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Travel Budget--Poll of sorts
I don't intend this post to sound judgemental or critical, so please don't take it that way.
I am always amazed by the hotel budgets that I see posted here. For example; someone posted recently about Florence hotels and said they'd like to stay under $250/night. We are staying in Florence for 3 nights and that is just under the total price we are paying. Our total hotel costs for 17 nights (Paris, Nice, Cinque Terre, Florence and Rome) is just under $1500. Our total budget for the trip is about $6000.
Are your travel budgets that much larger than mine? Do you take trips less frequently than we do? Are hotels your splurge item?
I really am curious. We try to take one longer vacation (about 2 weeks) each year with a few long weekends and weekend road trips thrown in. I would guess our total travel budget each year is $8000-$10,000 which I don't think is a small amount.
Re: Travel Budget--Poll of sorts
We're in our mid-30s, make a good income, don't have or want kids, and travel is a big priority for us. Staying in a super fancy hotel is not important to us, but we have a basic standard of what we want (primarily location) and are willing to pay for that. In some places that means we can pay $90 a night and be perfectly happy, and in others that means we pay $250+.
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime.
Mark Twain
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Our wedding on Wilson Island!
Ditto all the above...
We're able to stay debt-free this way since we end up having extra money to spend on the things that are more significant, hence memorable.
Except DH and I will have kids, eventually...
Our trips have ranged in price dramatically, however, we tend to go for budget options to allow us to travel more frequently. Our last really pricey big trip was in 2008 for our honeymoon--we spent about $12k for a week in Tahiti visiting Bora Bora and Moorea. Other than that, we've done smaller trips ranging from 5-10 nights to a few places in Mexico, Hawaii, and the Caribbean. Our average budget for each of these trips tends to fall in the $2-4k range...
So it all depends. This year so far we did NYC for 5 nights and spent about $2k total and in 2 months we're going to Thailand for 9 nights and are budgeting about $6k total for that. This year is looking to be a more heavy year in terms of travel spending but only because my husband loosened up his "one big trip a year" rule because he knows I want to travel as much as we can before we have any kids. We do also own a home but we tend to not spend a lot of money on the day-to-day things that get forgotten and instead focus on splurging on the bigger, more noticeable things like nicer cars, renovations on our home, and travel.
Well, your trip budget sounds generous -- but 17 nights! Wow! We never have the chance to travel for so long but if we did, we'd probably stay at cheaper hotels.
But as is, we have demanding jobs that aren't conducive to long vacations, so our long trips are 7-9 nights. We are decently high earners with no plans for kids, so we can afford to stay at nice hotels. And we love traveling well, we love the luxury of nice hotels, and we are picky about hotels, so they are a worthwhile splurge for us.
I do make sure that I'm getting absolutely the best deal I can though on those hotels
I'm 36 and dh is 40. We don't have kids and aren't going to. We both have good paying jobs, own our vehicles,are 4.5ys away from paying off our house, have no credit card debit and in general live fairly frugally. Our big extravagance are our trips.
Our March trip budget is 8k for 7 nights (generally Caribbean but we have done Mexico and costa rica is next year). Our June trip the past three yrs ( counting this year) has been key west for 4nights and that's been around 4.5k. Then we do long weekend trips to the shore and camping throught the spring summer and fall. All total we spend about 15k a year on travel.
We do tend to go for the higher priced resorts/rooms but again, travel is our one extravagance. We want to live it up while we can.
Kristi and Kerry June 21,2008
One of the things I love most about this particular board is the fact that we are always pretty flame-free, so I definitely appreciate the "don't want to sound judgmental" part, but totally unnecessary! I hope no one would take it that way. All the girls (and guys? Do we have guys?) here really love travel, we know it's not a cheap hobby overall, and I think we do a great job of giving good ideas, opinions and general info without being "judgy."
So to answer your question...
Our situation is pretty similar to a lot of the other nesties. We are in our 30's, have no kids (yet,) are double income and make a good living. Travel is my absolute biggest hobby and passion, H knows it, enjoys it, and supports it, even if he doesn't have the bug quite as strongly as I do.
I'm also not ashamed to admit here that I'm a bit of a hotel snob. I know some people say that they just care if the place is clean and has a bed; for me, the hotel is part of the whole experience. I *love* (I get excited just talking about it!) finding a unique, special, or luxurious place to send friends, family, or to stay myself. I work damn hard and have an exhausting career and, when I travel, I like to pamper myself and get the very best I can. It's my escape from my real life! Value is always a factor and I won't spend extravagantly unless my research leads me to believe that it will be worth it and where I stay will enhance my trip in some way.
