My husband and I both turn 30 this year. He has a hard time getting PTO and we have a young daughter, so we were thinking of a 3-4ish day trip somewhere to get away just us to celebrate. We have grown our income substantially the last few years, but still seem to struggle spending on travel - budget airlines, staying only with hotel points, etc.
For a trip like this, how much would you spend on airfare and hotel, ballpark? I’m tempted at something like $350 per flight round trip airfare pp and $500 per night hotel (~2200-2700 all in). Would you go up to 700 per night for a luxury resort? More?
It seems crazy to spend that much for a quick trip? But for the occasion, maybe worth it?
Thank you for any thoughts!
Friend, this is nothing. I don't know about your income, but this seems totally reasonable for incomes above 250k
For a nice weekend with the kids we do like $2k and don’t stress on it.
Thank you! We are above 250, I just don’t know why vacation is so hard mentally to spend on! Appreciate your insights
Go enjoy your 30th!
Thank you!
I don’t remember the last time I went out of town for less than $5k. We usually try to cap vacation spending at around $60k/yr. Live your life - you only get one.
Yeah I spent about $12k just for myself on my last trip. Still feel a tad crazy but I didn’t want to fly 12+ hours in coach, so a lot of that money was on a round trip business class ticket. Worth it tbh.
Our last trip to Europe cemented the fact that we almost don’t want to go if we can’t lie flat.
So incredibly true. I’m thinking we maybe need to set aside a budget at the beginning of the year vs it being in our monthly spend. It feels so much harder with a big expense in a random month, vs something we’ve planned for and can get excited for
Definitely set a budget for the year and then you won’t feel as guilty for allocating a lot of it to one trip vs another. It’s okay for one trip to take the lion’s share of your budget each year.
I also keep a long list of places we want to visit, and then choose them based on time of year we are going and estimated expense considering everything else going on in our lives.
If it’s a year when we are doing a big renovation on our house? That’s a year to check off a few more national parks because they are amazing and inexpensive and there are still a lot we want to see or revisit with our kids.
But for a milestone birthday/anniversary when we having nothing else big going on that year? That’s like the Paris Olympics. Or a week in London for theater and Wimbledon.
I must definitely be stuck in poor man spending.
Our vacation budget when we were at 317 HHI from last year was 5k per person, so 10k total. Granted we’re aggressively saving for house in a VHCOL, and we’re now definitely more in HENRY territory, but I can’t see ourselves increasing our budget much this coming year.
60k per year is unfathomable for me, not judging at all mind you, it’s incredible you can afford to do so, it’s just mind boggling that your last time out of town wasn’t less than 5k and our Japan trip for 10 days last march was 2.5k per person, which has been our only big trip for vacation like that to date.
Maybe we need to splurge.
Spending 60k/yr on vacations, even at 700k pretax income, is NOT normal.
I missed the flair. Still though, I can see it not being normal for sure, but at that income it’s not necessarily an irresponsible amount.
Once you get past saving for retirement and housing, there’s definitely room for something like that.
Still I don’t see myself ever spending more than 10k on vacations per year per person, and I still think that’s a lot. Trying to not let the lifestyle creep set in 😂
You’re totally right though - not an outrageous amount, if that’s the thing you like to spend on. Gotta live a little :)
One reason why high earners tend to spend a lot on vacation is because they get few days off and so they're only able to travel during the busy season, i.e. 3 day holidays, Christmas, etc., so costs are inflated.
Another reason might be that they'd rather go to Japan when the cherry blossoms are blooming and take a direct flight.
There is a huge area in between $10k and $60k.
And also, it's OK to not spend $60k/yr on vacations if you don't want to, or are uncomfortable spending that much, etc. There seems to be a common thought in some of the threads on here that equates to spending money just because you can. Not everyone has the same definitions of splurge and not everyone cares about the same things. I can easily afford to spend $60k on vacations, but I don't really care about the things that $60k will buy me, so I don't spend that much. I still enjoy my life just fine without staying at luxury resorts or only flying business or first class.
reading this made me sad bc it reminds me of myself years ago
in fact i really regret not spending more money on my vacations when i was younger. you are only young for so long. it is way better to spend that money when you have high energy and freedom than when you are older.
please spend the extra 3-4k and make the trip as memorable as possible. the memories and happiness you get from a good vacation with loved ones truly is priceless.
