Vacation - Where are you going?

[Anubis]

just got back from Grand Cayman
cost me like 1200$ for the week including airfare

woo weoo

 

[DnetMHZ]

What is this "vacation" you speak of?

 

[highland145]

What is this "vacation" you speak of?

Heh, it's the thing you better do before you retire and aren't physically able to do. Or financially able because the Dr.s get all your $$.

Guy I know had all the big plans and the $$ to do them with. 1 month after he retires, BAM, stroke. Now, he sits in his recliner and is waiting to die, imo.

 

[Kreon]

Was going to go to Disney World. Then I got laid off... O well, always next year.

 

[JM Aggie08]

Leaving in 3 weeks for 6 days in England, 6 in Scotland, a day in N Ireland and a day in Dublin.

We have 3k for food, entrance fees, gas, souvenirs and incidentals but will likely spend less. Airfare and hotels are already paid for (<$600 total for two people )

We may also do a mini-vacation in Traverse City for a couple hundred

Explain this wizardry...

 

[sjwaste]

Already did.

Phoenix, before it got hot. $2500 all in - including a week at the Waldorf Astoria Boulders Resort, blowing out my HHonors balance before the devalued chart went into effect. Hotel still dinged us for almost $1000 in meals and such, but we were captive. It was a nice experience, but probably not a place we'd go again. It's designed to have all of your activities on the resort grounds, and that isn't us.

San Diego. Stayed downtown, maybe $3k all in for 3 people and 5 days. Two of those days were travel days to/from the east coast, though, which prevented us from spending more. Stayed at the US Grant downtown, booked really early and got a suite for under $200 a night, plus breakfast and a meal credit courtesy of Amex travel. Did a festival, had some great Mexican food, mostly just enjoyed the weather.

For the rest of the year -

Montreal for a long weekend. We'll drive the ~5 hrs. Got a nice deal on a nice hotel (Loews). It's part "business" in the sense that the 3 of us are doing our NEXUS interviews at YUL. That will make the airport portion of any future trips that much easier.

San Francisco with my daughter, to coincide with my wife's work trip. We'll go for a long weekend and all return together. Should be just the cost of my airfare.

If we still have something left in the budget and enough time off at work (both are very unlikely), we'll head out to Europe for 10 days just before New Years. If this happens, airfare will be award travel, so dates and destinations are dependent upon that. We're thinking Zurich and Florence because (right now) there are award seats on LX for that trip around those dates. Similarly, hotels will be about blowing out some points balances and maybe staying with some relatives. This probably sounds like the most extravagant of our trips, mostly because it's the least likely to happen and the most contingent on award availability.

It sounds like a lot, but we like to travel and we compromise accordingly. We will trade off buying "stuff" to have a trip instead. Once there, shopping is also minimal - we see/do things and try to have a couple of nice meals out. It just sort of started happening once we got used to traveling to see our families, since we don't live near any of them.

 

[sjwaste]

just got back from Grand Cayman
cost me like 1200$ for the week including airfare

woo weoo

Wow, nice deal. I don't live near a hub, so it's hard for me to get anywhere for under $500 a person in airfare. That's a total bargain, though. Was it a nice trip? Where'd you stay? I may need to do that one next year.

 

[Exterous]

Guy I know had all the big plans and the $$ to do them with. 1 month after he retires, BAM, stroke. Now, he sits in his recliner and is waiting to die, imo.

Ugh - that hits close to home. My dad big about saving for retirement and then going on trips once he retired. Well, he was retired for only a couple of months when he was diagnosed with cancer. They had to cancel several trips they had lined up

Its a fine line between over spending during your youth and over saving for retirement

 

[Fingolfin269]

Spending a couple of weeks in the UK. We did Maui the last two summers and decided to opt for a change. I'm not regretting it but have already decided we're going back to Maui next year.

