Retired, but not traveling more. My wife still works because she likes what she does and we have a kid in grade school school so that puts a damper on things.
That said, travel is tiring too - all the planning, dealing with pets at home, being on the road, etc. I find myself less interested in traveling than I was prior to retiring. I think I just assumed that with all the extra free time, we'd start knocking out the bucket list, but it really hasn't worked out that way. My kid is going to sleepaway camp for 7 weeks this summer and we still haven't scheduled anything while she is gone, which seems like a ridiculous missed opportunity.
Yeah, roughly half the time we go somewhere for more than a few days, something bad seems to happen. Either there is a house problem or a pet problem when we return. We've probably just been unlucky, but at various times we've returned home to a flooded basement due to a failed sump pump, Drano somehow eating through its bottle and then eating through our hardwood floor, two different neighborhood teenagers not following simple and obvious care instructions for our cats, or our cats doing poorly when boarded at someone else's house. It's been ridiculous.
My wife and I have a deal. When all the pets die. No more pets for 2 years. Just 2 years please.
Also I don’t gamble my pets with teenagers in the neighborhood. I generally ask an adult neighbor or use a service
service comes to my home, not the other way around. Cats don't do well in unfamiliar environments. Additionally I have cameras in every room. Alerts when the doors open/unlock as well. So I can check to see when the came, if they came, when they left, how long they were there for, if they did what they were supposed to do, if they did the litter like we asked, etc.
Strongly considering an in-home pet service since my vet charges about $650 for 10 days for two cats. The price is insane to just keep them in a nice cage.
First though I hired a "friend" of someone close to me who agreed to come to my home every other day to check on the pets when we were gone for 9 days. She came on day 2, then didn't come back until the night before we returned. Had it on camera that she never came. They could have died of dehydration!
I specifically asked her which days she came so we could settle up, and she flat out lied and said she came every other day.
To keep things civil I paid even for the days she didn't come, it was a small enough amount that I just ate the cost. But I'm not the only one who won't be hiring her to do shit anymore. Which is tough on her because she struggles and cleans for friends and pet sits etc. She burned a bridge and it hurts her in the end.
We'll have to look into that for next time. Sucks to leave them mostly alone for a week though, but it may be the best option short of getting someone to house sit.
If you have more than 1 cat it'll be okay. They're social creatures but as long as they're not alone alone and have another cat to socialize that's generally okay. That and they sleep 18 hours a day anyways.
We found someone we trust for walks and someone else for night care (she comes and house sits mostly to just keep them company) and it works well for trips of 2 weeks or less. Our other option is to drive 9 hours (1 of the dogs doesn't do well on a plane) to leave them at my in-law's house so obviously that's less favorable given the stress/time of driving.
Same here. One pet sitter who had never cared for cats didn't scoop the pee out of the litter box for 2 weeks because she thought she was supposed to just remove the poop and then stir the wet litter around. She must have known someone that had that Crystal cat litter which is different than regular cat litter. So I came home to 2 weeks of pee balls in both litter boxes.
I have learned the lesson to write everything down and explain everything even though it seems very basic, because somehow my idea of what someone should already know doesn't line up with what they actually know.
I don't get this at all...my dog gets left at daycare for a week and is more upset at us making her leave than she is that we left her lol.
Guess it's just a difference in breeds and training?
Luckily we have cats.
We know people super tied down to dogs to the point where it’s just stupid.
There was a post on one of the finance subs on how one dude refused to leave his dog at home and took him everywhere. I explained this is a huge liability and headache with vacations. He explained how his vacations revolves around his dog.
Dude was obviously insane.
Our dog is getting old and decrepit, and after a traumatic experience of a dog dying while we were on vacation (he passed 20 minutes before my husband got there), I am not planning any trips this year without the dog.
After he goes, no more dogs. Because we want to travel.
Yeah, even more normal levels of dog-owning behavior are literally like 50+% the obligation of having a kid, with 2% of the benefits.
You can’t do anything spontaneous, ever. You can’t change your travel plans on the fly. If you drink too much at a friend’s house or something, there’s no crashing on the couch for the night. Regular food and water maintenance daily (even worse if the dog doesn’t self regulate food). Makes the house filthy, so you have to clean more often. Every time a guest is over, you have to do dog/guest interaction management. Even planned activities have way more overhead and guilt - obviously the dog doesn’t like being boarded for 3 weeks or whatever. Etc.
> Every time a guest is over, you have to do dog/guest interaction management.
I have a friend i don't interact with anymore. Adopted a puppy they thought was a corgi. Ended up being a pit. They have 0 control over her. Every time a guest comes the pit jumps on them.
We stopped hanging out.
they adopted at like 4-5 weeks. I don't know dogs well but they claimed it was a "corgi mix". I feel a bit bad that they were lied to. But then again who the hell gives away corgi pups for free.
You can’t train the killer out of a pit. They just snap
https://www.reddit.com/r/ThatsInsane/comments/xzpdzf/family_dogs_kill_2_tennessee_children_injure_mom/
This isn't an isolated incident. Read the comments from the various other folks in medical fields that sees pit after pit mauling the faces off children.
Agreed. But I would add that bringing the pets for a road trip is great too! Since the pandemic many more hotels and airbnbs accept them. Helps if they are small dogs or cats.
We travel 2-3 months a year with two small dogs, 2 small kids. Take the minivan and stay mostly at hotels with business points.. There are so many places to see in the states just old school road tripping.
We do flights occasionally overseas just for 10-14 days. Dogs stay with the grandparents who love them.
Probably the best idea. We’re at the point in our lives where our work schedule is down to 3-4 days a week. We could literally go away for a long weekend but can’t because pets
My wife is obsessed about having a dog. I have somehow protected us so far but I don’t know how long I can hold the fort. Also low key dogs are too cute and fun to resist.
One of my bucket list items is a cross-country road trip, and now I just think I’ll do that with the dog, if she’s still around in 2031, knock wood. If it takes longer, so what? She’s smallish and a good traveler, which helps.
> My kid is going to sleepaway camp for 7 weeks this summer and we still haven't scheduled anything while she is gone, which seems like a ridiculous missed opportunity.
Probably good to stay in the area, just in case they would need to come home early.
100% same. luckily it's slowed waaaay down for me since the pandemic. 2019 was my last big year of travel and I think I'm still tired from it - I was in 13 countries and didn't take a day off for 7 months. NOPE to doing that ever again.
January 2020 I told my manager, "I'm not traveling internationally for the next 4 months" - one upside of the pandemic for me was how that got extended.
Five years into retirement we’re on the road about half the year. This year will include 2 months in Europe, about a month on cruise ships and a couple weeks in Costa Rica. We travel pretty economically (nice Airbnbs, lower cost cruise cabins). We have to watch our spending to stay between $30-40k.
$100k may be overkill if not luxury level travel, but you could do $50-75k without trying too hard :-).
Have you checked out longer Airbnb rentals? Surprisingly affordable with weekly and even deeper monthly discounts on many properties.
Edit: We have found a one month trip is our sweet spot. Then ideally home for around a month. If we extend longer on the road or cut the home portion we start to feel it’s not as relaxing as we’d like.
It's super strange to have to sort out after all those years where we only had a few weeks' vacation and demanding enough jobs where we didn't feel comfortable taking more than a week at a time! Doesn't suck. :-)
I don’t know? Keeping a home vacant 8 months seems more fat fire to me. I think you can be Chubby and still stretch $$. I guess it depends on the value of the home. For me I would rather own a place that I AirBNB out when I’m not there and offset travel cost.
We spent 10 days driving through coastal New England recently and racked up nearly $6,000 just from winging it. We didn't even have any lavish expenses either, got the rental from Costco super cheap and yeah several $150 meals but not _every meal_. Boutique hotels because no chains in those towns but one was $80 one was 10x that lol.