Thank you so much for this insight. You are so right - might as well take advantage while we can. Haven’t really thought about the other side of this, wishing we’d done more while we could. What’s the money for if not for making memories
I know the feeling. We had always been very strict in using airline miles for business class seats overseas, but last year we just said to hell with the planning and weird itineraries and spent $8k for Qsuites and another $12k on an African safari vacation. We’re DINKs, have no debt and save $4-8k per month (on top of maxing retirement and mega back door Roth). No point in building a mountain of money if we can’t spend it to enjoy ourselves.
I’m fairly impressed you were able to get RT QSuites to Africa and what I’m assuming was a fairly nice safari lodge for only $20k!
Sorry, didn’t mean to mislead - the Qsuites was one way home. We had booked the way there with United miles in Turkish J, but that’s when I got tired of trying to do the goofy routings to get us home in Qsuites, so I just paid for them. When we fly int’l from now on, we’ve decided to just pay for business class instead of doing all the crazy routings to use miles.
For the safari, a close friend had a connection with the owner of the property that gave us 40% off, so it was a bargain!
Yeah, totally reasonable. My family of 3 is in the tail end of a 13 day (including 2 full travel days) trip to an expensive tropical location for the holidays. Also a 'homecoming' trip for one of us so we allowed a little higher budget. We make a little less than your figure but were in about 20k or so for the trip amd havent done anything even close to this before in 12+ years together. We also realize this is a special occasion and likely won't happen again for years to come, but also know that this is "only" like 2 months of net income now which still feels unreal to us from where we came fron 10 years ago and still in a similar spending mindset.
Let yourself splurge a little but don't make it your norm. See if your savings can handle it without putting stress on anything and go for it if its feasible. Youre spending money on your mental wellbeing and trading your financial wellbeing (somewhat) for it so understand the trade off and what good it is still doing for you. For us this trip was 100% worth the cost.
For vacations with flights, I budget around 5-10k per week for family of 3 depending on destination. For your days probably 4-5k all in. This includes food, experiences, etc.
700 is reasonable for a nice hotel in a nice location.
If PTO was hard to come by, in your situation, I’d splurge more. My numbers assume multiple vacations a year.
Thank you! Very helpful - and you’re right, worth the splurge especially since it’s such a “treat” to get away
Budget wise it's highly dependent on where you're going. But tbh, for a financially secure couple with a kid and not that many opportunities to spend private time together? I'd absolutely go all out and consider it an investment in the relationship.
I love your thought on “investment in relationship”. It will be our first time away just the two of us for more than a night, so why not make it special! Thank you
Enjoy life while you have time, especially if if getting PTO is hard.
The actual amount that's OK to spend for you is hard to tell without knowing your finances so hard to say if that's too much or possibly too little.
But also, look up Ramit Sethi's Conscious Spending Plan : https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/conscious-spending-basics/. It might help you figure out how much you should spend on "guilt free spending".
I don't agree with everything he says all the time, but going through the Conscious Spending Plan did help me feel a bit more frivalous with my money and solid with my savings plan.
Highly recommend spending up to something more luxurious if you can swing it. My husband and I just did this- a 4 day trip to Paris without our 3 year old and I’m so glad we did!
Sounds glorious! Love this idea
Hey I'm actually planning a short splurge trip to Paris - my first time away from kids in 9 years. Would you mind sharing anything in terms of hotels/ restaurants you loved? Or DM me, would really appreciate it.
Not the person you asked but we went to Paris with kids last year and stayed at l'echiquier opera. I’ve been to Paris dozens of times but back in my pre marred with kids days so I just stayed wherever was cheap, this was my first trip as a family. l'echiquier was very nice but without being too crazy, think we paid around $600 per night.
As for restaurants/cafe/bars, there is such an abundance of great food everywhere that you should just wander around. Le Marais is particularly good, just walk around. rue st Martin has dozens of great places
Thanks so much! Just getting started planning and it's a little overwhelming, I've never been and always wanted to.
Important thing to remember is that Paris is huge if you include all the suburbs and outer areas, but Paris itself isn’t that big. It’s about 40 sq miles (by comparison, London is about 600 sq miles)….everything is very accessible via Metro and lots of places are very walkable. In all my years of going to Paris I think I’ve taken a cab maybe 3 times. Definitely have some kind of list of things you want to do, but Paris is one of the best cities for just ambling around, so my advice is to make sure you budget time for wandering!
I will absolutely DM you!
Can I ask why you didn't want to take your child? Genuinely curious. I don't like to travel, but I love being with my kids. I am wondering if there is something I am missing...
