Been having an ongoing discussion with my wife about how much families spend on vacation.

From this discussion I have a few questions for you fine gentlemen....

How much do you spend on a vacation? Do you go on one every year? Do you save throughout the year for it?

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

One family vacation per year. We have been doing it over spring break to avoid baseball conflicts. We do all inclusives mainly in the Carib. Nicer resorts are pricey.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

We stay at the Boulevard Inn in St. Joes, MI every year. This year, out of the blue, rates are now 310 a night for the 3 days, middle of the week in August when we are going. We switched to a new Springhill Suites 5 minutes from St. Joes for 166 a night.
Boulevard Inn is super convenient but not worth that price.

St. Joes is a yearly trip but a Disney trip was 3 years ago and we will probably go back soon. Savings account includes vacation funds.

Wow.. boulevard has gone up. We donSt. Joe as a huge group with my wife's family so we often get a house. Have had to leave Silver beach proper as it is just to costly. I imagine our share will be more than I'd like it to be but this year we got off cheap. We put aside money for vacation yearly and my wife would go every season if I could get away. I'm not sure the fund can cover that though.

I spent $200 for 6 days in lake mills

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the world will always the world. your entire existence is defined by your response.

You're a little mixed up. It was put up $200, or spend 6 nights in Boone County.

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Im going to France for 28 days this Sep/Oct. Flight RT $700, rental car for half the trip $500 (incl VAT). Budgeting $3000 on the rest, will almost definitely spend less. I have a lot of friends in France and I will be staying at their places.

London/Germany/Netherlands/Austria for two months in the winter. I've only bought the outbound flight, $275 to from Chicago to Eindhoven with a couple stopovers. Trying to find the right way back. Norwegian Airways has tickets from Logan to Gatwick for $130 in December.

Coming up: $300 r/t to Bangkok...same to Singapore. Vietnam was $20 more.

Past: Did round trip to New Zealand for $212. I went to Buenos Aires once for $238. That included the airport departure tax And was before Argentina imposed an entry Visa. That was very nice.

If you're willing to eat on the street, use public transit or Whatever the locals tend to use, and usd AirBnB, You can have a pretty cheap but nice experience.

how do you get such low airfare?

Just have to keep looking and looking. And when you find something you have to be able to jump on it.

Fuel dumps?

I've been to London twice this year on Virgin Atlantic in Premium Economy, took advantage of a mistake fare the second time and saved $500. Went to LA/SD over Memorial Day to watch the Cubs get their asses kicked in. Was in KC a couple of weekends ago, touring some NC barbeque joints this coming Monday. Hoping to go to Brataslava, Budapest, and back to Vienna in October, Tampa and Siesta Key in December.

Typically I spend $200/day domestic and $400/day international, but some of that is offset by points earned from work travel - for example, my California trip had all four nights of the hotel and three of the four days of car paid on points.

It helps not to have kids, and to spend under 10% of gross income on housing.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

Is that $400/day international including airfare? That seems like a crazy number.

Once in a while...but my third strikes have not worked in some time. Jump on mistakes if you can find them. Domestic carriers no longer have to honor these but the foreign carriers will often honor them. Except for British airways which canceled a $200 India ticket.

I did the $50/day in the 90s, did several multiweek trips and stayed in a bunch of 2* locations. Now my trips are either 4 nights in one city, or 7-8 nights for 3 cities.

Upcoming trip to Vienna and Budapest is 8 nights plus a day in Toronto for positioning, and I'm budgeting $1400 for airfare (Premium Economy on Air France unless I can find the unicorn of a business class award ticket on American Airlines' own metal), $1000 for hotel, and $500 for food, rail, museums, etc.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

We go to the Dells once a year. Stay at the Kalahari and get the 2 bed suite for $360 a night. 15 years ago I could get a hotel room in Maui ocean view for $360 a night. Then we probably drop around $100-150 on food having a buffet in the morning and then a decent dinner each night, probably a snack or two during the day. So, for five days just to eat and use the hotel I'm looking at over $2500. Once you factor in other stuff like going shopping and stuff, I'll easily be over $3000 to stay at White Trash Disney.

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$2000-$3000 total for the All Inclusives we have done. Thats 5-6 nights which includes the hotel, flight, and spending money. Our Honeymoon was a bit more, but we did 7 nights at a nicer place, and spent a bit more off resort. We haven't done a trip since the '16 Masters, but we're kicking around the day of 4 or 5 nights in Mexico maybe in February.