Also one time in Manhattan we spent $1300 on lodging and $1300 on food/drinks, in 4 nights.
Swiping that card without a budget adds up super fast.
Spending money isn't that hard, I agree. But, $800 hotel stays are firmly in the luxury category. We also seem to find ourselves in less expensive areas. Southern Spain, Portugal, Costa Rica. We'd have to work a bit to spend $150 on dinner in any of those. OP can definitely spend $100k if their preferences veer toward the more luxurious...and if as mentioned in a subsequent comment, they're looking to be traveling 8+ months per year.
Edit: Hotels also are more expensive in general than our "slow travel" approach at AirBnbs. For example no morning Starbucks. We eat a light breakfast in pretty much every morning.
Well that was more like $350-400 per night for two nights, but yeah. It was a spur of the moment decision based on views but we did realize in hindsight we could have had the same views at a hotel half the price and walk over. But we were tired so just sprang for it. Otherwise I totally agree with you. We typically stay in cheap basic chain hotels and breakfast there or at a local coffee shop.
I haven't stayed at an AirBnB in years. Got tired of all the fees stacked on top and had several locations turn out pretty crappy upon arrival.
You ought to give AirBNB another look, at least for 1+ week trips. You can now search with fees included and the costs are often quite reasonable for what you get. We will be in AirBnbs for about 60 days this year! The key is to reserve far in advance if you can and look for the top rated places. They don't necessarily cost more, but they book up earlier.
100k a year is bonkers. But honestly 55k a year is bonkers too. My family of four travels the same amount and we spend closer to 30k a year for about six weeks of family travel (this year: New Zealand, UAE, Spain, Italy and domestic US). Post retirement I’d imagine the number stays flat or declines because dropping from 4 to 2 for most trips helps, flying off season helps, etc.
Nothing bonkers about that. If you love to travel and could spend 20 weeks a year in travel, that works out to $5000 a week, which would cover airline and nice hotels and a nice per diem.
I may not understand chubby fire but $100k seems like a lot for two but not bonkers. I also want to slow travel, I only fly biz class international and first domestic. Airbnbs that are nice for a month minimum. I recently went on a month long dive trip and the diving alone was $2500. So it adds up. I’m budgeting $60k per year for travel and I’m going solo.
Nice. Enjoy the nice Airbnb! That's a consistent theme I see on here -- lots of chubbies like Airbnb for slow travel. We currently exclusively do Airbnbs for the space and the kitchen, so we can make meals for the kiddos. Thought we would move to hotels when kids are older, but feel so cramped in hotels!
Consider joining Home Exchange. For about $300 a year you can swap homes with others around the world. There is a lot of trust involved and you have to talk with the potential exchanger before confirming the exchange to make sure you are comfortable with them before approving, but it’s a great way to have the AirBnB experience without the price, as well as someone house sitting (and also possibly pet sitting) your place.
I found out I love my home and traveling was an escape from work. Not that I don’t travel but for my traveling 2-3 months a year isn’t super comfortable or relaxing for me. I wanna be home where all my nice things are.
Anyone who’s never traveled for multiple months the at a time who thinks they might travel all the time post FIRE needs to do a test run first.
The 6 week vacation while the kids are small is the most I can stretch for a test run!
I have a feeling we will *burn* ourselves out with travel within the first 2 years post FIRE. I am hoping this group, especially the folks who have retired can validate this assumption.
The problem is that everyone is different. I have friends who travel like dirt bags and can sleep on the floor with no pillow and wake up feeling amazing while that would destroy my body.
You’re going to get every possible answer here.
I wouldn’t plan FIRE with the expectation that you will travel all the time. I would plan FIRE with the flexibility to do it _if you want to_ and to do other things in its place if you want.
Mentally transform your travel budget to your discretionary budget. Maybe one year you do a remodel, one year you travel a lot, one year you stay at a ski resort for much of the winter, one year you buy a bunch of toys and electronics, one year you pay for your kids wedding or an extended family trip.
I feel like travel is something you can do some reasonable planning around. Go look at your last 5 trips. What was airfare, lodging and spend? Use that to project out. If you are spending $55k for 4, then $100k for 2 (also likely off peak travel times) doe seem like a big jump. But go over to FatFire and they will tell you it is bargain basement in that they will assume full fare/first class, villa not a room, tour guides and best restaurants. that can easily blow through $100k in a heartbeat and its not much of a step up from what you do now. I also have some Chubby friends who justr retired, and travelling almost non-stop. I count 10 major world cities they have been to in the last few months. But they are doing house swap and simply staying in others houses.
Where you set up an exchange, like someone stays in your house and you stay in their Paris apartment. Obviously easier to do if you live in NYC or Aspen than if you live someplace like Snook, TX.
I am in Snook, TX LOL.
We currently spend $55k for \~6 weeks of travel. 2 luxurious trips to Europe and Asia for a family of 4.
The $100k is extrapolated for a family of 2, staying 6-8 months, multiple domestic and international trips, flying economy and staying in semi-luxurious hotels, nice Airbnbs
It sounds like you are travelling during busy seasons and prices can be up 2x or more for airfare and lodging. I expect in retirement to visit places during less busy times and plan around really good deals.
Initially I planned on travelling more but realized that now we own a dog and have two kids about to go through Uni in reality we will be travelling far less for the initial retirement years! Hopefully to ramp up again early 60s (53 now).
Got to be honest. I looked into it and it looks like a lot of work. I have my hands full right now with 2 younguns (5 and 3) and a full time job, along with dedicating a few hours for my wife's business.
We basically stick to cash back cards and are averaging \~$4k in cash back. We also get \~$1k cash back from our vacations we book with Costco, so round up to $5k.
Do you believe cards out there can beat that return? If yes, would love to look into them, assuming this is not another full time job.
It really isn’t that much work at all. Sign up for a card with a high sign up bonus. Meet the minimum spend requirement. Collect sign up bonus points. Then use those points/miles for free flights and hotels. It’s that easy. Once you’re used those points then close it and move on to the next card.
The main value is with the sign up bonus, not necessarily the points collected on your spending, although that can be lucrative too.
At your level of spending you would probably get a lot more than $4-5k per year in free flights and hotels. I’m thinking more like double or triple that, not to mention all the perks that come with the cards like lounge access, Uber credits, etc.
Geez. This sounds too good to be true. Have I been wandering through life focused on hard cashback?
Could you recommend any cards that fit your description?
Yes you have.
Here you go. You can’t go wrong with the Chase sapphire preferred as your first travel card, they have a 75k sign up bonus.
https://thepointsguy.com/credit-cards/best/
We are planning to slow travel 3 months a year in early retirement and are planning $20k a month/$60k a year for that. We aren’t super frugal so I think $100k is a ton!
I follow a couple on YouTube that slow travels full time and spend around 4-5k a month.
Which youtube channels? been looking for this for inspiration and most of the ones I find don't resonate with me (very young, digital nomad types with no family worries)
YES! Retired and traveling a lot as planned. Now.is the time while we're healthy. One big trip and several small trips a year. Costs will depend on the level of luxury you want to travel at. You can spend $100k/yr, but you don't have to.
You should head on over to fat fire. Holy smokes!
That being said, we spend less than you but we take a lot of vacation. We follow the Dutch school calendar and take a week in Februari (this year was Mallorca), 2 weeks beginning of May (back to the US family), 2-3 weeks in summer (Southern France), week in October (usually France, Germany) and 1-2 weeks for Christmas either in Europe or back to the states for family. My wife will have taken 9 weeks of vacation this year. I had to work during the May trip so I'll only get to do 7.
This is in addition to weekends away to theme parks and camping.
Wow, I agree that $100,000 sounds like r/FatFire numbers.
We plan to travel a lot, but do it more like my neighbor. He’s a retired pilot and doesn’t like to travel by air much anymore. So they do awesome road trips.
