Summer vacation plans and costs?

[lorraineb]

I've started to plan my summer vacation and it looks like it's going to cost me about $1000 for a week visiting my friend in Oregon. I think this is a pretty good value. I will be staying with her so there won't be any hotel or other lodging fees. I'm going to drive out there instead of fly which should save me a few hundred dollars, plus I'll have my own transportation when I'm there so I won't have to rent the car. I'm not really sure how much food will cost, but I know that we will go out to eat at least a few times. Overall, I think it's a quality vacation for the price, plus I get to go and see a good friend for a week.

Do you have any summer vacation plans, and how much is your vacation budget for summer?

[hamchan]

We probably won't go anywhere this summer. My daughter will only be here for a couple of weeks total, and she and I already went to Portland for her grandma's wedding during spring break. My aunt lives there and we stayed with her, so we only had to pay for Amtrak tickets to and from Seattle. Mine were about 25 each way and DD's were 14 I think. She flew back to her dad's direct from Portland.

DH and I are also going to Alaska for three days for DD's 8th grade graduation at the end of May. Those tickets cost $1300 RT for both of us, and the B&B will be another $150 for two nights.

DD will be going to Denver for her uncle's wedding right after school gets out, and then will be spending another week driving to TX to visit some of her dad's other family. I have already bought her ticket to Seattle from Denver for $88, and will need to buy her ticket back to Alaska for about a week later pretty soon. Those typically average between $275 and $450 OW. She will spend the rest of summer at her dad's and then fly back to Seattle near the end of August, about a week before school starts.

Lots of flying. Not much "vacationing".

[hamchan]

Looks like I can get her return ticket to AK for about 70$ less if she has a 6 hour layover in Portland. I will probably do that because my aunt likes to pick her up when she has layovers there, so she gets a little bonus family visit out of it.

[97guns]

looking to take a 14 day cruise from san fran to hawaii in the fall, hopefully i can land it for under $1000/person

[frugalredhead]

No summer vacation, but we just got back from a spring break trip to NY to see my family. It cost us about $800 max, and that was with 2 trips into NYC. We stayed in a hotel using free nights we had accrued, which had a fantastic free breakfast, and for most dinners we either ate at various family member's houses, or ate peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (there was a grocery store conveniently located next door to the hotel). Lunch, gas, and tolls were our biggest expenses. Most of what we did in NYC was free. We even used a pay-ahead parking website to score a great deal on parking for about half of what we would have paid had we just wandered around Manhattan trying to find a parking deck. I was pretty proud of our efforts!

We usually take our vacation in February to Disney, which we had cancelled this year. We'll probably go next year, almost entirely paid for by cashing in vacation time I have accrued.

[skip17py]

Just booked a trip to Vegas with the wife over the 4th of July. If all goes as planned, the trip will be free.

[disneysteve]

Do you have any summer vacation plans, and how much is your vacation budget for summer?

We'll be doing our annual Disney World trip in August for 13 days I believe. That will run us roughly $4,000 or so. Actually, it will be less than that because I think we still have days remaining on the park passes we bought last year.

We'll also do some smaller trips - weekend getaways and day trips. All together, we might spend a few hundred to $1,000 on those.

[corn18]

London and Paris for us this year. Combining with my business trip. All in is $6,000 for three.

[phantom]

We've been talking about possibly heading out West this summer and making a tour of places like the Grand Canyon and Arches National Park. My parents took such a trip in the 70's in their custom van, and I've always thought it would be cool to do something similar. We don't have a custom van, so the tentative plan is to fly to Vegas and rent an RV or an SUV from there.

I've started looking into things like the cost of flights, vehicle rentals, and fuel costs, but I don't have a good idea of what the total cost might be yet. We're prepared to spend a good bit on this trip though since we didn't really go on a vacation last year.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Our big summer trip up this coming weekend for 2.5 weeks. Tickets cost us total $1200. Bought in parts to hawaii, CA, etc. Unfortunately now and not great prices because of a wedding we have to go to (DH best man). So I think all in all will cost us probably $3k-4k for food, car rental, luckily we're staying with family the whole time (parents, brother, uncle), but still it adds up fast.

[snafu]

We'v been invited to join former colleagues at their new posting Manilla, Philippines late June to the last week in August. Flight costs $ 1,558. each and we can rent a furnished studio apt for about $ 1K per month. We're hesitating because it will be rainy season which has potential to put a damper on activities.

We will have former students from S. American visiting here in early June and look forward to being their host. DH has colleagues from China tentatively planning to visit us in September. They will be completing their doctorates at one of the universities in Boston in the fall. Most mainland Chinese don't differentiate between canadians and Americans. I think our role is to help them to acclimatize and understand customs, food, driving, and idioms. DH has spent some time in Boston and thought he needed an interpreter/guide for customs, driving, and slang.

[bjl584]

I'm going on a week long family beach trip this summer. All told, I will be spending less than $1000.

[wjcalderon]

My brother and I are are spending a week in Washington, DC.
We are driving - 2 days to get there and 2 to get back. We would have more time in Washington if we flew, but driving is cheaper and so much more relaxed and flexible.

With very generous estimates for food, the entire trip will cost each of us under $1500.

[ua_guy]

We've made our annual camping trip into a thing. We take a week plus a few days on either end and travel to the Western Rockies and play around in Jeeps. We camp at high elevation, we do sightseeing and exploring by day and a lot of technical four-wheeling evolutions along the way. Plus hiking, photography, fishing, shooting.

If I had to put a price tag on the travel costs themselves, I'd estimate anywhere from $500-$1,000 in gas, food, and preparation for the trip which usually involves some simple maintenance and topping off our supplies and gear.

Some day I should probably average out the cost of all the modification I've made to the Jeep over the number of these kinds of trips we've taken. It would only encourage me to take more of these kinds of trips. For the same price I'm sure I could have enjoyed some European vacations, although this is what I enjoy, not that

[breathemusic]

I'll be going to San Diego for 9 days around the 4th of July. Not sure what the total cost would be (staying at the Navy Lodge for a week of it, so we get way cheaper room rates). So far I've only spent about $500 on the flight and 2 tickets for events that we're attending while there. I would imagine that I should be able to pull the trip off for no more than a grand since I'll be sharing rental car and hotel expenses with my brother and SIL.

I was hoping to find a way to get up to alaska in late summer/early fall to visit some friends up there, but now I'm also taking a cruise in Jan 2015, so I'm just not sure how easily I can swing all the time off from work (I have the vacation time, it's more that the work starts to pile up). We'll see. If I can get there, the most expensive part would be the flight, since I'd stay with my friends.