thoroughly lived in the moment. Probably cost us €60 for the whole experience. Just one of those magical, unplanned moments that then live with you forever.

So yes, there are those fabulous, little, inexpensive places if you're lucky enough to find them!
 
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Interesting.....we travel international 2x a year (spring & fall)...Leaving tomorrow for Singapore and a 25 night cruise back to the USA stopping along the way in Asia and Hawaii.

For what we do, travel is expensive enough so we do not "splurge"....but we see everything and so far, do not seem to miss out....

Upgrade Air: No. We blew points on Delta One once and decided the bed was nice but we still arrive miserable....Might as well save points/$$$ and just sit in steerage....We rarely/never upgrade air and we always get to where we need to at the same time as others' who spend more $$$$. Just not for us. We'd rather go more....than have a bigger seat and fancier food onboard....The plane is not worth the $$$ for us.

Luxury Accommodations: Maybe...but we do not pay. We are Marriott points people and still living off points from my w*&k....so we stretch the points by staying at basic Marriott properties and stay 4 nights and the 5th night is free....I also review our "points" reservations and flip them when another hotel pops up with less points.

Expensive Restaurants: No. We cruise and enjoy the meals onboard and when in port (or pre-cruise) enjoy a nice lunch at a nice restaurant....as well as munching on "street food"...We also enjoy the "free" Marriott hotel breakfasts.

High End Organized tour: No. We avoid the herding of the cruise ship tours and find small group tours (6-12 folks) usually from the cruise ship (on cruise critic) and enjoy the day seeing everything without the high price of the ship and without the huge bus load.

Luxury Cruise: No. We travel on medium sized ships from the mass market lines. Price is usually around $100 pp per day...Includes food, activities onboard, transport to the ports.....Consider it a bargain. We also like to avoid the misery of air travel and will take a transatlantic or transpacific cruise in lieu of air one way.....another bargain.

So we travel often and well....but we do not splurge....But yet we do splurge as we do take those two long trips twice a year......

Enjoy the journey.....no matter how much you spurge/spend the travel budget!
 
We don't travel much, but twice I've "splurged" on helicopter tours. Once to the Mendenhall Glacier in Alaska, and once over the Grand Canyon.

Not cheap, but in retrospect I think I would have paid 2x the amount. My wife is afraid off all flying now, and we had younger kids on the Alaska trip, so I went with my 13 YO son, my younger brother and his wife. Grand Canyon was more recent, just her and me, so I went alone and got added to a family from Holland, it was a lot of fun.
 
There is a separate category for "expensive restaurants," yet to me, a meal in a 3-star Michelin restaurant or the travel itself to get there--could be an "experience."

.
+1. Dining in the Eifflel Tower is certainly an experience! Or in a cave in a winery in Italy. The old Carnelian Room or Julius' Castle in San Francisco comes to mind as well.

....and then there was an incredibly expensive dinner in Shanghai where they brought out and had me choose which live duck that would eventually land on my plate. (IIRC the tab came to about $4k for 3 of us...my Chinese friends wanted to impress me)

An impromptu soup party at midnight in a little slopeside ski shack (with 30 drunken Germans) somewhere in the Austrian Alps also comes to mind....a really long story.
 
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+1. Dining in the Eifflel Tower is certainly an experience! Or in a cave in a winery in Italy. The old Carnelian Room or Julius' Castle in San Francisco comes to mind as well.
Any time you can get a special experience, you should jump at it.
I'll never forget the time I had dinner far below ground in an old mine in Germany. They loaded us onto ore-carrying rail cars and we trundled pretty fast down a very steep slope for what seemed like at least 10 minutes. Then we got a tour of the mine, then sat down for a meal. We were given old metal lunch pails that looked like oversized canteens and had been used by the miners. They came apart into 3 or 4 sections, and each section contained a superbly prepared serving of something. Then back into the ore cars for the trip back to the surface.
If that doesn't count as an experience, I don't know what would.
 
Splurging on experiences can make travel more memorable and enriching. Unlike material items, experiences often leave a lasting impression, connecting you to the culture, people, and nature of a place.
 
I'm a bit of all of them, except the organized tours part. I will also find the cheapest room in the best hotel - which is often going to be orders of magnitude better than the best room in the decent hotel.

I never pick a restaurant for price, but for unique menus and quality options, usually seeking out something I can't get at home, and I live in an area with boundless choices and price points.
 
I will also find the cheapest room in the best hotel - which is often going to be orders of magnitude better than the best room in the decent hotel.
Makes sense. Same concept as the standard house hunting tip to find the cheapest house in the best neighborhood.
 