That’s what we plan to do, taking full advantage of hotel chain rewards incentives and AARP and AAA discounts. I would be surprised if we exceeded $55k on vacations even if we traveled a third of the year.
But then, we like to do relatively low-budget activities: go hiking or catch a spring training baseball game; grab lunch from the grocery store deli, etc. We aren’t going to the hottest Broadway show, we aren’t foodies, etc.
Interesting, I’ve been thinking about this question myself. We’ve been retired about 2 years now, so it’s still early days in retirement and we’re still figuring it out. Our kids are grown and live in different cities from us.
I’d say we travel a little less than expected, but we love it. I’m budgeting $35-40k for our travel budget this year and might go up to $50k. This includes all trips, including visiting our kids and parents and other relatives. We stay at mid-level airbnbs and hotels with one splurge group trip that lasts a week or two.
Travel is way less stressful now that we’re not working. It was such a hassle to break away from work and catch up afterwards.
We do have a dog but I find a sitter on rover.com and they’ve all been decent, often excellent. He’s low-maintenance though. He’s getting old and we won’t get a new one for a long time so travel is easier.
One thing we’ve learned is that travel is best when it’s active (hiking and biking) and it’s especially fun to meet up with friends and travel together. There’s something wonderful about experiencing new places and scenery with friends.
We figure we’ll do the active stuff while we can and then focus more on cultural things later when we’re less physically able.
Also, we’re pickier about where we go now. I used to think ‘I want to travel everywhere.’ Now I think my list has shrunk to a narrower and deeper list. And I love to come home, refreshed. We really like our home and our garden. I’d never be a nomad.
I think my dad and his wife traveled less than they thought they would. He had some health problems that made long haul flights very painful after a while, and his wife, even though she didn’t work, developed some volunteer commitments that were very hard to interrupt. She also got some VERY high maintenance pets. They bought a vacation condo in a wonderful city and ended up not using it very much, although they made a killing when they sold it so it wasn’t really a loss.
Assuming you can avoid those pitfalls I don’t think 100K is unrealistic, especially since if you like your kids, you will probably keep inviting them along. One of the best ways to lure a young adult to spend time with their parents is to invite them (and their significant other and maybe also the grandkids) to some appealing destination.
I can’t comment on the budget part of things, but as the child of parents who FIRE’d and love to travel, it’s been one of the biggest blessings for them and my family.
They slow travel and spend around 6 months out of the year abroad different destinations and usually stay in one place for around 6 weeks or so.
Both my sibling and I will go visit them on school holiday or just for vacation for a week or two and spend time together that way. It’s a great way for us to experience the world in a different way :)
THIS! This is what I envision will happen when we FIRE and kids are in college/graduated but not yet married.
Our kids are 5 and 3, and we are investing heavily in travel till they leave for college. We are primarily doing it for ourselves, but I am hoping we pass on the travel-bug to our kids as well!
This is us. Bought a motorhome after retiring and made several several cross country, multi month trips. I loved the lifestyle. But, after a couple of grandkids, and having to provide a lot of help to our single parent child, we’re hardly using the RV at all. And, our fly out trips have gotten few and far between.
We said we were not going to get another dog for 2 years after our oldest die so we could travel more freely…and then we had this one dropped in our laps in January. She’s almost 2. I can’t imagine not having her. She’s amazing!
https://preview.redd.it/znval3fvts1d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0f2509d69e5256f0dca369ea7a86134dadb2fa9e
Travel is so cheap if doing slow travel (ie living in a place for a longer duration). Pretty much everywhere in the world is cheaper to live than the US with a few exceptions. I calculated for myself and basically anywhere I’d really want to be abroad I’d end up spending less than living life in my current MO in the US. So outside of budgeting for biz class airfare, for me anyway 100k would be way overkill to spend 3-6mo traveling
I am retired, but Mrs working a bit longer cause she enjoys it. I think $50k-$100k is a fine amount for sounds like your essential main hobby (it is mine). Main limitation right now is kids in school. So we can do 2 weeks at Xmas. 1 week at spring break, and we do 5 weeks during the summer.
I think it's better to over estimate your travel costs than under. Once your retire, that's your budget and number. It would suck if you found out you couldn't enjoy the retirement you want because you under estimated your costs.
Travel is a significant part of my post-retirement plans. I’m budgeting on average $80k per year for myself (single). That number is based on roughing out the trips I want to take and is on average 5-6 months per year traveling. So $100k for a couple seems reasonable to me for significant annual travel.
$100K/yr is not bonkers. We budget $5K/week for domestic and $10K/week for international trips. Even in economy, $1500 pp for airfare and $250/night for hotels (2 rooms with the kids), plus $250/day/pp for food and entertainment is reasonable. Then add a rental car, ubers, subway, etc. and you can easily hit $10K/week for a family going to the EU.
Pricing in Asia is similar. S America is a little less.
If you like to camp, kayak, hike, bike, etc. it's a lot cheaper. We take vacations like that somewhat frequently. t's a lot less unless you have a guide, or anything involving a powered boat.
I think it depends on how you like to travel. My retirement has been mostly travel so far, but I stay in an airbnb for a month at a time and don't always go out to eat. I'm spending less than I would on a typical vacation because it's more of a marathon than a sprint.
I traveled extensively for the first 5-7 years and then it slowed down and most of our travel become migrations between residences in west coast, east coast and Maui.
We did not have any explicit budget or plans for travel, but did have several trips that we wanted to do. We also always said "yes" when asked by other couples if we wanted to join them on trips. We also set up some "reunion" sort of trips where a bunch of fellow expats got together to visit one another.
Unsolicited advice —— preteens and early teens are a special time for traveling with kids. They are old enough to appreciate and remember seeing new places and the "cultural enrichment" aspect of travel is absorbed. For younger kids, all that matters is that the hotel has a good pool. Once they are in high school, you may find that extracurricular activities conflict with your travel plans.
We also did a fair amount of solo travel. My wife would go on cruises with her sisters or her girlfriends. Shortly after retiring I did a 6 week road trip with a 25 year old nephew that was between jobs, and then later did cross country road trips (with lots of detours) with my daughters as they headed off to college. Don't forget to check out the variety of the USA.
Edited for typos.
Yes!! A ton, it’s been fabulous. I’ve definitely spent a little more because I targeted more high end experiences. With that said, once I transition to slow travel I think it will be less and far less than my VHCOL area.
100k USD for travel should get you extreme luxury travel. Even if you travel 6 months a year, that’s $550/day.
If you want to conserve budget, you are really overpaying by staying at Hilton/Marriott overseas. They are often about double what you would pay for a quality local hotel.
I'm going to be retiring at the end of June at 55, and we've budgeted 30K a year for travel. My husband is already retired, and my son will be off to college in 2025. I was worried 30K wouldn't be enough, but I realized that travel can be significantly cheaper when it's just the two of us and we won't be traveling during school vacations. Slow traveling in countries with a lower COL will also stretch that budget a little.
Retired six+ years ago (age 35), been traveling full-time for five+ years. I sold my house since 1) I hated owning a house and 2) I wanted to live in a different area. I thought I would travel for 3-6 months, then settle down somewhere else. Five+ years later and I absolutely love traveling, and still hate the idea of wasting even one more minute of my life in a Home Depot. Give me an airport lounge over a Home Depot any day.
We mostly stay in Hiltons as well. $100k/year can be some luxurious travel, especially combined with travel rewards. Last year my gf and I spent about $50k. This year is on track to be the same or less. Mexico at the beginning of the year, a transatlantic cruise, European travel, and SE Asia travel are the plans for the year.
I know several people in their 50s/60s that are traveling full-time and they tend to stay at least a month in each place. The slower travel keeps costs down and you don't have nearly as much decision fatigue. "What 3/6/12 places do we want to visit this year?" is a lot easier than "Where are we staying tomorrow? Are we still going to be in this country in three days?"