On shorter trips I've had great luck on Hotwire booking hotel rooms. Stayed at a Hyatt for about $60, and a Westin in Columbia SC for 3 nights for $168 grand total.

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lot of not so humble bragging going on here

Speaking of trashy . . . I'm in Myrtle Beach right now. Was here last year. Decent beachfront hotel for five is about $350 per night. The good condos are about $500 or more per night, and I wish we could have stayed at one. Druggies and beggars all over the beach at night, but I guess you can't blame the hotel for that. Never as many milfs as I hope for.

I think I have finally convinced the missus to no longer drag us up to Wisconsin Dells. So expensive, not much to do.

We go to Gatlinburg every year and pay different amounts (between $250-$400 per night). Now that place I enjoy.

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consider them warnings unless someone says, "it was awesome! ya gotta go!!"

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I am part of a professional organization that holds a family friendly convention each summer so I can take a trip to what is usually a nice place with much of the cost tax deductible. This year, however, it is in Bloomington, IN. There were no cheers when the location was announced. I told the guy running it that the choice in location reflects on him and the organization. I had it at The Breakers in Palm Beach

Otherwise, we take car trips to interesting places generally in off seasons which keeps costs down. We went to Badlands and The Black Hills this year and stayed at a ranch for $100 with a home cooked breakfast included that normally only accepts guests by the week in season. It was close to freezing a couple of days but we are hearty enough.

I still am devoted to getting the kids to Poland and Ireland before my first son goes to college. We are half way there. Poland was pretty inexpensive after airfare was covered by miles. Ireland is supposed to be expensive but time is getting short.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

For Disney vacations, we typically average around $5k for 6 nights, two adults. Airfare, park tickets, meals, $300/night hotels.
But, we're not staying at character themed concrete family camps either...not that there is anything wrong with that. So, it could be done cheaper.

Paris was $6k for 12 days at a $100/night AirBnB. California was $4.5k for 10 days but we stayed with family for 5 nights.

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@audioidkid

Oh the Breakers. CH and I had a conversation about that some time back. What a place. I knew I was in trouble when I walked in the lobby in shorts and a polo, and the everyone else had suits or tuxes. Nothing like a $250 breakfast buffet for a family of four. We had a corporate outing there, so I was able to bring my family in on the corporate rate, about $500 per night.

I saw cars in Palm Beach that I did not know existed. And I think it was mandatory for retired gentlemen to have a pink sweater around their necks and a lap dog at them at the outdoor tables. On a tour we were told that the place had the highest concentration of billionaires, yes billionaires. Apparently 31 billionaires have a home in that town.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

There might be better but it is the most perfect resort where I have stayed. I was able to negotiate an awesome rate for the group because it was during the recession. I negotiated room, breakfast buffet (and their daily breakfast buffet is something to see) and plated dinner each night for $500, inclusive of all taxes and fees. Then, when you have it at a place like that, you can get great speakers to present because they want to go to the resort. It was a lot of work but that was a great convention.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

For Florida, I pay airfare for my wife and I, and my mom pays for airfare for herself and our daughter, condo rental, dinner out every night, groceries, and car rental. It's a good deal!

Well nice work. We had our corporate annual managers meeting there. It was something else, first class all the way. They always pick nice places, and this was probably tops.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Go to Crazy Horse with a group and do their "Around the World in 80 Beers Challenge". You'll forget you're in Indiana.

Next vacation is the end of August. Planning on driving from ND to CO for a couple days to check out an area where we are thinking of buying a house. Then drive to IL to watch the last game of the Cubs/Toronto series with my dad and brothers. Staying at a hotel for 3 nights in my hometown then spending a night in Chicago. Then flying to NYC to see Dave Chappelle's last night of his month long stay at Radio City Music hall for our 2 yr anniversary. Spending 2 nights in NYC for around $400 total. I imagine food and shopping will be an additional few hundred. Flying back to IL to watch Mayweather/McGregor with my brothers. Plan on spending around $150 or so on alcohol and meat to smoke that night. Taking it easy the last day there while we watch the season finale of GoT. Drive back to this desolate hellscape that Monday.

All in all it'll be around $3,000.

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The guy was selling the place with things like "take a guided tour of IU campus". Now I love a little walk through a college campus when I am touring a city but this was the centerpiece of his promotion.

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O judgment! Thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason.

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That dude needs to be fired.

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