One year to retirement... Thinking about annual spending budget including travel.
Summary question- How often do you go on recreational travel; how long are typical trips; assuming a set budget do you go shorter with more luxury or stretch it out with lower priced options?
It is not like the 50K Mount Everest tours.Mount Kilimanjaro tour?
Is it like people who spend tens of thousands to scale up Everest, hiring sherpas to take their stuff up the mountain?
Or is it more common thing, hike up a part of the mountain and go back to hotel the same day?
Last year I started in Portugal where I arrived shortly before Xmas of 2021. I stayed there until early March and went to southern Spain for a few weeks. Back home at the end of March. I went to Mexico for about a month mid May and to Provincetown for two weeks at the end of July. Then I went to Europe for two months (Netherlands, Belgium, Poland, Austria and Greece) at the start of September. Back home on November 1st. I'm flying out to Panama next week - no clue for how long and no idea whether I stay in Central America or head down south. I think the general idea is to spend winter in the sun.
While I do keep track of my expenses, I'm not sure I would consider my life as separated into travel and not-travel. I know how much I spend on dining out for example but that's worldwide - and while I have dinner in Vienna I don't spend money on food in US. My fixed US cost (rent, internet, phone, insurance, credit card fees etc. are around 20k). I think of that as the cost of maintaining a "base" - place that I consider home but it's hardly that anymore. Everything else is just every day spending. Some necessary (food and accommodation), some discretionary.
Interestingly, my typical travel choices lower my general cost of living. Well, normally... In 2021 I bought a car and did the road trip in North-East US and that was twice as expensive and half as pleasant as my time in Portugal. Food and accommodation quality in midwest just can't be compared to what you can get outside US. As an example: Waldorf Astoria in Panama City is around $180/night. That's what I was paying last year for a dusty Holiday Inn in... I dunno, Nashua.
A vaction is a vacation, and I have never been to Tanzania.Thanks, that's interesting to know.
Your location is Zurich but you're going to Africa to climb a mountain?
Lots of mountain trains and cable cars in Switzerland but most of those are just simple day visits.
Someone must offer multiway trekking tours of some kind in the Alps?
A vaction is a vacation, and I have never been to Tanzania.
For the Swiss Alps like Matternhorn one needs to climb.
Climbing does not go well with my body mass index.
The mountains with 2000 meters height, are hikeable, for 3000+ one depends on cable cars or talent in climbing.
I use my feet for going up and the cable car for going down.
Hiking the 2000 meters fits into a day return trip.
One year to retirement... Thinking about annual spending budget including travel.
Summary question- How often do you go on recreational travel; how long are typical trips; assuming a set budget do you go shorter with more luxury or stretch it out with lower priced options?
We typically take a few weeklong trips per year. Any longer and it's too miserable coming back to mountains of work at my job. This year we are heading to Aruba tomorrow, Puerto Vallarta in April, Hawaii in September, and probably a weeklong hiking trip this summer. We also take a couple trips to visit the kids at their colleges across the country. We seek out deals and although we've moved on from Motel 6, we still have the mindset that lodging amenities aren't worth money when we're asleep. Typical weeks in Hawaii have been running us under $3000 in hotels, about $2000 if we share a condo and cook for ourselves. We spent about $12,000 on travel last year.
Realistically I don't think we would be doing more trips, just longer. Probably one bigger splurge per year farther away from home such as the South Pacific, South America, Europe. Definitely long hiking/backpacking trips but those don't really cost much other than transportation.
My seat-of-the pants guess is that $24,000 annual travel budget for the first several years of retirement would be plenty- a bit more for years we do a spurge trip. In fact it appears ridiculous but I also think hotels and restaurant meals are ridiculous so maybe it matches?
Our situation is a bit different than many. We're in the middle of the Pacific, so every trip (other than an occasional inter island flight) starts with at least a 2500 mile flight to the mainland. …
Round trip flight from the mainland to HNL for $150 seems low...I appreciate your situation. We made it 56 years never going west of our city. Then a cascade of events suddenly made it easy and affordable for us to travel to Hawaii. Now we can leave the house and 8 hours later be on the beach on Oahu. We’ve done 8 trips to Hawaii with an average round trip for two costing $300. Like many our thoughts quickly went to relocation- but we calmed down and realized that wouldn’t work for us because like you said “every trip … starts with a 2500 mile flight “
I’m more interested in renting for a month or three at a time on different islands.
Our situation is a bit different than many. We're in the middle of the Pacific, so every trip (other than an occasional inter island flight) starts with at least a 2500 mile flight to the mainland.
Hence my mention of "Cascade of Events".Round trip flight from the mainland to HNL for $150 seems low...
I appreciate your situation. We made it 56 years never going west of our city. Then a cascade of events suddenly made it easy and affordable for us to travel to Hawaii. Now we can leave the house and 8 hours later be on the beach on Oahu. We’ve done 8 trips to Hawaii with an average round trip for two costing $300. Like many our thoughts quickly went to relocation- but we calmed down and realized that wouldn’t work for us because like you said “every trip … starts with a 2500 mile flight “
I’m more interested in renting for a month or three at a time on different islands.
Round trip flight from the mainland to HNL for $150 seems low...
That's always been an issue to me and why I never considered Hawaii a 'paradise' for myself. I would feel trapped. It's a nice trap to be sure, but for me still a trap.
During Covid I vacationed by taking road trips to neighboring states and discovered some great state parks, National Monuments and a few cities that register very high on my Cute-O-Meter.
Speaking of flights to/from Hawaii, it was revealed this week that a United flight from Maui to SFO plunged from 2-3000 feet to about 800 feet before recovering and then resuming its path.
This was some time in December, apparently there was strong storm activity at the time it took off.