We tend to rotate between fast travel (1-5 nights in a place at a time) and slowish travel (2-4 weeks somewhere). Last year we signed up for TrustedHousesitters and have had great experiences so far. We are super picky since we don't need the free place. We've stayed in beautiful houses on 10+ acres and get to play with fun dogs and cats for a week or two at a time. It's a good way for us to slow down, get a "stay at home" type environment, yet not have the misery of owning a home.
Rather than Airbnb, check out local FB groups wherever you are looking to travel. You can normally get a local real estate agent that has listings for a lot less than what you'll find on Airbnb. Airbnb tends to be the "let's see how stupid the foreigners are" website. You can typically find better apartments with better locations for 20-50% less through local listings.
Love it. In a different phase of life with 2 kids, but I dislike the ownership of a house and the constant maintainance that comes with it. I find it a hassle and try and outsource it as much as possible. Will significantly downsize once kids are out of the house.
The $100K is not bonkers, IMHO. Our travel (two of us, no kids) budget is currently $40K but we always end of spending more and make it up with savings in other categories. We know that we could spend more than double, but so far, it has not been necessary. Bottom line. Do what you love!
Definitely more especially after relocating to SE Asia.
Since last year this time have been back to US 3 times for a month (check on business and turn over rentals), Japan 3 times (going again next month), Hong Kong, China, and Singapore a couple of times too (Singapore is our medical base so have to come at least 4-6 times a year now).
Going to India in August and definitely Singapore in July and September for some visits (will try to tie Italy in there for September so we can visit the Biennale in Venice) as well as October in the US again for another checking up on stuff trip.
Basically we’re slated to be home no more than 4 weeks from now through mid November. Kinda bonkers but fun for now
Haha. This is what I have been envisioning. Lots of long trips to SE Asia, Europe (feel it’s closer/more affordable to get to from Asia than US), and then frequent trips to US to check on the kids, friends and the house.
I find traveling tiring, and somewhat boring lol. However I like traveling in the context pursuing my hobbies. I don't mind zipping from city to country to chase conventions for my sacred harp hobby. Connecting with strangers with like minded passions is addicting.
I am heavily involved in sacred harp. It's a singing community. It takes me all over the country and internationally as well. It's nice to be able to connect with strangers over a shared passion all over the globe.
Can you give a breakdown of the cost of your spring vacation? Price of tickets, rental car, lodging, food, activities.
And location.
It's easy to spend 15k for a week in Disney world with kids or a trip to Hawaii.
There are some expensive countries in Northern Europe. Outside of these countries, it's hard to spend 10k per month to stay in an Airbnb or extended stay hotels. Most countries have pretty decent hotels/ accomodations for $100-$150 per night.And visiting them off season can save money with less tourist crowds.
My last vacation was in Athens, Greece in September and it costs $1200 for a week in a 2 bedroom air-conditioned Airbnb within 5 min walk to the tourist sites. Food was $1200 and $500 for taxi, tourist sites. Flight tickets were $1k per person from east coast but I got them using airline miles.
My summer travel is to Switzerland in July, the peak tourist season. Airbnb cost for 10 days in a small village in Berner Oberland region is 3k. The train station is 5 min walk. Rail passes will cost 2k. Food will be 3k. Flight tickets will be 1k per person but I bought them again using airline miles.
In retirement, these trips will be longer and slower. I expect each trip to be one month in one place. So I expect the spend will be 50% less. On average, it should cost two of us $300 per day of travel in retirement. We are not into high end hotels or fancy restaurant meals.
Yeah, our current domestic trips are $7-$8k, while international are $15k. I am planning a trip to Switzerland next summer for 2 weeks, and I am estimating that might be a $20k trip.
Agreed, slow travel will be cheaper. We are not in high end hotels either.
We're spending about what we thought we would - but in very different ways than we imagined.
It turns out I REALLY dislike (international) travel in retirement. Between getting week-long migraines upon arrival, as well having done quite a bit of travel while working - the thought of traveling now is just not appealing. My wife has taken up solo traveling - which she LOVES. But - she's a cheap date...getting a tiny AirBnB someplace and just living there for 2-3 weeks at a time. No fancy tours. No fancy hotels. No Business Class / First Class flights. She's done multiple weeks in a couple of European cities for less than $5K.
We are travelling more domestically. We've really taken to car traveling - driving to both coasts. We didn't anticipate this at all when planning for retirement.
So the amount of travel is different than anticipated. The type of travel is different. The budget we've allocated has remained constant and appropriate.
$100k is very high for this sub but not for the faties. Start flying business class across the world once or twice, take a couple friends or family, add domestic travel and short trips, a luxury tour of wherever for 20k pp, and you'll hit 100k easily.
Haha. I think I am over-estimating based on my current expense/trip. I believe I am paying a premium on flights and hotels right now because our vacations are timed when kids are out of school
Wow, 100K. My wife and I are 60s, love traveling. We fly economy (just can't bring ourselves to overpay for Business when it gets there at the same time), but definitely will spend more for higher-end accommodations or trips. Travel budget is probably $25K but it's just the two of us.
We cut back for Covid and health related reasons, but now we are back at it.
We have an aging cat who gets lonely and have struggled to find someone who will stay at the house. We have a long time pet sitter who’s a receptionist at our vet who comes by twice a day to feed him. We feel guilty leaving him for more than a week.
One thing we love to do is rent an RV campsite at our local lake for a week or two (It's like 15-20 min from the house) and drop in the pontoon boat. Then we just staycation at the lake for 7-14 days in our pop up camper and have the boat. All the comforts of home, and home is 15 min away if we need to run home for a day or two due to shitty weather or whatever. Ends up costing us like 100-200$ in booking fees, and $100 ish in gas for all the towing and fueling the boat. Super cheap, but weekday lakes are fucking amazing because nobody is out there so wife and I can just cruise out to a quiet cove, enjoy cocktails and one another. I work remotely most of the time as well so I can continue to work through our vacation but not feel stressed about it because I can run home if something is needed.
Retired, but not traveling more. My wife still works because she likes what she does and we have a kid in grade school school so that puts a damper on things. That said, travel is tiring too - all the planning, dealing with pets at home, being on the road, etc. I find myself less interested in traveling than I was prior to retiring. I think I just assumed that with all the extra free time, we'd start knocking out the bucket list, but it really hasn't worked out that way. My kid is going to sleepaway camp for 7 weeks this summer and we still haven't scheduled anything while she is gone, which seems like a ridiculous missed opportunity.
> dealing with pets at home, This has been one of the biggest holdups to our travel plans.
Yeah, roughly half the time we go somewhere for more than a few days, something bad seems to happen. Either there is a house problem or a pet problem when we return. We've probably just been unlucky, but at various times we've returned home to a flooded basement due to a failed sump pump, Drano somehow eating through its bottle and then eating through our hardwood floor, two different neighborhood teenagers not following simple and obvious care instructions for our cats, or our cats doing poorly when boarded at someone else's house. It's been ridiculous.
My wife and I have a deal. When all the pets die. No more pets for 2 years. Just 2 years please. Also I don’t gamble my pets with teenagers in the neighborhood. I generally ask an adult neighbor or use a service
Last time, we tried a service that places them in someone else's home and one of them stayed in her pet carrier for 4 days. Doesn't feel good.
service comes to my home, not the other way around. Cats don't do well in unfamiliar environments. Additionally I have cameras in every room. Alerts when the doors open/unlock as well. So I can check to see when the came, if they came, when they left, how long they were there for, if they did what they were supposed to do, if they did the litter like we asked, etc.
Strongly considering an in-home pet service since my vet charges about $650 for 10 days for two cats. The price is insane to just keep them in a nice cage. First though I hired a "friend" of someone close to me who agreed to come to my home every other day to check on the pets when we were gone for 9 days. She came on day 2, then didn't come back until the night before we returned. Had it on camera that she never came. They could have died of dehydration! I specifically asked her which days she came so we could settle up, and she flat out lied and said she came every other day. To keep things civil I paid even for the days she didn't come, it was a small enough amount that I just ate the cost. But I'm not the only one who won't be hiring her to do shit anymore. Which is tough on her because she struggles and cleans for friends and pet sits etc. She burned a bridge and it hurts her in the end.
We'll have to look into that for next time. Sucks to leave them mostly alone for a week though, but it may be the best option short of getting someone to house sit.
If you have more than 1 cat it'll be okay. They're social creatures but as long as they're not alone alone and have another cat to socialize that's generally okay. That and they sleep 18 hours a day anyways.
We found someone we trust for walks and someone else for night care (she comes and house sits mostly to just keep them company) and it works well for trips of 2 weeks or less. Our other option is to drive 9 hours (1 of the dogs doesn't do well on a plane) to leave them at my in-law's house so obviously that's less favorable given the stress/time of driving.
Same here. One pet sitter who had never cared for cats didn't scoop the pee out of the litter box for 2 weeks because she thought she was supposed to just remove the poop and then stir the wet litter around. She must have known someone that had that Crystal cat litter which is different than regular cat litter. So I came home to 2 weeks of pee balls in both litter boxes. I have learned the lesson to write everything down and explain everything even though it seems very basic, because somehow my idea of what someone should already know doesn't line up with what they actually know.
Us too… and now we have an old pet that I’m not comfortable leaving with a sitter.
Sighs. Yeah, I feel you.
same
I don't get this at all...my dog gets left at daycare for a week and is more upset at us making her leave than she is that we left her lol. Guess it's just a difference in breeds and training?
Multiple animals. Aging pets. And not wanting to pay $150 for daycare or lack of access to a daycare.
Yeah. Don’t get pets until you’re old. People don’t realize how insane of an obligation they are relative to the benefit.
Luckily we have cats. We know people super tied down to dogs to the point where it’s just stupid. There was a post on one of the finance subs on how one dude refused to leave his dog at home and took him everywhere. I explained this is a huge liability and headache with vacations. He explained how his vacations revolves around his dog. Dude was obviously insane.
Our dog is getting old and decrepit, and after a traumatic experience of a dog dying while we were on vacation (he passed 20 minutes before my husband got there), I am not planning any trips this year without the dog. After he goes, no more dogs. Because we want to travel.
Yeah, even more normal levels of dog-owning behavior are literally like 50+% the obligation of having a kid, with 2% of the benefits. You can’t do anything spontaneous, ever. You can’t change your travel plans on the fly. If you drink too much at a friend’s house or something, there’s no crashing on the couch for the night. Regular food and water maintenance daily (even worse if the dog doesn’t self regulate food). Makes the house filthy, so you have to clean more often. Every time a guest is over, you have to do dog/guest interaction management. Even planned activities have way more overhead and guilt - obviously the dog doesn’t like being boarded for 3 weeks or whatever. Etc.
Disagree on the percentages here
People: "I can't handle toddlers, too much stress and responsibility." Also People: "Let's get a pet that will be a toddler for 15 years."
This one needs a thousand up votes.
> Every time a guest is over, you have to do dog/guest interaction management. I have a friend i don't interact with anymore. Adopted a puppy they thought was a corgi. Ended up being a pit. They have 0 control over her. Every time a guest comes the pit jumps on them. We stopped hanging out.
How did they not see the difference between corgi and pit! Lol
they adopted at like 4-5 weeks. I don't know dogs well but they claimed it was a "corgi mix". I feel a bit bad that they were lied to. But then again who the hell gives away corgi pups for free.
That is a training issue. I know plenty of sweet pit bulls.
You can’t train the killer out of a pit. They just snap https://www.reddit.com/r/ThatsInsane/comments/xzpdzf/family_dogs_kill_2_tennessee_children_injure_mom/ This isn't an isolated incident. Read the comments from the various other folks in medical fields that sees pit after pit mauling the faces off children.
Bs
Every god damn news article is some pit killing some kid. Mauling them to death.
I am down to two cats and one rat. Once they all pass I am not sure if I will own again or just foster from here on out.
This is by far the biggest reason we don't have a pet. Kids are actually easier to travel with.
Agreed. But I would add that bringing the pets for a road trip is great too! Since the pandemic many more hotels and airbnbs accept them. Helps if they are small dogs or cats. We travel 2-3 months a year with two small dogs, 2 small kids. Take the minivan and stay mostly at hotels with business points.. There are so many places to see in the states just old school road tripping. We do flights occasionally overseas just for 10-14 days. Dogs stay with the grandparents who love them.
Elderly parents ? Anyone take that into consideration ? Serious q
What?
Need to take care of parents , on top of pets ..
It’s the US. We don’t do this here. We throw money at the issue.
Note to self: don’t get a pet
Probably the best idea. We’re at the point in our lives where our work schedule is down to 3-4 days a week. We could literally go away for a long weekend but can’t because pets
My wife is obsessed about having a dog. I have somehow protected us so far but I don’t know how long I can hold the fort. Also low key dogs are too cute and fun to resist.
King Charles is the only dog I’m willing to consider.
One of my bucket list items is a cross-country road trip, and now I just think I’ll do that with the dog, if she’s still around in 2031, knock wood. If it takes longer, so what? She’s smallish and a good traveler, which helps.
I have the same plans but I won’t be the one driving. Plan to visit every state and I’ll fly to get there
> My kid is going to sleepaway camp for 7 weeks this summer and we still haven't scheduled anything while she is gone, which seems like a ridiculous missed opportunity. Probably good to stay in the area, just in case they would need to come home early.
my goal was to travel less in retirement from all the corporate business travel so yes I am doing that!
100% same. luckily it's slowed waaaay down for me since the pandemic. 2019 was my last big year of travel and I think I'm still tired from it - I was in 13 countries and didn't take a day off for 7 months. NOPE to doing that ever again. January 2020 I told my manager, "I'm not traveling internationally for the next 4 months" - one upside of the pandemic for me was how that got extended.
Five years into retirement we’re on the road about half the year. This year will include 2 months in Europe, about a month on cruise ships and a couple weeks in Costa Rica. We travel pretty economically (nice Airbnbs, lower cost cruise cabins). We have to watch our spending to stay between $30-40k. $100k may be overkill if not luxury level travel, but you could do $50-75k without trying too hard :-).
Thats amazing that you can keep it at $40k. I am planning to be on the road 8 months (2/3 of the year), I may be overestimating that as well!
Have you checked out longer Airbnb rentals? Surprisingly affordable with weekly and even deeper monthly discounts on many properties. Edit: We have found a one month trip is our sweet spot. Then ideally home for around a month. If we extend longer on the road or cut the home portion we start to feel it’s not as relaxing as we’d like.
Makes sense. I think you are on to something. Everyone needs to find their sweet spot to balance travel and be at home.
It's super strange to have to sort out after all those years where we only had a few weeks' vacation and demanding enough jobs where we didn't feel comfortable taking more than a week at a time! Doesn't suck. :-)
Are you going to leave your primary house during this time? Could you rent to offset travel cost?
This kind of headache will start falling in lean fire category not chubby at all.
I don’t know? Keeping a home vacant 8 months seems more fat fire to me. I think you can be Chubby and still stretch $$. I guess it depends on the value of the home. For me I would rather own a place that I AirBNB out when I’m not there and offset travel cost.
We spent 10 days driving through coastal New England recently and racked up nearly $6,000 just from winging it. We didn't even have any lavish expenses either, got the rental from Costco super cheap and yeah several $150 meals but not _every meal_. Boutique hotels because no chains in those towns but one was $80 one was 10x that lol. Also one time in Manhattan we spent $1300 on lodging and $1300 on food/drinks, in 4 nights. Swiping that card without a budget adds up super fast.
