What would you do to make a once in a lifetime vacation happen?

[MagicKingdom05]

Hi,

Lets say you have a dream once in a life time vacation that you have always wanted to take but for whatever reason be it limited $$$$, lack of vacation time, etc you haven't or don't think you will ever beable to take it.

Now lets say you have a chance to make this dream vacation happen, but it would take a some sacrifice on your part to make it happen for the next 10-11 months. This might intale taking no more vacation time for the rest of year, cutting out extra things, (ie no eatting out, having friends come over instead of going to a movie, etc), and curbing your overall spending for awhile to name a few.

Would you be willing to do this if you knew at the end of the tunnel, that dream was going to become a reality, and a very very special trip was now yours.

 

[debster812]

As long as the sacrifices did not infringe on the 'grown up' stuff. Savings, bills, insurance, etc..... Then yes, I have, and I would again.

 

[Tink&SquirtsMom]

I agree with everything Debster812 said.

 

[MagicKingdom05]

debster812,

I ment cutting extra stuff like eating out, movies, coffee in the morning, etc the little extras that can add up, not your financial responsibilities (home, savings, etc).

I would think the hardest part would be seeing others at work taking vacations and knowing that to make this work, you wouldn't get one for a while.

 

[kejoda]

I could see the wanting to take vacations, but if you only talking until the end of the year I say go for it. Sounds like minor sacrifices to make a dream come true.

Btw where are you going?

 

[bettyann29]

Yes I definitely would.. We are actually doing this next year.. We have a dream vacation to Hawaii planned for 2008 and in order to make that happen it means all next year we will basically get no extras.. we do plan on camping for a week at the coast as our actual family vcation rather than going to wdw or cruising.. but it will be worth it..

 

[Skatermom23]

debster812,

I ment cutting extra stuff like eating out, movies, coffee in the morning, etc the little extras that can add up, not your financial responsibilities (home, savings, etc).

I would think the hardest part would be seeing others at work taking vacations and knowing that to make this work, you wouldn't get one for a while.

We do a big vacation every 18-24 months. That way we cut back but are not so limited that we can't splurge every now and then. It never bothers me to hear others are going on vacation because I know I will vacation MY WAY!

 

[kaylajr]

Yup doing it this year
to make a vacation back to WDW in Dec happen

 

[Alicnwondrln]

yes we already do that so we may save more in general and for vacations
i pack DH lunch, we dont go out to eat that much
probably once a month if that we dont go to movies, we wait for dvds.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Yes and we are....we've been "saving" for a dream trip in October---working on ways to make it even more like a dream. At present, some corners cutting involved--but I have taken a work at home job to help raise more funds.

We have been planning this trip since 2001. It took 5 years of accruing airline miles, rental car points and hotel points--plus the requisite cash savings level (hubby travels a lot for work). We are seriously watching our p's and q's so as not to "waste" money via unncecessary spending this year. While in some ways we are economizing--in other ways-we will not be.


I *used* to be jealous of others vacations--now we taken them every 1 to 3 years.....and I am not so jealous anymore. They may be off for yet another weekend...we have friends going to Australia in May. In years past I would have wished it were me. But alas--we have our own destination to look forward too.

I still get spring fever for a cruise though. Starts about now and lasts until May. The sunny, warm days and beautiful skies in that timeframe--I think,man I wish I was on a boat right now. Not jealousy-just a side effect of living in Florida, half an hour from Port Canaveral.

 

[MagicKingdom05]

Thanks.

 

[Crankyshank]

Absolutely - we're planning our 10yr anniversary/last hurrah before children trip now. More likely than not it's a once in a lifetime vacation for us.
While it's going to mean saving up, using next year's tax return, cutting back on "treats" and I'll probably feel extremely jealous of friends who are traveling and going out to eat while we are scrimping, in reality I've always been a little bit jealous of those who do that because we're always saving up for something. It's just in this case it's not a home improvement, it's a vacation.

 

[Free4Life11]

Then yes, I have, and I would again.

But if you did it againt it wouldn't be once in a lifetime

 

[cardaway]

Now lets say you have a chance to make this dream vacation happen, but it would take a some sacrifice on your part to make it happen for the next 10-11 months...

Would you be willing to do this if you knew at the end of the tunnel, that dream was going to become a reality, and a very very special trip was now yours.

Since we insist on paying cash for things you just described how we achieve most of our goals, including vacations. We learned our lesson and now don't take lots of smaller trips, just fewet trips that can be everything we want it to be. The other way just resulted in every vacation being average.

 

[mainewmn]

Since my family likes to travel and we take two vacations a year we sort of evaluate each spending on the “vacation scale” meaning do I have to have it or would I rather put it away for bigger/better/longer vacation. So we curb the amount of times we eat out, we rent movies and games for entertainment, tend to avoid stores unless we have a very specific purchase in mind, bring our own coffee, lunches etc, etc. Works for us but I know some of our friends ask us a lot how we can afford to go away so frequently, have our own house, two car payments and still mange savings accounts. They don’t understand how much their frivolous spending affects their overall budget.

 

[debster812]

But if you did it againt it wouldn't be once in a lifetime

lol. Let's see, once in a lifetime, per specific location???? How's that?

To the OP--sounds like your ducks are in a row, I would say go for it.

 

[MagicKingdom05]

debster812,

Thanks for your help. I aleady have a vacation planned for March and will need to cancel that one to make my huge december one work. I can get all the $$$ back for it because of trip insurance so that's not going to be an issue.

By the way, my dream trip is to fly first class from Chicago to Oahu and then spend 2.5 weeks at a very very nice resort on the beach. I would leave Dec 27 and come back on Jan 14th. I really want to do this trip and will do what I can to make it happen.

 

[MickeyMickey]

Jason,

What happened to the trip to Cancun with the girl from Vegas?????????

 

[MagicKingdom05]

MickeyMickey,

First of all, everything is good between us so that isn't an issue. I found out yesterday that her coworkers due date has been moved up to 3/3 and we were suppose to leave on 3/4. When we planned this we knew it was a possibility that we might have to move our vacation if she had her baby before hand, so we have always had December in the back of our minds as a possibility. The good thing is we got travel insurance so everything will be refunded.

This is where this whole post started from and how the opportunity for this to possibly happen started. I brought up the idea of taking a long trip to Hawaii in December 06/January 07 for a couple of weeks and she really loved the idea. This does mean we will both have to make some sacrifices for the next 10 months to make this work, but she is game and so am I. She has never been, and I have but it was awhile ago and it was a really short trip (made the mistake of only going for 4 nights). Like I said my dream has always been to take a nice long long trip to Hawaii and not have to worry about $$$$, and I get to do this and at the same time go with someone else so it's a bonus on top of a really good situation.

Even if this didn't come up we were starting to think about changing this anyways, because Cancun isn't up and going as much as we had wanted. Some of the reports from people who have gone recently were about waiting until they get it all cleaned up before going.

 

[chell]

Sounds like you have really thought this through and have a great plan. Especially since you are going within the next year I think it will not be too hard at all for you to do.