Another factor is that H and I have to travel around my work schedule, which always means we're traveling during peak seasons (winter and spring break somewhere tropical usually, Europe in the summer, etc.) It's probably shocking to some people who can get away with planning a trip whenever they want, but I've gotten a bit numb to the sticker shock of hotel prices during those times of year. I don't even realize sometimes that what seems normal to me might sound totally crazy to someone else. I'm amazed at your $1500 for 17 nights hotel budget - our Italy trip will be about $5400 for hotels for 16 nights...but again, that's what we budgeted because I knew that's what it would cost for the type of hotels I like during summer's high season.
Knowing what I like and what it will cost me to get it has to be part of the whole planning process. I know that for a 4 star hotel in Positano with an amazing view, I'm going to spend $400+/night. I don't have to compromise on it because it's got what I'm looking for, I can afford it, and that's what we plan ahead of time to spend. In Bangkok, the range of prices for 5 star hotels was anywhere between $100-600/night. Would I have loved to stay at the Mandarin Oriental? Absolutely! There, I couldn't justify spending $600, so we went with a less expensive but still really great option. It all depends on the trip and what I can find. We have spent anywhere from $50/night for a quick weekend trip to visit friends to $1200+/night for our honeymoon.
Lots of factors for sure.
I think it's just a priority issue. We have a large travel budget, but I still don't spend much on lodging. We rarely paid more than $50/night in NZ and dealt with shared bathrooms. That doesn't mean it was a cheap vacation for us.
For the most part, I don't find myself getting anything out of a hotel. I travel to see the place, not the hotel. I'll pay for location but not luxury.
If, on rare occasion, we take a trip just to get away and be together, we'll splurge on a hotel as we don't intend to leave. I can think of maybe 3 times we've done that.
This is us as well. We don't mind skimping on rooms when it's just a weekend getaway, ie: we go to Atlantic City just to gamble, so we'll really just try to find one of the cheaper place since all we do is sleep there. There are other times we like to stay in very nice hotels. Also, our entire trip in Italy(granted it was our HM), we spent close to $4K in hotel rooms, but that's because we just had a certain standard for that trip.
Our travel budget varies between $2k, on years when we plan a handful of shorter trips, and $10k a year, when we take a long trip overseas - usually to Europe to visit DH's family.
Now we try to stay in hotels under the $200 mark but sometimes go over. We're in our late 30's, can afford it and don't want to subject DS to dodgy hotel rooms.
Back in the day, however, I would go to Europe for 2 months with nothing more than a Eurail pass and a $1000.
We are 30 and 32 (me and DH respectively) we have a good income, no kids and love to travel!! Our budgets tend to be huge, but we like to stay at places like the Four Seasons, and cruise in suites only.
We take 2 "big" trips per year (either 2 weeks or just a "big money" destination) the big trips usually are around 10k to 15k per trip. Then a smaller week long trip usually about 3k - 5k and then weekends away we do every few months. Those can range from $1k if driving distance to 5k if we fly somewhere (last couple long weekends were to NOLA and LV).
I am crazy impressed you found hotels for 17 nights for so cheap!!! Sell your secrets on ebay!
We are lucky to have a generous travel budget, even with me as a SAHM and with a kid. Hotels are very important to me and we spend so accordingly. We also use a lot of points and programs to get upgrades. This year we have done a long weekend in Vail and two weeks in Bali/Singapore and have week long trips to Paris and Hawaii planned for May and September. For Paris, we chose a Hilton hotel on the cheap because we are Diamond HHonors and we won't be spending too much time in the room. For Bali, we went with the Four Seasons Sayan and Conrad because the idea was to relax quite a bit with some sightseeing mixed in, so we wanted a nice hotel. Vail I was bunking up at my BFF's house. Hawaii will be at the Fairmont, which is not overly expensive.
I dated a manager of a Four Seasons right after I graduated college and I admit to getting spoiled by nice hotels because we could stay for free.
We have splurged on hotels more when they are beach vacations while not spending as much when we would be doing more sightseeing. I have no problem spending money on a hotel, the most expensive room I have stayed in was in the Maldives and it was worth every penny. I am more likely to splurge on hotels, food and experiences. We don't splurge on airfare. We fly on the cheap as much as possible and always fly coach, often using miles.
So Tasty, So Yummy
I'm so jealous that some of you get to go away for so long. Our work claims to not care about vacation length or time of year, but we always get the stink eye when we say we're going on vacation. We both work for the same company, but in different states (I got a great job offer away from home), and they complained when I took last Friday off to go see my FI (yup- one day! LOL) they technically can't tell me to never go away, but they bug the crap out of you if you go anywhere! Wait until they find out that I won't have cell coverage when we get married!