We do Maui a little different than most I guess. Can do a couple of weeks for ~4k but we don't stay on the beach. We stay in a condo in Lahaina. Maui is probably the only 'beach' destination where I couldn't care less if I actually go to the beach.

 

[nageov3t]

Disney World in the fall.

cost TBD.

BF really wants to stay at a Disney resort, but my friend knows someone with an empty condo in Orlando... I'd rather stay at Disney myself, especially since I have a friend from college who can get me a 50% discount on a room, but my friends are pushing the condo idea and my BF doesn't want us all to be split-up.

otoh, if we do the condo thing, it means having to rent a car and pay for parking, so gotta price that out too. (one friend is driving down by herself while the rest of us fly, and she insists that having her car alone would be fine, but I'm skeptical at cramming 5 30 year-olds into a car during a Florida summer... and it shoehorns me and the BF if we want to go out just by ourselves to have a romantic dinner or something)

 

[Anubis]

Wow, nice deal. I don't live near a hub, so it's hard for me to get anywhere for under $500 a person in airfare. That's a total bargain, though. Was it a nice trip? Where'd you stay? I may need to do that one next year.

airfare for me was over 500. the reason its so cheap is because my family owns a time share so its basically free for me to stay down there. i only have to pay for food, travel, booze and whatever else i feel like purchasing

pl;ace is here and yes it was nice. was a monsoon 1 day. first Ive ever seen it rain like that for that long but it didn't really effect anything. you can still swim & scuba in the rain

http://www.thereef.com/en/index.html

 

[Mixolydian]

No vacation for me this year.

 

[purbeast0]

oh i also forgot im doing a day trip tomorrow to kings dominion!

 

[Anubis]

How are you doing either for that cheap? Flights from east coast are $1400 for London and $1100 for Hawaii. Hotels are $250-$300 a night for something decent.

you can do NYC-London for under 1k per ticket (depends on when you are going) but 2k does not seem correct i agree unless you are burning a lot of miles for huge discounts/free tickets

i do disagree on your hotel price, you can fine much cheaper rates for places that are fine

 

[thestrangebrew1]

For Memorial Weekend, we went to Bass Lake. Got a cabin for 4 nights right off the lake with a little beach for the kids to play in. $900 for 4 nights. Not too bad. The cabin had a 27" tube tv with cable, but that was about it. Had lots of much needed family time with very little technology involved. Was a great break.

 

[Mixolydian]

No vacation for me this year.

I just don't have time. Besides, I wouldn't know where to go anyway. My last vacation was in 2010.

 

[Vdubchaos]

For Memorial Weekend, we went to Bass Lake. Got a cabin for 4 nights right off the lake with a little beach for the kids to play in. $900 for 4 nights. Not too bad. The cabin had a 27" tube tv with cable, but that was about it. Had lots of much needed family time with very little technology involved. Was a great break.

No cabin should ever have a TV......: D

PS. CT started building cabins at all the major Camp State Parks....they are about 40-50 a night.....

I decided to get one for one of our camping trips

 

[Exterous]

Explain this wizardry...

$95 total (all fees) for DTW -> LHR, DUB->DTW
$240 total for hotels (including $160 for a hotel in Oban that I couldn't find a points hotel for)
~$200 for Glasgow -> Belfast flight

When I travel for work I tend to stay 1-2weeks in a hotel that has, luckily, coincided with various hotel promotions like Hiltons 2x points per stay earlier this year and, more recently, Hyatts 3,000 bonus points for a 3+ night stay.

We funnel as much spending as possible through our CCs for the points and pay them off every month as well. I am not shy about leveraging our good credit scores for sign up offers. 40,000 US air miles after 1 purchase and no annual fee? Sign me up! 50,000 United miles after $1k spending in 3 months? Done. I've kept close track of our credit score and over the past 2 years of doing this both our scores have gone up.

Now - we do sacrifice cash back to do this but, since we love to travel and put the points to good use, this is more beneficial to us than cash back would be.