She is only a few months old and my husband and I have only spent 2 nights away from her in her whole life. I’d rather not take my infant into an airport during cold and flu season if I can avoid it, and we’d like to have a little quality time together. We are also so lucky to have 2 sets of grandparents nearby who want to help out so she is well taken care of. I can’t wait to travel with her and show her the world, but also need a little recharge on my own battery
Spending $7k on a 7-day roadtrip. $400/night average. Avg dinner is $200.
I ain't gonna have a thin vacay to save like $2K when I have the money. What else is money for?
So true! What is it all for!
Depends on your disposable income. My spouse and I do domestic trips at $500-600 per night for a “nice” hotel. On international trips, we will take a weekend to stay at a more luxury hotel for $800-1000, and generally we are quite frugal and could definitely level up, but find this adequate. These aren’t for special occasions. I would actually think to spend more for nicer accommodations for a shorter trip.
I think I spent $10k on a little trip for my 30th. And money was worth a lot more then.
I’m more willing to go all in for a few nights vs a longer trip. $500 a night is totally reasonable for a hotel in most places. And those flights are cheap. Go for it.
For me, knowing what I’m getting for the higher price matters. If I’m going to spend more on a hotel I want a prime location or a great view or both. Just spending $500 feels blah unless I feel like I’m getting something special for it. So maybe look for the special in the trip you’re booking. What are you getting for what you’re paying
The flight price is what the flight price is, I don’t think you have much choice there (other than flying business). What I would say on flights is don’t try to get a $50 cheaper flight just to have a much worse schedule. You need to maximize the 4 days.
The sage advice is to spend money on experiences and to NOT spend money on material things.
So this vacation sounds like a great idea. In terms of price per night, you need to factor what $700/night gets you vs $500/night
If $700/night gets you an all inclusive, totally worth it vs $500/night at a regular resort. Not only will you make up the difference on food but also you will save valuable time that you can spend relaxing.
If $700/night gets you a beautiful ocean view you can wake up to vs $500 facing the parking lot, then that’s worth it as well.
But it all $700/night gets you is a slightly larger room, then it may not be worth it.
Just one persons opinion.
Philosophical question: Do you live to work or work to live?
Since it sounds like you don’t get away too often due to work schedules, etc. I would splurge. It really doesn’t matter if you spend 350/airfare or 1,000/airfare. For four nights, it won’t matter if you spend 500/night or 1000/night. Either way you are under 10K all-in. Loosen up. Enjoy yourselves. You can’t defer and have an amazing 4 day trip when you’re 30, in 20 years. There are few things I can promise, but one thing I can promise is that if it were me, and I looked back at this decision in 50 years, I would NOT be regretting prioritizing and spending resources on marking milestones with the person I love.
I'm about to spend $5k on my 40th birthday.
So yeah you're good to go
It depends on what you’re getting, not the price you’re paying.
I’ve spent 3k a night at the aman. Live a little
Was it amazing?
Hard to go back to a pleb hotel tbh lol
At a certain point, time is much more important than money. You rarely get PTO. It’s time to make some of that hardwork pay off
I’m on a 5 day trip and spending 5k. In America and Europe, I usually budget 1k a day for hotel and food and in Asia, $500 a day.
I spend $250-400/night on hotels and don’t really worry about flights if < $1000/person
We spend 15-25k year on vacations with a similar income, you are fine
Depends on your home city, but finding airfare at that price might be tough.
We enjoyed a nonstop flight to Puerto Vallarta and the Conrad Punta de Mita. Was a good fit with kids.
You're going to get answers across the board on this, also depends entirely on where you go and stay. Plus, everyone's 'standards' vary a lot for where and what they need to stay in. For my wife and I it usually amounts to clean and comfortable, but we are rarely 'staying' in the hotel so it just comes down to where can we be comfortable crashing at the end of the day? Other people want to stay at the 5* resort and be attended to hand and foot etc.
If you live in LA and are trying to do a weekend in NYC, you probably won't find flights near that price and even hotels may push it.
If you're having trouble spending money- why? Do you have high liabilities that outweigh income? Are you just not used to the income? Something else? If there isn't a 'practical' answer that may be something to explore at some point with a professional.
I agree on the “clean and comfortable” idea - if we can stay somewhere for $300, why spend an extra hundred more for a “nicer” place to sleep at night. We tend to explore and not spend a lot of time at the resort, so maybe we need to sit down and really think about what we want to do on this trip. If we truly want to relax, spending more for a nicer place makes a lot of sense.
On the “why” - i think it’s definitely worth us spending a minute on. Our income has raised significantly over the last few years, and vacation still feels like a “nice to have” compared to something like a mortgage for a safe place for our daughter to grow up. If she was coming with us, spending more to make her comfortable wouldn’t really be an issue. Just feels wrong when it’s just the two of us- definitely an issue to unpack with a professional!
