Should I vacation now when I'm young or later when I'm old?

[ronb]

I know I've been posing a lot of vacation questions lately but I've started doing this thing where I try to live without regrets. I'm trying to experience life more. It's probably because I went to 2 funerals last month. Anyway.

The obvious answer from a financial perspective is to save up while young, let the interest compound, and travel when older.

But I've had a lot of older guys say, "The time to travel is when you're young. You get to do more stuff." But those are all rich guys who have never had to worry about money before. I'm doing alright financially but I'm by now means 'set'.

I guess the upside (financially speaking) to traveling when young is you're more able to cut costs like walking instead of taking taxi's, sleeping in airports, and using things like Airbnb without real safety/well-being concerns.

I guess right now I'm just annoyed because a $3,000, 2-week trip means a few things:

A) I have to spend $3,000
B) That money is gone forever - means no turning into 5 figures by the time I retire
C) Opportunity cost. I work freelance so a 2-week vacation means my income dries up for 2 weeks.

What do you guys recommend? What have been your thoughts?

[Fishindude77]

You don't mention your age, marriage status or if you have kids.

If you are young, single, and all of your financial obligations can still be taken care of, I say go for it and have fun.

[disneysteve]

I think you should include "Vacation" as a line item in your budget. It shouldn't be done in place of saving for the future. It should be done along with saving for the future.

That might mean that a $3,000, 2-week trip is not an option but you can do plenty of nice vacations that won't cost anywhere near that much.

I agree that you should travel at all ages to the extent that your finances allow.

[Tabs]

My feeling is that you should do it when you can afford to do so.

At what point is when you can afford it? When all the other bills are largely taken cared of, that you have an emergency fund already filled, retirement and other savings handled, etc., and when you have enough saved up from what's left.

I'm not the type that believes you have to wait until you are old or retired or something to see the world and build memories and experiences. However, I do believe it is important to having your financial ducks in a row first before you start spending your hard earned money on wants.

[scfr]

I believe in doing both. Perhaps you should think about your definition of "vacation." It can mean all kinds of things. My husband & I like to travel, but we like to mix it up, and we consider ourselves relatively frugal vacationers. Two years ago we took a 10-day overseas trip. But in the past year our vacation has consisted of several 2 or 3 day trips around our state (Texas): 3 days to Dallas, 2 days to Houston, and 2 days to Corpus Christi. I'm also planning a couple super-mini-vacations exploring some free or very inexpensive sites I have yet to see right here in the city where I live. Some people may not think of an outing in their hometown or a weekend getaway as a vacation, but we do. It's the state of mind we choose.

If you take advantage of things like hotel rewards, mini-vacations can be mini-budget.

[MonkeyMama]

If it's important to you, do it now. You only live once. It's all about priorities. If it's a high priority you can make it work, but something else will probably have to give.

Growing up, we never traveled anywhere or did vacations. As a young retiree my dad now travels all the time. I had *no idea* he even liked to travel. In the end he is one of those people who never traveled at all when young, saved it up, and now could afford to travel basically anywhere. IT worked out for him, but I think that's a pretty big gamble. Age isn't slowing him down by any means, but the gamble is assuming you live long enough. In fact, I Will back up and say that my parents started to spend more travel dollars when a relatives of theirs passed suddenly very young. I was maybe in high school at the time. It's just that the dollars spent on travel have been significantly ramped up since my dad retired. They kind of eased into it slowly and then ramped it up significantly when they had more time on their hands.

On the flip side, I have friends who love to travel and just make it their financial priority.

I kind of fall in the middle. I don't really enjoy big travel, but we like to do a lot of long weekend and road trip type stuff. I think it's ridiculous my parents could never fit in a mini-vacation and maybe feel like I am making up for that. We don't set aside big dollars for vacation because it's not a priority for us. We will still manage to do a lot. (We are actually in the middle of a big vacation splurge year but I figure it's something we will do like once every decade or so. It's just how circumstances fell).

[riverwed070707]

I can't even wrap my head around the idea of waiting until you're old to vacation. You need mental breaks. You need a break from the daily grind. While I don't think you should put your future in jeopardy or take out a loan to vacation, I believe you should every year. Your definition of vacation can be scaled based on available time and finances but the idea that you should skip them in order to save every penny (savings goals should be a set amount, not just or everything that is left over) and wait until your old is a gamble that it may never happen. You have to enjoy the ride, not just put on blinders until you reach the finish line.

