On the budget, I had forecast that DH & I would spend $2000 per month on travel. He pushed back on that. Since he died, I’ve spent far more than that. It’s totally a different position to be in. And yes, these are the go-go years. This year is likely to be Iceland, Sicily, and Norway in three different trips — maybe at Christmas the kids will let me plan (and pay) for something for all of us. Disney World or San Diego would be my recommendations.
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We are in our “go go” years, our kids are relatively launched, and we are lucky to be able to spend significantly more than that. For example, last year we did a bike trip to France and Switzerland (10 days), and I think that was probably $15K or more for 2 of us. We went to Hawaii for 2 weeks and that was well over $10K for 2 of us. We also did other trips, so we spent quite a bit.
BUT, sometimes we find a cheap timeshare deal, and go for much less. For example once we went to Las Vegas in December and our place for 5 days to a week was less than $500, our rental car was something like $135, and our airfare was really inexpensive. Another time we went to San Diego for 5 nights and stayed at a timeshare for less than $500, didn’t rent a car, and flights were pretty cheap. We stayed at a nice place in Taos NM for something like $37 a night. Oh yeah - last year we went to South Lake Tahoe for a week and stayed at a place right on the lake, and I think we paid about $1K for the week.
All that to say same as @deb922 - “it depends.”
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Thanks for sharing all the perspectives!
It’s hard for me to judge for myself (projecting into future) since I haven’t traveled that much up until now. I thought I’d love slow travel but thus far have found the trips I’ve started to go on pretty tiring, lol.
I really appreciate hearing what others do/plan to do!
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I agree with the “it depends.”. When we book an all inclusive tour with airfare, it’s much easier to budget. When we just book parts independently we never know if we will luck into a great airfare and what lodging we will end up with.
We tend not to do more than 1-2 international trips/year but do about 3-4 domestic flights. In SF, we stay at BIL’s place so only pay for air, car and lots of meals and groceries.
Honestly we haven’t paid that much attention to budgeting. Sometimes some of my lodging is reimbursed, sometimes we spend some nights with S&DIL in NYC so mostly spend on food.
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At the risk of stating the obvious, it’s easier to travel with a big budget. Better yet, an unlimited one! You can reduce your time planning by booking tours/cruises and higher end accommodation with less risk.
If, otoh, you’re willing to travel in the off or shoulder season, get creative with airfare , and research longer term rentals, you can do a lot with far less than $16,000. It’ll be more work up front, probably involve a bit more flexibility, tolerance for adventure, and be greatly enhanced by easy-going companions with a sense of humor. (Sharing a rental with friends greatlychanges affordability!) It’ll also be easier if you are willing to do one or two longer trips than a trip each quarter.
You might want to look at a few destinations that interest you and then see what options you can come up with if you want to maximize you travel dollars. As everyone says, it depends.
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We did a Viking cruise with friends a few years ago, with time in Amsterdam before and Florence afterward. Staying a bit from center of Florence (still walking distance) meant we got an 2BR apartment for I think $300/night (split 2 ways) instead of two $600 hotel rooms. The small kitchen enabled us to eat breakfasts there while we planned the day. Also some pizza and leftovers. The total surprise was that our room happened to have the huge terrace area we saw featured on the website.
photo from apartment balcony at https://palazzodeiciompi.it/
There were compromises to this frugal approach. The four of us had to share one bathroom - luckily two of us prefer evening showers when traveling. And sigh (this can happen in nice places too I suppose) the elevator from our 5th floor apartment broke on our last day. The workaround was to take luggage down one flight of stairs and up a half flight to get an elevator in another wing.
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Any suggestions that aren’t exorbitantly expensive for the Galapagos ? We’d like to consider this!
One thing to keep in mind, especially if booking a tour, consider buying travel insurance as soon as possible in connection with your booking so you won’t have a hassle with exclusions for pre-existing conditions. My sister twice had to use her travel insurance. Once they canceled a trip because her very close friend was dying in the hospital as she was boarding the plane and once because our brother died and she had to help with getting things organized. She got full refunds both times after some paperwork. It may have been her Credit Card that gave her travel insurance.