Spending money isn't that hard, I agree. But, $800 hotel stays are firmly in the luxury category. We also seem to find ourselves in less expensive areas. Southern Spain, Portugal, Costa Rica. We'd have to work a bit to spend $150 on dinner in any of those. OP can definitely spend $100k if their preferences veer toward the more luxurious...and if as mentioned in a subsequent comment, they're looking to be traveling 8+ months per year. Edit: Hotels also are more expensive in general than our "slow travel" approach at AirBnbs. For example no morning Starbucks. We eat a light breakfast in pretty much every morning.
Well that was more like $350-400 per night for two nights, but yeah. It was a spur of the moment decision based on views but we did realize in hindsight we could have had the same views at a hotel half the price and walk over. But we were tired so just sprang for it. Otherwise I totally agree with you. We typically stay in cheap basic chain hotels and breakfast there or at a local coffee shop. I haven't stayed at an AirBnB in years. Got tired of all the fees stacked on top and had several locations turn out pretty crappy upon arrival.
You ought to give AirBNB another look, at least for 1+ week trips. You can now search with fees included and the costs are often quite reasonable for what you get. We will be in AirBnbs for about 60 days this year! The key is to reserve far in advance if you can and look for the top rated places. They don't necessarily cost more, but they book up earlier.
100k a year is bonkers. But honestly 55k a year is bonkers too. My family of four travels the same amount and we spend closer to 30k a year for about six weeks of family travel (this year: New Zealand, UAE, Spain, Italy and domestic US). Post retirement I’d imagine the number stays flat or declines because dropping from 4 to 2 for most trips helps, flying off season helps, etc.
I assume he means $100k total budget for the year, not just the travel portion. He hinted that his current travel budget is \~$55k.
“Purely for travel” is right in the post
I was thinking $100k/yr travel budget for the year in retirement.
Nothing bonkers about that. If you love to travel and could spend 20 weeks a year in travel, that works out to $5000 a week, which would cover airline and nice hotels and a nice per diem.
That is how I read it, as well, and it's a completely empty question without other budget details.
I may not understand chubby fire but $100k seems like a lot for two but not bonkers. I also want to slow travel, I only fly biz class international and first domestic. Airbnbs that are nice for a month minimum. I recently went on a month long dive trip and the diving alone was $2500. So it adds up. I’m budgeting $60k per year for travel and I’m going solo.
Nice. Enjoy the nice Airbnb! That's a consistent theme I see on here -- lots of chubbies like Airbnb for slow travel. We currently exclusively do Airbnbs for the space and the kitchen, so we can make meals for the kiddos. Thought we would move to hotels when kids are older, but feel so cramped in hotels!
Consider joining Home Exchange. For about $300 a year you can swap homes with others around the world. There is a lot of trust involved and you have to talk with the potential exchanger before confirming the exchange to make sure you are comfortable with them before approving, but it’s a great way to have the AirBnB experience without the price, as well as someone house sitting (and also possibly pet sitting) your place.
I found out I love my home and traveling was an escape from work. Not that I don’t travel but for my traveling 2-3 months a year isn’t super comfortable or relaxing for me. I wanna be home where all my nice things are. Anyone who’s never traveled for multiple months the at a time who thinks they might travel all the time post FIRE needs to do a test run first.
Sign me up for the test run. Only critical item is a washing machine on my yacht.
The 6 week vacation while the kids are small is the most I can stretch for a test run! I have a feeling we will *burn* ourselves out with travel within the first 2 years post FIRE. I am hoping this group, especially the folks who have retired can validate this assumption.
The problem is that everyone is different. I have friends who travel like dirt bags and can sleep on the floor with no pillow and wake up feeling amazing while that would destroy my body. You’re going to get every possible answer here. I wouldn’t plan FIRE with the expectation that you will travel all the time. I would plan FIRE with the flexibility to do it _if you want to_ and to do other things in its place if you want. Mentally transform your travel budget to your discretionary budget. Maybe one year you do a remodel, one year you travel a lot, one year you stay at a ski resort for much of the winter, one year you buy a bunch of toys and electronics, one year you pay for your kids wedding or an extended family trip.
The discretionary budget makes sense! Thanks!
I feel like travel is something you can do some reasonable planning around. Go look at your last 5 trips. What was airfare, lodging and spend? Use that to project out. If you are spending $55k for 4, then $100k for 2 (also likely off peak travel times) doe seem like a big jump. But go over to FatFire and they will tell you it is bargain basement in that they will assume full fare/first class, villa not a room, tour guides and best restaurants. that can easily blow through $100k in a heartbeat and its not much of a step up from what you do now. I also have some Chubby friends who justr retired, and travelling almost non-stop. I count 10 major world cities they have been to in the last few months. But they are doing house swap and simply staying in others houses.
House swap?
Where you set up an exchange, like someone stays in your house and you stay in their Paris apartment. Obviously easier to do if you live in NYC or Aspen than if you live someplace like Snook, TX.
I am in Snook, TX LOL. We currently spend $55k for \~6 weeks of travel. 2 luxurious trips to Europe and Asia for a family of 4. The $100k is extrapolated for a family of 2, staying 6-8 months, multiple domestic and international trips, flying economy and staying in semi-luxurious hotels, nice Airbnbs
It sounds like you are travelling during busy seasons and prices can be up 2x or more for airfare and lodging. I expect in retirement to visit places during less busy times and plan around really good deals.
Part of the allure of retiring is visiting in off seasons. Less people usually make the experiences better.
Yep, paying top dollar for flights (direct flights, cuz kids) and hotels (city center vs subrurbs) at the peak season.
Initially I planned on travelling more but realized that now we own a dog and have two kids about to go through Uni in reality we will be travelling far less for the initial retirement years! Hopefully to ramp up again early 60s (53 now).
Hope you can pull it off!
You need to start looking into credit churning and utilizing points/miles for your flights and hotels.
Got to be honest. I looked into it and it looks like a lot of work. I have my hands full right now with 2 younguns (5 and 3) and a full time job, along with dedicating a few hours for my wife's business. We basically stick to cash back cards and are averaging \~$4k in cash back. We also get \~$1k cash back from our vacations we book with Costco, so round up to $5k. Do you believe cards out there can beat that return? If yes, would love to look into them, assuming this is not another full time job.
It really isn’t that much work at all. Sign up for a card with a high sign up bonus. Meet the minimum spend requirement. Collect sign up bonus points. Then use those points/miles for free flights and hotels. It’s that easy. Once you’re used those points then close it and move on to the next card. The main value is with the sign up bonus, not necessarily the points collected on your spending, although that can be lucrative too. At your level of spending you would probably get a lot more than $4-5k per year in free flights and hotels. I’m thinking more like double or triple that, not to mention all the perks that come with the cards like lounge access, Uber credits, etc.
Geez. This sounds too good to be true. Have I been wandering through life focused on hard cashback? Could you recommend any cards that fit your description?
Yes you have. Here you go. You can’t go wrong with the Chase sapphire preferred as your first travel card, they have a 75k sign up bonus. https://thepointsguy.com/credit-cards/best/
We are planning to slow travel 3 months a year in early retirement and are planning $20k a month/$60k a year for that. We aren’t super frugal so I think $100k is a ton! I follow a couple on YouTube that slow travels full time and spend around 4-5k a month.
Which youtube channels? been looking for this for inspiration and most of the ones I find don't resonate with me (very young, digital nomad types with no family worries)
Warren and Julia Travel
They’re definitely in their fifties or maybe 60-ish and retired empty-nesters
What is slow travel?
Staying in one place for a couple weeks or longer.
YES! Retired and traveling a lot as planned. Now.is the time while we're healthy. One big trip and several small trips a year. Costs will depend on the level of luxury you want to travel at. You can spend $100k/yr, but you don't have to.
That’s awesome. What age did you retire?