There have been a few recent travel threads about air travel upgrades, so I thought I'd make a poll about travel splurges in general. You can pick as many options as apply to you.

As for me, the only thing I'll routinely splurge on is food.
Our biggest splurge is always booking two motel rooms when we travel. One for me, one for DW.
Happy Wife, Happy Life... :biggrin: And we "splurge" on some nice restaurants like Olive Garden or Texas Roadhouse some nights while traveling.
That's about it.
 
Regarding air travel, I haven't seen upgrade prices recently that I consider reasonable on flights I've been on in the past couple of years. On my last air trip, nonstop flights between Washington & Paris, a Business class tickets would have cost more than $4,000 more roundtrip than an Economy ticket.
omfreaking-g! I've never gone first class and thought I'd want to at least once in my life and this caused me to do a search (in disbelief). Just insane prices. Even though I could afford to do it, not sure I would. Prices didn't used to have such a massive diff. When did this happen?

Anyway, that aside, for me it'd be hotels (although that also doesn't have to be the very top of the line), food, and "experiences." Most places I want to go in fact are in no small part about specific things there I've yet to see or do, like Paris, Rome, etc.
 
Flights and accommodations which are location-based, central to minimize time spent moving around.

But haven't really spent on luxury accommodations. For one thing, it's mainly a place to sleep, get breakfast. The 5-star hotels and resorts, I wouldn't use services like concierge, room service, fine dining, etc. Would be spending most of the day outside the hotel.

But gradually, more frequent stays at good hotels, like 4-stars with some amenities and in a great location. Same with Airbnbs and VRBOs.

Been regularly doing walking tours, including the "free" ones where you tip them. The guides usually have interesting stories about how they became tour guides, which involve becoming licensed. It's a way to contribute to the local economy. I could download audio guides or apps or read tour books but it's not a big expense.

Will do guided tours like day trips if it's an efficient use of time, like better than taking public transport or more convenient because they pick up and drop you off at the hotel.

A couple of times did helicopter and light plane tours, as long as there was a good chance of getting a good window seat.

Car rentals are also more pricey than before the pandemic. But when cars are just more efficient use of time, it's definitely a big budget item because you're often paying for parking as well, sometimes a couple hundred for 4-5 days.
 
there is luxury in being able to enjoy coffee and eggs (that, yes, you cooked) in your jammies as you ease into the day. I hate the idea of having to get dressed to go out and get coffee and breakfast.

As an introvert I prefer to have a cocktail or glass of wine in the evening on a balcony of my airbnb rather than paying more to sit in a hotel bar.

But those are preference things.
Absolutely. For me, I won't do any cooking or cleaning or any chore of any kind while on vacation. I want to be waited on and doted on non-stop.

I have no interest in drinking a hotel bar either or really in a hotel room/whatever while on vacation. Of course if there is a local place there with a very strong "ethnic" appeal to it (maybe they have a floor show etc), that's different.
 
omfreaking-g! I've never gone first class and thought I'd want to at least once in my life and this caused me to do a search (in disbelief). .
SIL "hates" me now ever since I got her upgraded to First once. Now, she must fly First all the time!

It's one of those things that once you try it, especially on a long haul, going back to coach can be extremely painful.
 
Car rentals are also more pricey than before the pandemic. But when cars are just more efficient use of time, it's definitely a big budget item because you're often paying for parking as well, sometimes a couple hundred for 4-5 days.
Depending where you go it can well worth it though. We were advised to get one when we went to St Maarten and it was great advice. We drove all over the island whenever we wanted vs having to call a cab over and over and over. We didn't care if it cost more in the end (it was pre-pandemic so I don't think it was).
 
SIL "hates" me now ever since I got her upgraded to First once. Now, she must fly First all the time!

It's one of those things that once you try it, especially on a long haul, going back to coach can be extremely painful.
Oh I get the appeal easily. I'd be willing to pay more. But TEN times as much as Economy? More than the rest of the entire vacation would cost easily? I doubt it.
 
We had a few splurges:
In Skagway on the White Pass RR, Instead of taking the regular cars, we opted for the VIP car. It had swiveling lounge seats, and we were served beer, wine, and canapes on the trip
On Maui, instead of taking the horrendous road to Hana, I rented a plane and we flew into the Hana Airport
On our 6 train excursion from Wengen in the Bernese Alps to Nice, We opted to ride First Class on the TGV from Geneva to Nice. It was a fantastic way to see the countryside.
On our final cruise, round trip from LA to Alaska, we opted for a suite. Talk about going out in style!:)
 
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