S/O What were some of your <$3K vacations?

[cookies]

Bonus points if it included kids.

We rented a house for a week in the Outer Banks with my husband's family in 2012. All in, including food and hotel stays on the drive down, our share came to $1500.  I'd like to not do that ever again (the part about sharing a house with family, ha) and we are long overdue for "just us" vacation, but we don't have a lot of money to budget for it right now.  What have been some of your favorites?

[Deleted]

We did 3 weeks in Ireland on our honeymoon for $3k. Including airfare, car rental and a beach house on the Dingle Penninsula for one week.

We spent a week in a beach house on Deer Isle in Maine for around $1100 total.

[evans]

All of mine have been (no kids). We too did Ireland for less than 3k, although it was only a week.

[Ashley&Scott]

We've done quite a few vacations for less than $3k. They were pre-kids but could have easily included kids. They were driving trips, about 10 days each. We're from the Midwest so we tried to stay within 8-10 hours from home.

Colorado - Denver, Colorado Springs & Estes Park
Springfield, IL & St. Louis, MO

Where are you from?

[CloudBee]

2 non-stop, round-trip flights from NYC to Tokyo, and a room at the Hilton in Shinjuku. (A main touristy area in Tokyo.) $2,600 after tax a few years ago.

We were gone for 6 days. 5 nights at the hotel.

[niq]

We did a long weekend in the San Juan islands to celebrate msniq being done with the bar exam. $250 for puddle jumper plane tickets, a few hundred bucks for the car rental, maybe $800 for the cottage, there's no restaurant on the island where you can spend more than $150 on dinner.

Our honeymoon was a tour of several places in deep South, maybe a week +/- a day. I don't think we spent more than $3K. SCRU alert: of it we spent in a vacation home my dad owned.

We did a ~10 day France and England trip for under $3K, but we were staying with friends the whole time.

[felicity]

All of ours have been under $3K

We kind of stopped traveling much after we both realized we don't really find it worth it, but there were still many fun moments on all of these trips.

Hawaii - used award miles to fly there and for some of the hotel and rental car
Cape Cod
CA - flew in then worked our way down Rt. 1
Week long beach condo rental in Delaware
Caribbean cruise

[niq]

May 22, 2014 14:35:00 GMT -5 CloudBee said:

2 non-stop, round-trip flights from NYC to Tokyo, and a room at the Hilton in Shinjuku. (A main touristy area in Tokyo.) $2,600 after tax a few years ago.

We were gone for 6 days. 5 nights at the hotel.

did you eat Ramen/Soba for every meal? What did you do to get around Tokyo?

[Pom]

May 22, 2014 14:24:09 GMT -5 cookies said:

 I'd like to not do that ever again 

This seriously made me chuckle.

[Susie]

Combined wedding in California + 4-5 days at the Grand Canyon, including airfare from PHL - LAX - PHX - PHL. Camping at the Grand Canyon kept costs way down.

We also backpack in the Adirondacks, which is cheap once you own the gear (which is not cheap).

Most real vacations are > $3k though. Ireland, Italy, etc. At this stage of my career, the time away from work is harder for me to get than the money to pay for it.

[WOT?*]

We take the kids to Cannon Beach every Labor Day and Westport on the WA coast for the 4th of July. Each runs less than $3K but we also drive down, rent a condo, buy food, etc.

We're flying to San Diego and staying for a week at a resort in June. But the firm is paying for our airfare (well, mine and DH's and we get reduced airfare for the girls) and food for three of the seven days, we're getting a reduced rate for the condo (which will have a kitchen so we can do our own food), etc.

Not counting flights (since we could drive when we lived in the Midwest), we did a week in Florida, including WDW or Universal with one kid to three kids (DS1-2), visits to the beach and swimming in the pool. But MIL lives in FL so we stayed with her and she fed us.

Also, driving along the CA/OR/WA coast and stopping to see the Redwoods and visiting other sites.

The driving vacations are the ones where we save money. And since it's relative (and often I include visiting my relatives for a free night's lodging here and there in the CA trips) I highly doubt any of my cheap vacations would be as cheap for you.

[SJ]

Our HM to Guatemala/Belize was right around $3K.

Literally dozens of domestic trips.

[cookies]

May 22, 2014 14:33:32 GMT -5 Ashley&Scott said:

We've done quite a few vacations for less than $3k. They were pre-kids but could have easily included kids. They were driving trips, about 10 days each. We're from the Midwest so we tried to stay within 8-10 hours from home.

Colorado - Denver, Colorado Springs & Estes Park
Springfield, IL & St. Louis, MO

Where are you from?