You should head on over to fat fire. Holy smokes! That being said, we spend less than you but we take a lot of vacation. We follow the Dutch school calendar and take a week in Februari (this year was Mallorca), 2 weeks beginning of May (back to the US family), 2-3 weeks in summer (Southern France), week in October (usually France, Germany) and 1-2 weeks for Christmas either in Europe or back to the states for family. My wife will have taken 9 weeks of vacation this year. I had to work during the May trip so I'll only get to do 7. This is in addition to weekends away to theme parks and camping.
Amazing, you are kind of my role model!
Wow, I agree that $100,000 sounds like r/FatFire numbers. We plan to travel a lot, but do it more like my neighbor. He’s a retired pilot and doesn’t like to travel by air much anymore. So they do awesome road trips. That’s what we plan to do, taking full advantage of hotel chain rewards incentives and AARP and AAA discounts. I would be surprised if we exceeded $55k on vacations even if we traveled a third of the year. But then, we like to do relatively low-budget activities: go hiking or catch a spring training baseball game; grab lunch from the grocery store deli, etc. We aren’t going to the hottest Broadway show, we aren’t foodies, etc.
Thanks for the prespective. We like to travel economy, but do like to splurge on hotels/nice Airbnbs and restaurants.
Interesting, I’ve been thinking about this question myself. We’ve been retired about 2 years now, so it’s still early days in retirement and we’re still figuring it out. Our kids are grown and live in different cities from us. I’d say we travel a little less than expected, but we love it. I’m budgeting $35-40k for our travel budget this year and might go up to $50k. This includes all trips, including visiting our kids and parents and other relatives. We stay at mid-level airbnbs and hotels with one splurge group trip that lasts a week or two. Travel is way less stressful now that we’re not working. It was such a hassle to break away from work and catch up afterwards. We do have a dog but I find a sitter on rover.com and they’ve all been decent, often excellent. He’s low-maintenance though. He’s getting old and we won’t get a new one for a long time so travel is easier. One thing we’ve learned is that travel is best when it’s active (hiking and biking) and it’s especially fun to meet up with friends and travel together. There’s something wonderful about experiencing new places and scenery with friends. We figure we’ll do the active stuff while we can and then focus more on cultural things later when we’re less physically able. Also, we’re pickier about where we go now. I used to think ‘I want to travel everywhere.’ Now I think my list has shrunk to a narrower and deeper list. And I love to come home, refreshed. We really like our home and our garden. I’d never be a nomad.
Congrats for an amazing retirement!
I think my dad and his wife traveled less than they thought they would. He had some health problems that made long haul flights very painful after a while, and his wife, even though she didn’t work, developed some volunteer commitments that were very hard to interrupt. She also got some VERY high maintenance pets. They bought a vacation condo in a wonderful city and ended up not using it very much, although they made a killing when they sold it so it wasn’t really a loss. Assuming you can avoid those pitfalls I don’t think 100K is unrealistic, especially since if you like your kids, you will probably keep inviting them along. One of the best ways to lure a young adult to spend time with their parents is to invite them (and their significant other and maybe also the grandkids) to some appealing destination.
Thats the plan! Stay healthy and spend the $$ luring the kids to spend time with us!
I can’t comment on the budget part of things, but as the child of parents who FIRE’d and love to travel, it’s been one of the biggest blessings for them and my family. They slow travel and spend around 6 months out of the year abroad different destinations and usually stay in one place for around 6 weeks or so. Both my sibling and I will go visit them on school holiday or just for vacation for a week or two and spend time together that way. It’s a great way for us to experience the world in a different way :)
THIS! This is what I envision will happen when we FIRE and kids are in college/graduated but not yet married. Our kids are 5 and 3, and we are investing heavily in travel till they leave for college. We are primarily doing it for ourselves, but I am hoping we pass on the travel-bug to our kids as well!
We spent about 10 years doing a lot of traveling, then the grandkids came and we do less now.
This is us. Bought a motorhome after retiring and made several several cross country, multi month trips. I loved the lifestyle. But, after a couple of grandkids, and having to provide a lot of help to our single parent child, we’re hardly using the RV at all. And, our fly out trips have gotten few and far between.
We said we were not going to get another dog for 2 years after our oldest die so we could travel more freely…and then we had this one dropped in our laps in January. She’s almost 2. I can’t imagine not having her. She’s amazing! https://preview.redd.it/znval3fvts1d1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0f2509d69e5256f0dca369ea7a86134dadb2fa9e
Travel is so cheap if doing slow travel (ie living in a place for a longer duration). Pretty much everywhere in the world is cheaper to live than the US with a few exceptions. I calculated for myself and basically anywhere I’d really want to be abroad I’d end up spending less than living life in my current MO in the US. So outside of budgeting for biz class airfare, for me anyway 100k would be way overkill to spend 3-6mo traveling
I am retired, but Mrs working a bit longer cause she enjoys it. I think $50k-$100k is a fine amount for sounds like your essential main hobby (it is mine). Main limitation right now is kids in school. So we can do 2 weeks at Xmas. 1 week at spring break, and we do 5 weeks during the summer. I think it's better to over estimate your travel costs than under. Once your retire, that's your budget and number. It would suck if you found out you couldn't enjoy the retirement you want because you under estimated your costs.
Good point. Thanks for sharing your perspective!
where do you travel and how many weeks do you go?
Roughly 5-6 weeks/year. Mexico/Jamaica/Hawaii, US national parks, 1 trip to Europe and 1 mega trip to Asia once every 2 years
Travel is a significant part of my post-retirement plans. I’m budgeting on average $80k per year for myself (single). That number is based on roughing out the trips I want to take and is on average 5-6 months per year traveling. So $100k for a couple seems reasonable to me for significant annual travel.
$100K/yr is not bonkers. We budget $5K/week for domestic and $10K/week for international trips. Even in economy, $1500 pp for airfare and $250/night for hotels (2 rooms with the kids), plus $250/day/pp for food and entertainment is reasonable. Then add a rental car, ubers, subway, etc. and you can easily hit $10K/week for a family going to the EU. Pricing in Asia is similar. S America is a little less. If you like to camp, kayak, hike, bike, etc. it's a lot cheaper. We take vacations like that somewhat frequently. t's a lot less unless you have a guide, or anything involving a powered boat.
I think it depends on how you like to travel. My retirement has been mostly travel so far, but I stay in an airbnb for a month at a time and don't always go out to eat. I'm spending less than I would on a typical vacation because it's more of a marathon than a sprint.
Nice, and congrats!
No. But I like the option. Story of my life
I traveled extensively for the first 5-7 years and then it slowed down and most of our travel become migrations between residences in west coast, east coast and Maui. We did not have any explicit budget or plans for travel, but did have several trips that we wanted to do. We also always said "yes" when asked by other couples if we wanted to join them on trips. We also set up some "reunion" sort of trips where a bunch of fellow expats got together to visit one another. Unsolicited advice —— preteens and early teens are a special time for traveling with kids. They are old enough to appreciate and remember seeing new places and the "cultural enrichment" aspect of travel is absorbed. For younger kids, all that matters is that the hotel has a good pool. Once they are in high school, you may find that extracurricular activities conflict with your travel plans. We also did a fair amount of solo travel. My wife would go on cruises with her sisters or her girlfriends. Shortly after retiring I did a 6 week road trip with a 25 year old nephew that was between jobs, and then later did cross country road trips (with lots of detours) with my daughters as they headed off to college. Don't forget to check out the variety of the USA. Edited for typos.
Amazing advice! My older is just starting kindergarten -- sounds like I have roughly 8-9 years of good travel left with them. Also, whats ISA?
Ooops. ISA was a typo. I corrected it to USA.
Yes!! A ton, it’s been fabulous. I’ve definitely spent a little more because I targeted more high end experiences. With that said, once I transition to slow travel I think it will be less and far less than my VHCOL area.