Our wedding on Wilson Island!
This is us. We would rather take more trips and spend less on each one, so we dont splurge on hotels.
We spend about 1400pp for the Caribbean, 3k pp for Hawaii, similar for Europe, all for about 10 days.
This year our travel budget is probably about $10k, but that is because we are having a destination wedding in November that is costing us a lot more than we originally expected. However, a regular year would probably be about $15-$18k. We both work, have no children, and aside from car and mortgage payments have no debt. Traveling is our $$ splurge. However, I still like to get good deals! We both have frequent flyer mile accounts and usually get several free airline tickets each year. I try not to spend more than $150/night on a hotel room, but will sometimes spend a lot more (i.e. our wedding in PDC, Mexico and honeymoon in Thailand) but sometimes spend less (i.e. Costa Rica and WA DC). It just depends on the occasion and the overall budget for the trip.
When I was married previously I was in a lower position at work and had the luxury of taking up to 6 weeks of time off to travel. After my divorce I was promoted and now am in a position where taking anymore than 2 weeks off is nearly impossible. As a result, I spend a lot more $ now on things like dining or on private tours that I never did previously because I have a similar amount of $ to spend but less vacation time to spend it in.
ditto
and in most cases, we prefer to spend closer to $100/night so that we can spend more on sightseeing, food, and shopping. we walk to work and don't own a car, so those are expenses that allow us more money to travel.
I find myself thinking that a lot, not just on this board but when talking about travel in general. I went to one of those terrible timeshare presentations and they started off by going around the room asking people what their dream trips were and how much they thought it would cost. I was amazed by the number of people who said their dream trips were places like Aruba and Jamaica and they thought 7 days would cost at least $5000. I kept turning to my husband and saying "THIS is why our friends think we are rich to travel like we do!"
We spend anywhere from $10-$20k per year on travel, depending on a lot of factors. One of our cheapest international trips was $2000 on 6 days in Colombia, or maybe 10 days in Spain for $3300 including flights. Our most expensive was probably $8000 for 17 days in South Africa. So when I hear people say they are spending $20,000 on 2 weeks in South Africa or $8000 on 10 days in Italy, I just want to scream "but you can do it so much cheaper!"
But I know that's just me. I personally don't care much about the room because I don't spend much time in it. Oh, I appreciate a super luxe room, just like I appreciate flying first class. I've stayed at $500 a night rooms through work and loved them, but I won't shell out that kind of money if I am paying for it myself. If I can spend $300 a night for 5 nights - so $1500 - or spend $100 a night for 5 nights and then take that $1000 saved and use it for another weekend trip, or put it towards more amazing experiences or food, I'll always do that.
But that doesn't mean I'll stay anywhere. I like places that have modern decor, comfy beds, are clean, quiet and safe. If I need to pay an extra $25 a night to get a place with clean lines and modern furniture vs one that looks like the Victorian era barfed all over it, I will. But if it means paying an extra $100, then I'll suck it up and deal with a room that's not very stylish.
Unless the place is incredible (and I plan to spend a LOT of time in the room, which is rare as that's not why I travel) or the trip is very special (honeymoon, 5 year anniversary), I have a really hard time paying over $150 a night. $100 or less is ideal, and anything less ($50 -$75) makes me very, very happy. And I've been lucky to find places that are cute, friendly, quiet, clean, comfortable, and often have free breakfast and wifi, in that price range all over the world. In the US, I'll usually just priceline a Marriott or Sheraton for $100.
I know everyone has their own travel style, and some people have a lot more money to travel with, but if I can spend $20k a year and go on 4 trips and stay in really nice hotels or spend $20k a year and go on 7 or 8 major trips, I'd rather spend less on the hotel so I can stretch my travel money to explore more places.
We honestly don't really have a travel budget-we are more limited by vacation time than budget (we spend 3 weeks a year on vacation and we try to do a minimum of 2 international trips) so we generally just decide what is reasonable for the trip we are going on and book based on that-for some trips we place a priority on hotel and some we don't. We also have lots of airline points from work travel so we rarely pay for airfare.
We recently splurged and stayed in an Ocean View room at the Ritz Carlton in Maui for our Babymoon because we were just going to be sitting at the hotel most of the time, but when we went to Paris we rented a studio apartment in a great location for 600 euros/week because the actual space we were sleeping in was not important, but location was.
I am amazed that you were able to find hotels for 17 nights in Europe for $1,500!