I missed that your daughter wasn't coming with. That definitely changes some of the dynamic and you may opt for something where the two of you can connect with each other more than a Hampton Inn.
My wife and I did a New Year's Eve 'staycation' in a nearby (1.5hr away) city last year without our daughter- we stayed in a little bit more of a 'hip' hotel than we might have normally, but it definitely added some charm and made for a neat and nice experience. Price still wasn't anything outrageous, but a nice step away from the cookie cutter hotels that I'm used to staying in for work travel.
I think you've got the right idea to start with what you want this time away to be and then you can start looking at options.
Something I'll add too is that for the last few trips I've planned (Europe and now Costa Rica) I've been leaning harder on ChatGPT and it does really well for this use case. If you start with a prompt of the situation and what you want to get out of it you might be impressed with what it comes back with.
I asked someone else this question - but why not bring your kid on vacation? I don't travel much, I don't like it, but do kids make it more difficult? Asking bc I see people travelling all the time without their kids...I always think of travelling as for the kids and experiences with them etc etc
Depends on age, setup etc. I was referring more for opportunity to be intimate with your partner and that's a lot easier/flexible without kids and the focus can be the two of you.
Conversely, when bringing kids it's either looking for 'suite' options where they have a separate bed, and often where you stay is as much about the on-site pool as anything else.
At this point any 'proper' vacation will include our daughter because I want her to have the experience as much as anything else- which is that she's young enough to stillwant to be around us, and old enough to properly miss us...may still look for 'escapes' where she can stay with a grandparent for a long weekend etc, but that's different.
Kids make certain kinds of travel much more difficult. If I'm looking for a more 'grown-up' trip, I might want to sleep in late, enjoy a slow cup of tea at a cafe, read a book by the pool, spend the afternoon wandering through a museum, get a massage, go see a show, have an expensive dinner, maybe splash out on the wine pairing, etc. None of these things are really compatible with children
That's not to say that I don't also love family trips, but when we travel as a family we get different things. On a family trip, we go to the pool and I'm making sure everyone is sunscreened and hydrated and hasn't pooped themselves and remembers to walk-not-run on the pool deck. Great memories, meaningful for the family, also sometimes more stressful than relaxing for me personally
Both types of travel are great, they just serve different purposes
Is this the only vacation you'll take within the year? Because you can look at it like this:
Spending $3000 for the weekend, you would have needed to save $250/mo for one year. If this is one of the only vacations/splurges you'll have this year, I think that's totally reasonable! In fact, you could double it and it would still be reasonable. Go out to a fancy restaurant or get tickets to something you've always wanted to see. Live it up! And congrats on the milestone birthday :)
So true! I think it has something to do with us considering it an expense in the month we book it vs an expense we set aside at the beginning of the year. It’s nothing over 12 months! This will be our one solo trip this year most likely. We will hopefully do another trip or two, but with our daughter and probably somewhere more local. Appreciate your encouragement.
Yeah I think you may be right on this. We add some $ to the vacation pot every month until it accumulates up to the amount of a vacation and then we spend it down in one go, but allocating the money annually makes sense too
Same here - we use sinking funds for travel and that takes away a lot of the “in the moment” stress.
Our trips usually are 5-6k/week if that gives you a good idea. We don’t splurge on crazy things but also are not nickel and diming. I think that’s a sweet spot.
SPLURGE! Luxury travel is totally worth the money in my opinion. The only caveat: once you dip your toe in the water, so to speak, it’s hard to go back. 😂
We spent $15,000 on a vacation/celebration trip this year.
My preference for hotels is spending between $250-$350/night on average. Sometimes we mix more budget accommodations with one or two nights splurge at a nicer place.
For short getaways I prefer to go cheaper, for long international trips I don’t mind splurging more to make it more special.
My opinion is if you cant spend the extra 30% to have an actually nice vacation you just shouldn't have one. It's going to be pretty expensive regardless might as well make it worth.
I have found that 1k per day of vacation is about right. 500ish for hotel and another 500 for food, taxis, excursions, and other stuff. Include flying days, so if you are staying 3 nights, and fly on the fourth day it will be about 4k.
Depends on where you’re going.
$500/night hotel is fairly standard and not fancy at all for many touristy locales.
Don’t skimp on the travel. Look forward to the journey both ways.
I’ve been known to spend $10k for these, especially if you’re celebrating great. Have fun! Just buy what you want for the couple of days then be frugal again!