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H and I will be retiring next year (finally!). We have been spending a lot of money to travel the past 6 years since our girls are launched and we could pay for travel out of money we have been earning. I’m not sure what our budget will be for travel once we are retired. We don’t fly first class or stay in 5 star hotels or resorts so we make our dollars stretch. H loves researching our trips and books the flights, travel and many excursions with input from me. When we travel to Europe we stay in the center of cities we go to so that we can walk and use public transportation. We also mostly travel to places in the off season to try and get better deals. Although lately we feel like Europe never has an off season!
H is from Bermuda and still has family that lives there so that is where we take our island vacations. I have an Airbnb booked for 10 days at the end of July in Bermuda. The place we chose is on the water with its own dock to swim off of. We will be across the street from H’s nephew, wife and their two kids and within walking distance to H’s sister and BIL’s house. The place I found is just over $3K for 10 days which is a great price for Bermuda.
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Shoulder season tends to have smaller crowds and somewhat lower prices. It sounds like many places rarely have an “off season” any more. For sure PRIME season charges the highest prices.
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We just got our final travel docs for the NZ Globus tour next month and found a couple of monetary surprises.
First, was the tipping guidelines. Between the tour director, bus drivers, and potential other tour guides, they suggest at least NZD$528, or USD$300 on up. Where are we supposed to get that much NZ cash, and are we then supposed to carry it around for the whole trip? It’s not like a cruise where you just add on to the cost onboard. Husband basically said "Bleep that’. My Road Scholar trip included all tips.
They also say tipping is not generally expected in restaurants in NZ (which I have read) but then say it’s customary to tip 10%.
The other surprise was potential luggage excess fee. Globus said their tour bus limit was 50lbs for a a checked bag, which is the same as all the airline flights we booked. But surprise - the included inter vacation flight “might be booked on JetStar”, which has a strict limit of 15lbs for carryon and 44 lbs for checked bags and excess luggage fees will have to paid directly to JetStar at check in. Apparently that’s NZD$30 ($USD $17 per kg). So if we just make the 50lbs, that could be up to $50/pp excess fees.
None of this is all that much considering the cost of the entire trip, but still.
When we go on organized group trips we do carry a lot of cash. I think tips for our NZ bike trip were over 1000 USD (for two of us).
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You can withdraw cash in the local currency at ATMs towards the end of the trip before tipping is expected.
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On our Viking cruise, we tipped all of our tour guides in cash. They aren’t part of Viking. I don’t think of $300 as a ton of cash. That’s about what we had. Maybe $500 split between us. My parents have been known to carry thousands. They keep it in the safe in the room.
But we just got it from a bank ATM. They are easy enough to find nowadays that I have a working cell phone! Even if you can only use wifi, find one while in the hotel room/cruise cabin/wherever there is WiFi.
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I think the previous posters covered the tipping issue. Any portion of our recent cruise off the ship, including a land portion plus our excursions the guides are not employees of the cruise line and we tipped them in the currency of the country we were in.
We’ve always found an atm in the first place we’ve been, took out the cash we thought we would need for the trip. We also used some cash throughout for small purchases like drinks when touring. In Europe, there are toilets that cost a small amount or have an attendant so we had coins.
This is my feeling on fees for luggage. I’m on vacation and I’m not going to sweat small fees to make my trip enjoyable. If you want to carry a 50 pound bag, then $17 for an overweight bag is a small price to pay.
I do want to point out, sometimes you have to handle your own luggage so be sure that you can wrangle it yourself. My in-laws went on a river cruise, they stayed at a hotel before the cruise. It was a 3 story walk up. My mil who overpacks and my fil with a bum knee and hip were less than enthusiastic about these things. Even on our Viking trips, which are very luxurious, there were times where we had to handle our luggage ourselves.
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What are you using to withdraw cash from ATM’s? Apple Pay? Regular credit cards! Our ATM card is actually a MasterCard debit card so presumably that will work- not sure if we have to clear it with the US bank.
Yes my debit card. I would look at see if you need to report a vacation or not. Some cards do, some don’t.
No idea if Apple Pay would work. Maybe others would have an idea
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I’ve used both credit and debits cards in the past. Lately, I’ve been using my capital one debit card. I barely have any money in there, and I get instant notifications whenever it gets used.
All of my credit card companies (USAA, Capital One, Amazon/Chase, Delta AmEx) told me years ago that I didn’t have to contact them while traveling overseas anymore.
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My Costco Visa still wants me to inform them about vacations
My mom’s Discover Card was inactivated over Christmas because she didn’t inform them she was going to be in Florida.
Like I said, it depends
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Which is why I listed the ones that I use
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