I love the phrase that we work to live, we don't live to work and I think it applies here. There is tons of research on how vacations (or at least breaks from work) not only help prevent burnout but also are good for your mental and physical well being. Think its time you add vacation as a line item to your budget and just consider it a guilt free expense instead of looking at it as spending savings.

[rennigade]

If you like to vacation and have the funds then do it as much as you can...young and old.

I cringe when I hear people say that they are waiting until retirement to travel around. Sure it can be done, unfortunately you are going to be limiting what you can do at retirement vs what you can do while you are young in terms of physical activities. Ive done 20 mile day hikes that took 13 hours...I couldnt imagine doing that when im older. My knees say "no thanks."

[MonkeyMama]

I love the phrase that we work to live, we don't live to work and I think it applies here. There is tons of research on how vacations (or at least breaks from work) not only help prevent burnout but also are good for your mental and physical well being. Think its time you add vacation as a line item to your budget and just consider it a guilt free expense instead of looking at it as spending savings.

I just took the OP's question to mean in terms of travel. I didn't take it to mean never taking a break from work.

The personality type for my field is generally or "doesn't like to travel" and "stays home on work breaks." IT's just what most of us do unless we have family members or spouses that drag us everywhere.

[disneysteve]

Travel can mean all kinds of things, with all kinds of price tags. It can be camping in a state park or taking a luxury tour of Europe. So by all means travel, just do it within the bounds of your budget.

[Like2Plan]

I believe you should take a vacation. It should be a line item in your budget, but it should not be at the expense of other things (like retirement or kids college savings, for example). Do what you are able to afford. It isn't all or nothing.
When I was young, I saved up for a (relatively) cheap month long trip to Europe. I had all my stuff in a back pack and I stayed in youth hostels. It was great then--but I don't think my bad back would take the backpack anymore. I'd probably want a little more comfort these days.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I wish we had traveled more before we had kids. I regret being so financially conservative we didn't. We traveled quite a bit I admit, but not as much as we could have. We could have easily indulged and spent a lot more like many friends. But at the same time we bought ourselves our types of freedoms that others don't have.

But I like to tell people who ask when we were younger we had time but no money. Now my DH and I have money but no time with the kids to go and travel. I wish we had done our macchu picchu and galapago trip when younger. But we were being cheap and didn't.

We just did a cross country trip if we didn't have an opportune time we'd never have done. Cheap? Probably not as cheap as it could be. But now we have money more than time. And probably never had a month to do it again.

Oh well. Say la vie.

[Drake3287]

I can totally relate to your question. I've been traveling every year since I was married back in 1985 and have taken yearly trips with kids to Hawaii or the Caribbean not to mention the typical Disneyland or DisneyWorld trips. For me, I was lucky that I had a job that offered a lot of overtime, it basically paid for all our trips.

Now that I'm in my 50's and retired with kids grown, my wife and I take larger trips to places like Europe. Like was said earlier, you never know what life will hand you down the road. If you can afford it, travel now and enjoy it. Waiting until your in your 60's or later may never happen.

[FLA]

I think you should include "Vacation" as a line item in your budget. It shouldn't be done in place of saving for the future. It should be done along with saving for the future.

I agree with this and I believe strongly if travel means a lot to you, do it whenever you have the desire, the money and the time to do so. I am biased because of having worked for hospice, do not wait on anything really important to you, even if it means a frugal vacation, because you never know what the future holds. Waiting til you are old to travel sounds horrible and might mean it never happens. If you've got the funds, your financial plan is intact, GO!!!

[riverwed070707]

I just took the OP's question to mean in terms of travel. I didn't take it to mean never taking a break from work.

The personality type for my field is generally or "doesn't like to travel" and "stays home on work breaks." IT's just what most of us do unless we have family members or spouses that drag us everywhere.

I took it quite the opposite because of the way he laid out the "cost" as being $3000 less to invest and lost income because of time away from work - to me that says he's not taking breaks from work. I could be wrong but I just meant to say I don't think its important where you go or how much you spend, just that you are taking vacation time away from work.