We don’t do tent camping and we have no intention of investing in an RV/travel trailer at all. To me, it’s not a vacation if I’m still doing all the work. We stay in Airbnb, or hotels when we travel…or with relatives when we visit our families.
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DD1 has an Odyssey and it does have a lot of room! DH, DD1, 3 kids and I have made two trips in it - and behind the 3rd row seating is very good storage space.
I imagine there are some seniors that have RV trips and gatherings. Aunt and Uncle did that for a bit of time.
Rental car rates may have me adjust some of the traveling plans. Air fare is fine. I guess we just all need to look at the paradigm changes, and adjust where we want to adjust for traveling.
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My husband loves to do bareboat sailing charter trips. All the cost of a nice resort with all the work of being home! I enjoy it but depending on location I’m cooking and cleaning three meals a day made up with locally sourced ingredients.
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I know some people love this…but unless it’s with a private chef or a cooking class, I’m really not interested cooking and cleaning around three meals a day. To me…that’s not a vacation.
So…our vacation allotment of funds includes meals out as well as travel and lodging costs.
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I’m right there with you. To me vacation is a reprieve from the cooking and cleaning.
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Yes! Eating out in new places is the best part of traveling, IMO.
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I got husband to move to San Diego eight years ago and now he has little or no interest in traveling. I think partly it’s because I have trouble sleeping in the same room (his snoring issues) plus he thinks we can’t agree on too much stuff to plan effectively. I think that’s because he thinks I always say he’s wrong, and I think he uses opinion instead of fact too much.
I had been looking into solo cruises before the pandemic but am still leery of cruise ships. I’ve been tracking the adult women vacation type threads here but too many of them would expect me to be active. I’m lazy!
So we save a lot of money not traveling! In the last few years, a few trips to see son in Seattle and the nephew’s wedding in Saratoga Springs, and last year I talked husband into Palm Springs and Joshua Tree. Any more trips would likely have to be close and done by car, and thoroughly planned ahead. Most of our old traveling had been spring and winter trips to warm weather areas, and visiting our parents who are gone.
Also I haven’t slept in a tent since I was a cub scout den leader and had no choice. I have no desire to work on vacations. When we were young, we did a bareboat charter in the Abaco Islands with two other couples. The boat was fully stocked with food we had all chosen. We did have to do our own cooking although we ate on the islands a few times. I was the designated bartender every evening; that was fun.
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These are such great responses on travel! Seems like the idea of getting out and about while your health/mobility is available is a really important one.
I think I have to rerun our projections! Talked to someone at work today who retired a year ago and has done various AirBnBs in warm-weather places, trips overseas, etc. He said renting a car at a month-long AirBnB in AZ was over $3k!
Really made me rethink the cost of individual planned trips post-retirement. Our usual “drive to the beach and share a house with family” budget could be far exceeded by just a rental car! Need to really nail down the type of travel and how much each trip would cost - rather than just doing a yearlong estimate!
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I am a big believer in doing a bit of grand traveling while still working “those few extra years” that ensure a comfortable retirement. (I was not able to pull this quite off as much as we would have liked due to job constraints and a priority for family-based travel). Yes, it means less money saved into the retirement nest egg. But if it keeps you happy while working / getting cheap medical coverage… it’s worth consideration.
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Interesting, Colorado_mom - I’ve been thinking along those same lines.
My first stage of ‘prep for retirement’ has been getting rid of stuff in our house and meeting with a financial planner ( 
!).
But now I’m thinking along the lines of travel to check out different locales - and if we found one, even buying land, starting a build, or whatever. Doing that while still earning money would be awesome! 
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Yes, I was surprised by rent car rates - DH is more in tune with those, and we had a recent discussion on it. I might be rethinking my travel to being a bit around utilizing a rent car in a more limited manner. Just like my time in Switzerland was based on the train pass (at that time, tourist rate was max 29 days). Also going to more heavily use our Capital One credit card (for air fare and car rental), as I have plenty of Hilton and Marriott points for stays. Have enough Capital One points for round trip air fare to DD1 for Oct/Nov time frame, but may be rethinking this travel. After DH takes this trip 2, will see about how we handle his trip 3 (if I go along), and then Oct/Nov trip to TX (from AL).