New England.  Part of our problem is my husband's schedule - we can only take family vacations from Thanksgiving through April. Our Outer Banks vacation was over Thanksgiving, so it was cold and windy on top of all the bitching.

I'm inspired reading about all these trips though!

[lasagnasshole]

I think our honeymoon was about $3,000. I know airfare + hotel for 6 nights in Rome was about $2,000. I can't remember exactly how much we spent, but we were fairly frugal.

Our recent trip to Florida was only about $2000 for flight, house rental, ground transportation, and food/drinks. For various logistical reasons, it wasn't the best. But it could have been!

We went to a backyard music festival that our friend throws. Flights were $700. Plus we make $100 donation to the host and had rental car plus some food/beer.

In law school, I got a $400 plane ticket to London, stayed with a friend, and probably spent $200 more on food and stuff.

I think my only vacation over $3,000 was SXSW.

[Deleted]

Oh, I almost forgot the big one. We went on a 6 week, 9000 mile cross country road trip. Total costs were around $3k, but DH picked up 7 days of work with a company he travels for while we were in KC. So we actually make a $2500 profit in the end.

[wanderlustfoodie]

Some of our domestic weekend trips where we stayed at B&Bs were under $3K. I have never done a "big" trip for under $3000 and am in awe reading some of these responses - very impressive!

[CloudBee]

May 22, 2014 14:36:10 GMT -5 niq said:

May 22, 2014 14:35:00 GMT -5 CloudBee said:

2 non-stop, round-trip flights from NYC to Tokyo, and a room at the Hilton in Shinjuku. (A main touristy area in Tokyo.) $2,600 after tax a few years ago.

We were gone for 6 days. 5 nights at the hotel.

did you eat Ramen/Soba for every meal? What did you do to get around Tokyo?

I didn't include meals in the above, so we probably spent a good bit more than that. 

We had a $600 meal and a $300 meal.  Cough, cough.

We used a car service to/from the airport, took the taxi and subway within the city, and the bullet train to/from Mount Fuji.  We had a guide at Mount Fuji.

But we could have stayed around $3k if we hadn't splurged on the other items.

I always share these prices because it goes to show others that you CAN live your dreams and see the world on a budget.  This was one of those random vacations where DH had 4 vacation days (couldn't branch over 2 weekends), and we made a list of places we wanted to go, then went with the least expensive. I was SO close to booking Switzerland, only to find that Japan was less expensive by about $800 for the same timeframe.  Japan wasn't even on our list.  It was a last minute "let's throw it into Travelocity" and bam.  WE'RE GOING TO ASIA.

So fast forward a few years, and we're finally doing Switzerland.  4 days, non-stop, round-trip, at a Hilton again, and flights + hotel came out to $3,400 after tax. This doesn't include our day tour to the Swiss Alps and Liechtenstein.

We've done Ireland and Iceland for around $3k in recent years, and that included meals. (But not glacier climbing in Iceland or a driver to take us around the Irish countryside.)

[mbcdefg]

I think our vacation for this year will probably be around that ... Seattle, PDX, San Francisco.

I actually forget what we paid to go to London and Ireland four years ago My parents covered a lot of the Ireland portion of the trip for us, though.

Hotel plus airfare to Vegas in 2008 was about $1k, and we probably spent less than $500 on show tickets and meals while we were there.

Those are the biggest trips we've done together, and the only ones that included airline travel. Everything else has been driving.

We probably spent around $2k last summer to drive to Chicago, St. Louis, Louisville, and Pittsburgh. My mom asked to come with us (my dad had died the previous year and we felt bad saying no), and she paid for a lot of stuff.

We drove to OBX a few years ago and split a rental house with some friends. We either ordered dinner or bought groceries and cooked, so food costs were low. We didn't really love it - nice beaches and nice people, but we like to explore rather than lay on the beach. So we left a day early and stopped in Baltimore for an Orioles game.

We went to Rehoboth Beach a few years ago with our four closest friends, and that was a lot of fun. I'd love to do it again, but now that young kids and multiple dogs are in the picture it's pretty impossible to even hang out at our house together. We also went to Atlantic City with them a few times in the past, which wasn't expensive, especially because one friend usually gets a free/cheap hotel room.

On our own, MH and I have been to Boston, Philadelphia, and the Jersey Shore multiple times. Chicago once by itself, before the epic road trip. Also: Washington DC, Baltimore, Providence, Montreal, Lake George, Orange County NY, and Vermont.

We've been talking about southern Maine a lot lately, so we may try to swing that later this year. Also, if there are no unexpected house expenses or anything like that by the end of this year, we'd like to try to get to Belgium, and/or London again.