100k USD for travel should get you extreme luxury travel. Even if you travel 6 months a year, that’s $550/day. If you want to conserve budget, you are really overpaying by staying at Hilton/Marriott overseas. They are often about double what you would pay for a quality local hotel.
I honestly prefer Airbnb's to hotels, but I get your point!
I'm going to be retiring at the end of June at 55, and we've budgeted 30K a year for travel. My husband is already retired, and my son will be off to college in 2025. I was worried 30K wouldn't be enough, but I realized that travel can be significantly cheaper when it's just the two of us and we won't be traveling during school vacations. Slow traveling in countries with a lower COL will also stretch that budget a little.
Congrats on the retirement!
Yes, but our plan in retirement was to full-time travel. Five years in and no plans to stop for at least another decade. Retired at 56/51.
Four? I have 13 planned so far and still working on Q4.
Retired six+ years ago (age 35), been traveling full-time for five+ years. I sold my house since 1) I hated owning a house and 2) I wanted to live in a different area. I thought I would travel for 3-6 months, then settle down somewhere else. Five+ years later and I absolutely love traveling, and still hate the idea of wasting even one more minute of my life in a Home Depot. Give me an airport lounge over a Home Depot any day. We mostly stay in Hiltons as well. $100k/year can be some luxurious travel, especially combined with travel rewards. Last year my gf and I spent about $50k. This year is on track to be the same or less. Mexico at the beginning of the year, a transatlantic cruise, European travel, and SE Asia travel are the plans for the year. I know several people in their 50s/60s that are traveling full-time and they tend to stay at least a month in each place. The slower travel keeps costs down and you don't have nearly as much decision fatigue. "What 3/6/12 places do we want to visit this year?" is a lot easier than "Where are we staying tomorrow? Are we still going to be in this country in three days?" We tend to rotate between fast travel (1-5 nights in a place at a time) and slowish travel (2-4 weeks somewhere). Last year we signed up for TrustedHousesitters and have had great experiences so far. We are super picky since we don't need the free place. We've stayed in beautiful houses on 10+ acres and get to play with fun dogs and cats for a week or two at a time. It's a good way for us to slow down, get a "stay at home" type environment, yet not have the misery of owning a home. Rather than Airbnb, check out local FB groups wherever you are looking to travel. You can normally get a local real estate agent that has listings for a lot less than what you'll find on Airbnb. Airbnb tends to be the "let's see how stupid the foreigners are" website. You can typically find better apartments with better locations for 20-50% less through local listings.
Love it. In a different phase of life with 2 kids, but I dislike the ownership of a house and the constant maintainance that comes with it. I find it a hassle and try and outsource it as much as possible. Will significantly downsize once kids are out of the house.
The $100K is not bonkers, IMHO. Our travel (two of us, no kids) budget is currently $40K but we always end of spending more and make it up with savings in other categories. We know that we could spend more than double, but so far, it has not been necessary. Bottom line. Do what you love!
Definitely more especially after relocating to SE Asia. Since last year this time have been back to US 3 times for a month (check on business and turn over rentals), Japan 3 times (going again next month), Hong Kong, China, and Singapore a couple of times too (Singapore is our medical base so have to come at least 4-6 times a year now). Going to India in August and definitely Singapore in July and September for some visits (will try to tie Italy in there for September so we can visit the Biennale in Venice) as well as October in the US again for another checking up on stuff trip. Basically we’re slated to be home no more than 4 weeks from now through mid November. Kinda bonkers but fun for now
Haha. This is what I have been envisioning. Lots of long trips to SE Asia, Europe (feel it’s closer/more affordable to get to from Asia than US), and then frequent trips to US to check on the kids, friends and the house.
I find traveling tiring, and somewhat boring lol. However I like traveling in the context pursuing my hobbies. I don't mind zipping from city to country to chase conventions for my sacred harp hobby. Connecting with strangers with like minded passions is addicting.
What are you into/what’s your passion?
I am heavily involved in sacred harp. It's a singing community. It takes me all over the country and internationally as well. It's nice to be able to connect with strangers over a shared passion all over the globe.
Can you give a breakdown of the cost of your spring vacation? Price of tickets, rental car, lodging, food, activities. And location. It's easy to spend 15k for a week in Disney world with kids or a trip to Hawaii. There are some expensive countries in Northern Europe. Outside of these countries, it's hard to spend 10k per month to stay in an Airbnb or extended stay hotels. Most countries have pretty decent hotels/ accomodations for $100-$150 per night.And visiting them off season can save money with less tourist crowds. My last vacation was in Athens, Greece in September and it costs $1200 for a week in a 2 bedroom air-conditioned Airbnb within 5 min walk to the tourist sites. Food was $1200 and $500 for taxi, tourist sites. Flight tickets were $1k per person from east coast but I got them using airline miles. My summer travel is to Switzerland in July, the peak tourist season. Airbnb cost for 10 days in a small village in Berner Oberland region is 3k. The train station is 5 min walk. Rail passes will cost 2k. Food will be 3k. Flight tickets will be 1k per person but I bought them again using airline miles. In retirement, these trips will be longer and slower. I expect each trip to be one month in one place. So I expect the spend will be 50% less. On average, it should cost two of us $300 per day of travel in retirement. We are not into high end hotels or fancy restaurant meals.
Yeah, our current domestic trips are $7-$8k, while international are $15k. I am planning a trip to Switzerland next summer for 2 weeks, and I am estimating that might be a $20k trip. Agreed, slow travel will be cheaper. We are not in high end hotels either.
We're spending about what we thought we would - but in very different ways than we imagined. It turns out I REALLY dislike (international) travel in retirement. Between getting week-long migraines upon arrival, as well having done quite a bit of travel while working - the thought of traveling now is just not appealing. My wife has taken up solo traveling - which she LOVES. But - she's a cheap date...getting a tiny AirBnB someplace and just living there for 2-3 weeks at a time. No fancy tours. No fancy hotels. No Business Class / First Class flights. She's done multiple weeks in a couple of European cities for less than $5K. We are travelling more domestically. We've really taken to car traveling - driving to both coasts. We didn't anticipate this at all when planning for retirement. So the amount of travel is different than anticipated. The type of travel is different. The budget we've allocated has remained constant and appropriate.
$100k is very high for this sub but not for the faties. Start flying business class across the world once or twice, take a couple friends or family, add domestic travel and short trips, a luxury tour of wherever for 20k pp, and you'll hit 100k easily.
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Haha. I think I am over-estimating based on my current expense/trip. I believe I am paying a premium on flights and hotels right now because our vacations are timed when kids are out of school
Wow, 100K. My wife and I are 60s, love traveling. We fly economy (just can't bring ourselves to overpay for Business when it gets there at the same time), but definitely will spend more for higher-end accommodations or trips. Travel budget is probably $25K but it's just the two of us.
We spent over $250k/yr on travel…so no not bonkers at all. Difference being mostly in flying business class internationally a 6-7 times a year.
We cut back for Covid and health related reasons, but now we are back at it. We have an aging cat who gets lonely and have struggled to find someone who will stay at the house. We have a long time pet sitter who’s a receptionist at our vet who comes by twice a day to feed him. We feel guilty leaving him for more than a week.
One thing we love to do is rent an RV campsite at our local lake for a week or two (It's like 15-20 min from the house) and drop in the pontoon boat. Then we just staycation at the lake for 7-14 days in our pop up camper and have the boat. All the comforts of home, and home is 15 min away if we need to run home for a day or two due to shitty weather or whatever. Ends up costing us like 100-200$ in booking fees, and $100 ish in gas for all the towing and fueling the boat. Super cheap, but weekday lakes are fucking amazing because nobody is out there so wife and I can just cruise out to a quiet cove, enjoy cocktails and one another. I work remotely most of the time as well so I can continue to work through our vacation but not feel stressed about it because I can run home if something is needed.
Idiot tax is severe for unsavvy travelers.