My grocery purchases using Hilton credit card gives double points. I have to look back to see if Sam’s or Wal-Mart purchases doesn’t count with double points. Anything at Target I use debit card.
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We also did some big trips /a fair amount of travel while still working, per plan to enjoy ourselves while we were working longer than “necessary.” We took 5 vacations in 2019, and planned for 5 in 2020. But then COVID came along. Now we are retired and have some years to make up for.
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The price of rental cars does influence vacation plans. We went to Hawaii in 2022, and my husband (the default driver) didn’t want to drive there. Well it turns out rental cars were in low supply, super pricey. And in some hotels parking was $50/day. We planned around it, avoided renting a car.
Since it was our first trip to Hawaii, we were perfectly happy to just use Waikiki Beach hotel (a bit busy/loud, but nice change after Covid isolation). Spent lots of time in outdoor restaurants and our 20th floor balcony overlooking the water. Also we went on a few nice bus tours. Where needed we used our airport transfers and taxi/uber. It was a pleasure
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Unless I am visiting family my vacations should be at a high class of living than my normal life. I am all about quality than quantity in terms of vacation.
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Agreed regarding hating to spend hundreds just to sleep. I wish reasonably priced capsule hotels were a thing in this country as I need little more than shower access, safety and wifi.
Sleeping in a tent with a nice mattress is just fine for me. I’ve been camping all my life and my chair by a fire, soup or coffee in hand, makes me very happy. Camping alone, I am mixed about. Will sleep in my SUV at some point. Tents can be simple to set up, as is my mattress and bag.
The cost of rental cars is what made me buy a vehicle for driving across the country. I want to be in the west for extended time periods, and driving makes that possible.
Agreed, the old shorter Caravan was perfect. My first one was stick shift, even better. Remove the back seat, it became my bike shed on wheels.
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And people travel differently just like the live differently.
So $15K may be a lot for some people and not nearly enough for others. (We stayed at the “value resorts” at Disney, not the Grand Floridian 
.)
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DD2 (who has lived in Orlando for 2 years now and with Annual Passes/BF (who grew up in FL and many trips to Disney World) pretty much know a lot about Disney World. DD2 guides/advises friends and family, and does a lot of meet ups with them at Disney World. So when DD2/BF were here recently, we pulled out the Disney Parks DVD Vacation Planning – which we had received April 2007 (we had our Family One Time Trip fall 2007). We have all been back since, but not as a 4 person family unit trip. They wanted to watch every section, and they could say what has changed, what isn’t there any more, etc. Almost all the hotel prices and packages they offered at the time were shown on the DVD (except they didn’t spell out the top hotel pricing).
Oct 2007, we had driven down, and my mom flew in - we were in the Contemporary (the wing of it) and the accommodations worked out great. Over a number of years, I helped my mom with several group trips with people I knew and leaders I knew (Ireland, Italy, other European trips), and we had her along on this Disney trip. We stayed one night near the Orlando airport, and when my mom flew in, we went and checked in at Disney (I believe we had 5 nights and 4 days); after that last night, we drove mom to the airport and drove home.
So now, we weigh out all the factors on any trip, include what we want with the best way travel and accommodations works out. Want to include enough with the trip to make it a satisfying experience.
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We used to do backpacking trips. Not so great for my back these days – and sleeping on the ground isn’t as comfortable as it used to be. Happy to do rustic, but we have not been backpacking for a number of years.
My son was leading backpacking trips for friends at Yosemite and my daughter accompanied him on at least one, I believe. So they are carrying on the tradition.
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I still do backpacking trips (walked the JMT with my D last year). But that’s not spouse’s idea of a vacation! The closest we’ve got is planning a long distance (~200 mile) walk from pub to pub in the UK for next spring.
What we don’t do any longer is the weekend car camping trips that we used to do when the kids were small. Just too much junk to haul around and set up.
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