Travel is a priority for dh and I - but even still, I have a budget and I stick to it. This year will be our most expensive trip to date..21 days (including 3 travel days) and I'm expecting it to run about $6K Inclusive of EVERYTHING. I scored free flights with miles (and have done that for every trip in the last 5 years) so I just had to pay taxes and fees (which were still quite hefty all things considered). I have high standards and I'm quite particular - so I always do tons and tons of research on accommodations so as to get the best bang for my buck. I try to keep it to $100/night - but in some places I can't swing it for any less than $150 because of my standards.
Last year we did Thailand for 18 days, about $2.5K (free flights, and a lot of free lodging thanks to DH's parents)
We also did Ireland, Scotland and England 18 days, for about $3.5K. Free RT flights again, and we found some great places to stay that weren't very expensive.
Sometimes we stay in hostels (or with friends - free!), sometimes we stay in $300/night hotels. Just depends on the kind of trip and what else we've got planned around the same time.
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Different incomes.
Different priorities.
Different budgets.
It amazes me too so you are not alone.
Honestly I would never pay that sort of money for a room. I max out at about $100 for 2 people. I always do a lot of research and get the best bang for my buck- this often means getting to stay at 5 star resorts- sometimes means staying at a hostel or B&B. Basically with travel I think if you are spending too much time in your room why bother going anywhere (obviously if I had kids that needed to nap my opinion might change!)
I think it comes down to travel style and expectations. I actually like staying in hostels because I get to meet people where as in hotels especially chain hotels you tend not to mix with people unless it is in the bar or a quick chat at the pool. I also like to stay in non tourist areas because (and I know this is really judgemental) but a lot of tourists just annoy me/make me cringe. I would rather walk around a local neighbourhood in a city I visit, speak to shop keepers/locals, find out where it is good to shop and eat.
We also tend to travel in the off season again because it is cheaper and we get better value and because there are less people.
I used to be a travel agent when hotels gave TA's really good deals ($69 for the W Times Square). This has made me prefer nicer hotels, but I am picky on price. I travel off-season a lot because of my personal preference. Like others mentioned, depending on the type of trip and length I try to keep it between $150 and $250/night. Now that I have a kid and like to travel with him, my hotel priorities fall in line with more expensive places (I like centrally located that are nicer since I spend more time in hotels than I used to).
Anyway, there was once a deal at a hotel in Seattle that everyone I worked with took advantage of. It was centrally located, gorgeous hotel and the offer was about $50/night. One of my coworkers also went to Seattle, but preferred that her and her bf stay at a hostel. They spent $60/night for the two of them. So, for some people it isn't always about price, but personal preference. She knows what kind of traveler she is and she wants to be around like-minded people.
For our one week trips, it's usually a "luxury" trip to an AI or some beach destination where it's easy. We usually spend maybe $2-4k on that week.
For our 2 week international trips, it's much more work. DH and I try to go to places w cheaper exchange rates (Costa Rica, China, etc). Our biggest expense when it comes to international traveling are the airfares! We get by with cheap hotels (almost always < $100 USD per night), B&B's, backpacking, etc. We rarely eat at tourist restaurants ($$$) and always try out the local dives or eat street food (usually about $5-10 for a meal, sometimes even cheaper). We try to do careful research on guides so we do not get ripped off. (Sometimes in some countries, that cannot be helped!) All in all, I think we tend to spend about $4-6k on our 2 week international trips - not that much more than our one week trips.
We usually do a couple long weekend trips close to home and then one long trip (3 weeks) in November each year. We are self employed so we can take as much or as little vacation time as we want. The destination of our long trip is very dependent on our income for the year. The less we make, the more budget friendly the destination. The budget for our long trip usually ranges from $3000-$7000 for both of us.
Since we go for so long, we really try to keep costs down where we can, including hotel. We usually stay at small inns or b & b's with good reviews on TA. Most of our hotels cost $60-$100 a night, sometimes even cheaper. Two of our hotels in Nicaragua last year cost less than $50!
we dont have a 'travel budget' per se. we plan trip-specifcally.
for our 19 night trip florence, tuscany and sicily in sept/oct 2010 it was about double of what you're spending. we dont mind paying more to stay in nice hotels etc... i dont make it a point to stay in budget places (aka not as nice as other places) because we WANT to stay in gorgeous hotels when we travel.
for my trip to florence and rome late jan/early feb of this year it was a total of 2k including flights, hotels, food-all of it. as I said-depends on the trip. that was all i could personally spend at the time for a trip and i made it work by going on the off season and staying at super nice places.
so it all depends on the trip, time of year, what's going on financially etc..
it's priorities and what you can spend.