Money is there to be spent. This may be a more extreme example, but for my own 30th birthday, I flew myself and my partner plus all my immediate family members and all their spouses and children on a huge group trip to Las Vegas.
Paid for everyone’s flights, everyone’s hotel rooms, most meals, and treating everyone to several shows. It was probably pushing $30k altogether when all was said and done. My HHI at the time was $260k.
That was 7 years ago and we all still talk about that trip all the time. Tons of major memories came from it. The very last thing I ever think about is the money that was spent on it.
If you're on the East Coast of the US, then Western Europe is surprisingly doable for just a few days. Last April I did Lisbon with my wife. You said that PTO availability is the limiting factor... We had a great time with a Wednesday night departure and Sunday return, so we only needed two days off. The flights were less expensive than most domestic flights. I travel a lot for work so we had points and miles, which obviously cut out the two most expensive parts, but the full trip was $1,600 even though we spared no expense. If we'd paid for flights and lodging, it would've been about $4k total I think.
We're doing a similar trip with our kids next year, to Spain, though we're extending by a day, so it'll be Wednesday to Monday.
Yes, we are east coast US. I hadn’t really considered Europe but a few comments are making me consider it. Thank you!
That seems extremely reasonable. Not sure your income or other expenses but go for it, enjoy.
I take around 8 vacations per year and spend $2000 minimum on them just for myself. So $4000 seems pretty reasonable. I choose to spend most of my money on travel and experiences rather than DoorDash and rent.
Grand Velas resort Riviera Nayarit, worth it, amazing with young kids
Thank you I’ll have to check that out!
I prefer to spend more on food and activities so those prices on airfare and hotel are very reasonable to me. I also value location and ease of travel so I'll gladly pay a few more bucks to be more comfortable. If that means a $600 nightly hotel then so be it
5-10k for a week long engagement is perfectly reasonable
While not what youre asking for, if you like using points, if you optimized your point usage, you can fly business class and stay at nice 5 star hotels. all on points. all you need to do is pay the taxes and fees. last min travel on points sometimes can be great depending on airline or hotels that use fixed points for stay and doesnt adjust the point price like the cash price.
Try to see the trip as an investment in your mental health rather than a cost
Ya I actually spend more on quick trips than I do on long trips on a per night basis. I also don’t spend much on traveling/value traveling, but my partner does so I usually will spend according to her desires. So long as you’re not blowing through all your cash elsewhere, then hell yea go for the $700/night.
We are happy to spend your money. Lol. Your only trip in a year without your daughter, milestone birthday and limited PTO? I’d splurge a little. $5k.
We have found our travel budget has increased significantly. In our 30s, we were much more conservative and still had wonderful times. Now, 15 years later we splurge for travel. As others have mentioned the creep is real and addicting. But if you can afford it, it’s worth it. Connecting with your spouse is a gift. Carpe diem (assuming you are paying cash!)
Thank you! Yes - great way to look at it, a “gift to ourselves” that will definitely be paid for in cash!!
I haven't seen $350 airfare to anywhere in a long time. Haha! For reference, I'm in the travel industry. For a 3-night trip to a 5-star resort (all-inclusive) from the US would be about $5000. Plan about $600pp for air and about $1000/night for the room. This would be for a really nice, quality resort in Mexico/Caribbean, all in. You could absolutely go less than this, but since you do only have limited time, you might want to make the most of it. A lot depends on where you're flying from, where you go, and your dates. This is just a ballpark based on what you shared.
Thank you so much! Agreed on the airfare as I’ve started to look. Any favorite locations for this type of trip that you’ve been? Thanks!
If you're from the US and have passports, a few of my favorites are (based on the little bit you've shared, no particular order):
Thank you so much!!
You earned it so SPEND IT!
take your daughter to Disney, or do an all inclusive resort somewhere and fully unwind!
Thank you :) we are SO excited to do Disney when she’s a little older - she’d probably end up napping through the majority of a park day right now 🤣 looking forward to that type of trip!!
Sounds like you and the husband have a beach calling and some margaritas with your name on them :)
YES!!
I sure wouldn't fly coach to celebrate a milestone birthday. You're being overly frugal, IMO.
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It’s important to set an annual budget and then actually spend it on vacations. If you don’t end up spending it on vacation then commit to donating it to a charity at the end of the year.
Personally I'm not a resort person, and don't find the expense worthwhile. A nice 5 star hotel? Absolutely.
You’re not a Henry if you can’t get pto you’re an indentured servant