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I don’t know any “regular” people who do more than one week-long vacation with flights a year with kids.
Chief
Agree with most of the responses here. We don’t typically fly with the kids - we tend to drive and rent a place near the beach or the lake. We cook mostly at home and bring a lot of our groceries from home. We do free activities or cheap activities (fishing, beach days, pool if there is one, game nights).
For more expensive locations like a city, we won’t go for a full week - we might do a long weekend somewhere for example. We do a lot of museums or cheap/free walking tours and try to find cheaper food options (kids love food trucks or dives and still have fun).
Rising Star
I grew up on the east coast and all of our vacations were up and down beaches or lakes on the east coast and we would just drive everywhere. We would typically stay in condos where we could have breakfast / lunch made ourselves and then go out to dinner.
Chief
Camping is dirt cheap.
Rising Star
It can be cheap. Maybe you don’t need half a dozen $300 YETI coolers
If we are traveling for a week, we don’t eat out every day. As a consultant, building up hotel points and leveraging EY’s travel codes for rentals becomes very cost effective.
Was able to bring my car rental for a week down 85% using company codes.
We also try to do a few road trips a year.
My family of 5 takes 4-5 road trips of varying duration and 2 “big” vacations a year. $10-15K all in.
When I was little in the UK we used to get last minute deals from teletext. I don’t know if that existed in the US. We would have to go to the airport for 3am with no idea where we were going! All that to say- I think package beach holidays are so nice with kids. My parents would drop us off in the kids club in the morning and pick us up in the afternoon so they got time for themselves. There’s a ton of activities and you don’t have to worry about budget. Cheapcarribean is a good site. I did a quick search for a week in august with direct flights from NYC to Riviera Maya and there are options for $900 pp.
Growing up, we drove to my grandparents' house a few states away 2x a year and stayed a week each time. Other than that, vacations were scarce and we usually drove to the location.
Cruises are a nice option. Lodging, food, some entertainment, and some travel is included
Pro
I manage to travel 3-4 weeks a year, no kids. But in lile 2 travels or so, instead of 4 travels of 1 week.
But at the end is about reducing my luxury treats.
I usually go to airbnb or aparthotels. Having 1-2 of the daily meals at "home" (or a sandwich in the beach, whatever) is very cost effective.
Also drinking is quite expensive, but is up to what you enjoy, its holidays time.
I usually select either very well located places (in the center of the city, if i am visiting a city) to avoid transport costs, or places a bit far from touristic attractions (specially in beachside places in europe).
Also depends where u go. Americas is expensive in general, even going to safe places in latam. Europe can be reasonable as long as you dont go to luxury resorts. South east asia can be super cheap. Africa wouldnt recommend to cheap out.
Rising Star
My kids are pretty easily impressed. Drive to a different city a couple hours away, rent an Airbnb with a pool, prepare most meals at the house, a few kid friendly outings.
Enthusiast
Yes it’s expensive
We don’t do vacations with a flight and hotel frequently. We have three under five and our go tos are:
Rent a cabin with the extended family (3 hour drive)
Fly to in laws winter home in Arizona (flights, but no need to pay for accommodation)
Fly to my family in Florida (again, flights only)
When the baby gets a little older we’ll probably add in one “full” vacation a year that includes flights and hotel but that’s probably it.
So you're aware, not every vacation has to compete with what you see on FB, Insta, or whatever.
I had this mindset when I was younger and it's terrible.
I have four kids now and typically we take one big vacation per year and then a number of smaller outings.
For example, we'll head out for a full week in another city as our major vacation during December but throughout the year we'll occasionally do small getaways where we rent a condo at the beach for a weekend+1 weekday (we're in S. Tx so the weather permits this almost all year long) or head out to another city within driving range but have one purpose for going, i.e. visit a state aquarium, a new restaurant, or whatever then head home after two or three days.
The main vacation is like three to four grand and the others are typically at or a little less than a thousand.
I must admit that I also go to a concert, lecture, or trip where it's just my wife and I. This is short though. Usually two or three days at max and totally helps my wife and I reset. I try to keep this trip at or less than 1k too.
Rising Star
I live in a vacation destination and my home is more of a vacation home than most nice ones I would rent, so that makes it easy to do a staycation. We also have a lot of vacation destinations within a few hours drive so we usually just drive and explore new areas and towns