For example:
-The flight cost $1k in spending on a United card and $3k in spending on a Chase card. This got us more than enough points to make tickets for our Transatlantic flights free - we just have to pay the fees associated with the tickets.
A cash back card at 5% would have gotten us $200. Transatlantic flights are a tad more than that

-In London we will be staying the night at the County Hall hotel. Amazing location and would have cost ~$325 a night for the night we are staying. Instead I spent $3000 on a Marriott card and got the night there for free as well as one in Aberdeen and Heathrow (Some of heathrow was completed with business stays at a marriott in nashville). So, if all $3000 would have gone on a card earning 5% back on everything I would have gotten $150. I chose to get three free hotel nights that would have cost us somewhere around $600.*

(Granted we probably wouldn't have stayed at the County Hall so the real cost would be about $400 and a bit of location inconvenience during our trip)

blowing out my HHonors balance before the devalued chart went into effect.

Similar story - I'm using my HHonors points for a lot of our stay in England and Scotland at places like the Caledonian before those go up in price. Had been working towards the Maldives but with the change that kinda went out the window.

 

[randomrogue]

I just don't have time. Besides, I wouldn't know where to go anyway. My last vacation was in 2010.

How can you not have time in 3 years? Were you in jail?

If you need ideas on where to go head to the bookstore. There are books specifically designed for this. Cities, Countries, Places, Monuments, etc to see before you die. They're pretty much named exactly that so it's not hard to find them.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that "Hey, the Pyramids are pretty cool! I think I'd like to see those."

 

[IndyColtsFan]

We just got back from 10 days in France about 3 weeks ago. It ran us between $5K and $6K for the two of us. We plan on a smaller vacation in the fall (depending on if I take a new job or not) and it will likely be New Orleans or Washington DC.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

My parents were transferred to London in January, so me and the GF are doing the Europe tour this summer for 2.5 weeks. We just settled on some of the travel arrangements:

4 days in London
2 nights in Paris
3 nights in Munich
3 nights in Prague
Back for 4 nights in London.

Plane tickets to London $1400/ea...intra-Europe travel cost us $550/ea (train to Paris, fly to Munich, train to Prague, fly back to London). Haven't booked hotels yet. It's gonna suck ($) and it's gonna hurt, but it shall be fun. At least the London stay is free!

It obviously depends on your interests, but I would HIGHLY recommend that you re-examine the time you spend in Paris. That isn't nearly enough time to see the majority of the cool things, let alone the "minor" cool things.

 

[glenn1]

Did Iceland by myself earlier this year, about $2k total from a couple years "allowance" savings. Also will be attending a family wedding in CA later this year with wife/2 y.o. daughter and that will probably require at least $3-4k or so. Just visited there about 18 months ago so not ideal from either a location or financial standpoint.

 

[IndyColtsFan]

I just don't have time. Besides, I wouldn't know where to go anyway. My last vacation was in 2010.

You make the time. I guarantee you're no busier than I am, and I took 2 weeks off in the middle of 3 very large projects with tight deadlines to make it happen. And that isn't even considering the work around my house I'm doing.

In terms of where you want to go, there are endless places to see in this world that will meet any price range you have.

 

[adairusmc]

I snowmobile in the winter, which even if I went for one day would be better than any vacation anywhere (unless its a snowmobiling trip somewhere, but I have great riding 15 minutes from my house).

I will spend the rest of the year working and complaining about the warm weather, waiting for it to snow again.

My wife and I do plan on taking the new baby to the in-laws for a few days in July at the Oregon coast, so I guess that will be a vacation.

 

[Anubis]

It obviously depends on your interests, but I would HIGHLY recommend that you re-examine the time you spend in Paris. That isn't nearly enough time to see the majority of the cool things, let alone the "minor" cool things.

that would really depend on what you think is "cool"

TBH there pretty much nothing i want to see in Paris

if that were my trip id just add 2 more days in germany and not go to france at all