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We do not have children. And are members of several travel clubs, etc. Find good deals and often in the off season. It is more preferable since it is less crowded, less expensive, etc.
We are a family of 4. Me, my husband and 2 kids (11 & 8). We go on 2 vacations a year, one family and one just me and my husband. This year me an DH went to Vegas for 3 nights. Our family trip will be on a 5 night Mexico cruise in November. How do we afford it? DH is a Mechanical Engineer of 17 years and makes a good living. I don't work. We typically use our tax refund for travel and my husband receives an annual bonus. We are not in debt and pay off credit cards in full monthly. Have a decent size house. My husband gets 3 weeks of vacation a year and he also travels a lot for work, so we typically get free airline tickets because of credit card and airline points. All 4 of us flew for free last year to Florida when we went to Disney. We usually get a few free nights in hotels as well.
OP, you can't expect to take vacations and travel without first having a job. Finish school, get a good job and then worry about traveling!
You sound a little pretentious, considering you really do not travel that much if it just to Vegas & Mexico
We travel less since we had kids (a.k.a. human anchors), however we are making it a priority now that they are out of diapers. We afford it by prioritizing experiences over things. Our home is modest, we have one car, etc. For us, planning as far ahead as possible helps to control costs. It is a lot of work, but worth it. With kids, AirBnBs are a great option.
We are retired. We're comfortable, day to day, but do not have a lot of extra money. We decided to plan a nice vacation to Europe next year, because neither of us has been, and we are still relatively healthy. We seriously don't even take many local trips, because the $1000. it costs to go anywhere for a few days, is something that takes a few months to pay for out of the regular budget.
We will charge the big trip on our Venture card, for the points, but will withdraw the money from savings to pay for it. I'm hoping the market will keep going up, so maybe it will almost be "free". I figure I'd rather use the money for fun now, than to pay to a nursing home later.
Some people would say that they would rather take 10, $1000. trips than one $10k trip, but really, we're sort of over those typical places.
Anyway, this is how we're affording it.
My son in law just took his youngest son, and two of his friends to Europe for 2 weeks. I know it must have been expensive, but they charged it on a no interest credit card. Kids with good jobs can use credit card debt, because they can afford to pay it back, but we can't do that.
You can do Europe comfortably on $100/day if you stick to the Balkans. Spend your two weeks in Romania, Bulgaria, and Macedonia you'll get castles, beaches, mountains with cable cars, European style city squares with statues/monuments/fountains, lots of history both ancient and related to fall of communism, etc.
Didn't come off as pretentious to me...it just seemed to me like she answered the question posed by the OP.
But the fact you'd call her pretentious on one hand while telling the poster they 'do not travel much' because they 'just' went to Vegas and Mexico...
...oh the irony.
Heh yeah.
If a family enjoys Vegas/Disney/Mexico and is loving the usual tourist way to travel...totally fine by me as long as they enjoy it!
Not everyone wants to backpack through Laos or do a 6-month volunteer program at the Midway Atoll Wildlife Refugee program or hiking the Pacific Coast Trail....
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cruzincat
The best chance to have a life full of travel is to have no kids, or have a fantastic job paying a lot of money. The rest is just commitment to your desired lifestyle. Even better is to find a life partner to marry that shares the same goals, especially if both of you do not want kids.
DINK!
Yup DINK is going to be the best/most flexible when it comes to total travel freedom. Extra bonus if the Dual Income is high income!
You can do Europe comfortably on $100/day if you stick to the Balkans. Spend your two weeks in Romania, Bulgaria, and Macedonia you'll get castles, beaches, mountains with cable cars, European style city squares with statues/monuments/fountains, lots of history both ancient and related to fall of communism, etc.
I would add Slovenia to this list. For roughly $150, you could probably include Hungary, Check Republic and even parts of Northern Germany, like Hamburg and small towns around it. Berlin is also not expensive if you stick to areas in former East Berlin and don't stay in the hotel. Portugal is also very cheap, but not sure of the budget.
Many countries become affordable if you travel outside of the school vacations and major holidays, don't stay in the hotels and eat out maybe every other day, preferably for big lunch. And definitely not in touristy areas... Obviously, stay away from big organized tours. This is the most expensive way to travel with the least amount of travel and flexibility... This is not exactly original advice, it was repeated in this section many times.
This is a question that has been on my head ever since I joined these boards .....
What is it exactly that people could do for a living at where they are able to afford the cost of flight, room and board and traveling expenses and food. ..... They saved money or paid it with credit cards.
How are you guys able to take time off of work for such a long period of time and not in the least bit be concerned about money or other issues. I am asking because (much like everyone else) I desperately want to travel more but I severely lack the funding to do so.......Why do you assume they are working?
So please inform me. You guys are clearly doing something I am not. If you do not wanna spill 'The Secret" then damn it (!) PM me because I wanna be in on this secret society!
First off RumNCoke where are you. Your last post was November 2015. Are you traveling someplace fun?
Well I didn't get to travel extensively while I had family but now that we are empty nesters travel is our middle name. I got to this point because I worked hard. Got paid good but more importantly had good health and stayed working for an organization that provides me a nice steady income in retirement. We saved and made good financial decisions. We also stayed healthy and had luck on our side.
Dual income and no kids. We don't blow money on much else, so we try to do 2-3 nice international trips a year and 2-3 domestic ones to NYC, New Orleans, LA, etc.
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