Why are vacations so expensive?

[brotherbloat]

I'm a non-trad applying to med school and so I thought I'd post this here because like most non-trads, I work and have disposable income (well, somewhat.)

Anyhow, my husband and I are planning out our vacations for the year and we're realizing that even short vacations are extremely expensive. My husband and I have two weeks of vacation this year.

Our first vacation we took to NYC, and spent 1600 for 5 days. Basically 400 total airfare, 200 per night hotel times three (stayed with friend one night) and tours, food, and misc. added up to 1600--for FIVE days! How is that possible?

Then, we have four days in March, so we thought we'd do a short Bahamas cruise, but that would cost 400 airfare total, 800 for the cruise total, and 300 miscellaneous, which would be 1500 again for FOUR days!

And then last we have a week in April in which we wanted to do a California roadtrip, and we realized that that would cost 1800 total--hotels, airfare, rental car, admission prices to attractions, food, etc.

Basically, my question is: do most people spend close to 4000 per year on vacations? Is this considered low/medium/high for two people who are sticking to the United States for vacation destination? Since we're in the midwest, airfare to anywhere good is at least $200 each. And a decent hotel is between 100-150 per night, which is our average. And food we spend about $100 per day for both of us on vacation--eating out all the time.

I think we're going to have to scrap the cruise because we don't have 4000 to spend on vacations.

Any advice/ insight? How often do people take vacations and go somewhere? We usually use every single day of our two weeks vacation a year to go somewhere but usually keep one week intact and split up the other week to take two four day vacations.

Thanks,

BB

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[Skaterbabe74]

I think it depends on what cities you vacation to. NYC, California, and cruises are all automatically going to be higher costing vacations than say Denver or Las Vegas or maybe even Chicago. Also you can save money by not doing tours and sight-seeing on your own. Las Vegas usually has absolutely awesome packages that include airfare and hotel stays for 5 nights for ~800 or so depending on where you want to stay. No you can't stay at the Bellagio for that but you can stay at some really nice hotels still for that (ie. Luxor, New York New York, Treasure Island (sometimes), etc). Then you have to deal with gambling money (if you're into that) and food and drink but unless you're a high roller you should be able to keep your bill under $1500. My bf and I pay our own way for our vacations and he keeps more money available for spending than I do but neither of us spends more than 1k total for a week in Vegas. Foodwise we try and eat one decent priced meal a day and then just hit burgers and hot dogs (or whatever) the rest of the day which is incredibly easy to do in Vegas with all the meal deals advertised along the strip ($1 hot dogs and beer, $1 shrimp cocktails, etc).

The key I think is to keep it simple. Maybe stay at a 3-star hotel instead of a 4-star one. Go to places that are served by Southwest Airlines, or Jet Blue. Less expensive cities like Denver or Milwaukee or Austin will not only save you money on airfare cuz you won't be going halfway across the country, but on hotel as well - you should be able to find a decent hotel for ~90/nite (or less), and even food and drink if you choose to only visit one 4-star restaurant or something during your stay.

The truth is that vacations are expensive. My bf and I are lucky to take one 5 nite vacation and a couple local 2 or 3 nite getaways a year even though he gets a full 3 weeks of vacation at his job, and I have complete autonomy in my job (and school breaks). We would desperately love to take a trip to DC or San Fran or Disney World but he's barely in the position to afford a trip like that and I'm definitely not in the position so instead we go to the cheapest locale nearby (Vegas) for 4 or 5 nights and head up to the mountains or Denver a couple other times a year and the rest of the time just hang out at home on our "vacations".

Good luck!