[Deleted]

We have gone to Vegas 3x in the $900-$1000 range for accommodations and airfare. 3 nights, 4 days. We take the first flight out in the morning and the last non-red eye flight in the afternoon/evening to maximize our time.

We went to Omaha earlier this month for the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting and spent $800 on airfare, just about $500 for our hotel, and $280 for a rental car. We stayed 4 nights and spent ~$300 on food and an additional $100ish on souvenirs and gifts.

[mrssandro]

We are doing a trip to Panama city and it's well under 3k. No flights and we are driving. I wish it was longer but PTO is limited due to maternity leave this year.

[Velar Fricative]

Our honeymoon in Prague for a week cost just under $3k including all the spending we did there. We lucked out with a great package deal on Priceline.

When we went back to Prague last year, we only paid for one flight (used FF miles for the other) but still spent around $2k for the whole thing. That was also for one week.

Our domestic and Canadian vacations have all been well under $3k. We don't intentionally try to pinch pennies, I guess we're just not living the high life when we go on vacation even though I assumed we were!

[imojoebunny]

I traded houses for 10 days with a friend who lived in Cambridge, England. I had a buddy pass, so flew first class for $300 in taxes. He stayed at my house, and I stayed in his. Total outlay was $800, all in, food drink, tourist attractions, and transportation. He came back the last night and we went out.

I also stayed with a family in Boston for 1 month, and travelled around from there with their son from Thursday to Tuesday to visit his friends in Maine, Nantucket, cape cod, NYC, and near Harvard. That trip was about $1,000 which included buying their family of 5 dinner once a week, and paying for all gas.

DH and I spent 7 days driving from Portland down to San Fran for $1500, including flight and rental car. DH road his bike, so no airfare for him going, just coming home. I have also done San Fran down to Carmel and across to sequoia, and back to San Fran.

Before I got married, I was a plus 1 for a lot of awesome platonic trips. I went to a lot of older peoples vacation places, to parents vacation homes with friends, ect. Beaches, mountains, rivers ranches. It was fun. My DH doesn't like to stay at others homes, so now we have our own place, and I take my friends. I am always happy to have a good guest, even if I am not there.

For cheap travel with my kids, I camp. I like to camp, so it's no big deal for me.

[kadams767]

We rented a cabin and went skiing in Vermont for 6 days for about $1500. The biggest expense there was lift tickets. We went out for maybe one nice dinner, everything else was casual gastropub type places or we cooked at the cabin. We brought the dog and all went snowshoeing and hiking together, had big fires in the fireplace and had a ton of apres ski fun! One of my favorite trips ever.

[Deleted]

12 days backpacking tour in Scotland/reunion with U of Edinburgh friends who studied there when I did.

All three of our cruises, including 7 day Celebrity cruise in Eastern Caribbean for our honeymoon.

Summer working/playing in Yellowstone National Park.

Next summer, we'll stay at my parents' timeshare in Orlando, and expect the week at Disney to be well under $3k for DH, myself and C.

I've always been lower middle class, so $3000 feels like an incredible vacation budget for me.

[ddi741]

For several years we traveled with friends for 3 days every summer. Our budget was $500-600/couple including food, hotel and fun.

Most of the time we were able to find decent accomodations although one time we were in a really BAD hotel but the one everyone liked the best was in Bryce, VA.
We rented a house at a ski resort. Since it was July, it was really cheap. They had the resort open with rides up the ski lift and there was a nearby lake with paddleboats etc.  We mostly hung out at the house and bbqd and drank.  We did visit a historic mansion in a nearby town too.

[cosmos]

Nearly every domestic trip (CA, Phoenix, Florida a bunch of times), Caribbean cruises, Mexico.

$3k is definitely enough for 2 people. It's tighter with 3, but free airfare helps. I think we should be around $3k for Disney for the three of us for a week. (Free air, Disney meal plan + hotel = $1600, park tickets= $900, leaving $500 for tips, misc).

[RandZB]

I think all of our vacations have been under $3,000. We've been to Disney World twice for about $2500 each time (driving and staying on-site with the dining plan). We can go to the beach and rent a condo off VRBO and the entire trip would cost less than $1000.

[aurora]

Most of our domestic vacations fall into that category. Actually, even our 2.5 weeks in Hawaii did in 2012, but that's only because my work paid for my flight and part of our hotel and my parents met us there and paid for the rental house, so that probably doesn't count.

We do a fair number of road trips, for example to the Oregon coast last year and various Utah national parks the year before, that cost much less than $3k. It helps that we're very happy to camp.

Our ski hut trip in Alaska was also under $3k total, including flights.

[glynn]

We are going on a cruise for 7 days 3 adults and DD2(6) $2,500.

[Deleted]

Traveling for a month through Lesotho, Mozambique, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe.