NYC/NE resident here, almost all my life. I'm an older parent and DH and I were married for almost 20 years before we had kids. Intense but high earning jobs, lots of work travel. We bought DVC when our kids were young to stop jamming in vacations when one of us was at a conference. It's just not fun with a toddler. (despite my avatar, I am female and it always seemed we spent more "vacation" time at his conferences; before we had kids it was more evenly split...
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My parents did a lot of driving trips in the summers when I was young and they were teachers - so I'd visited the lower 48 by the time I was 8 or 10. We got to Hawaii for the first time when I was 18, and Alaska when I was in my 30s. (So all 50 checked for me)
DH's family always went camping to the same place when he was growing up, so he's not really a fan of camping (funny how either you replicate things or do the opposite, later). I like it enough to do it once in a while but I really prefer indoor plumbing and private baths so it's a little more glamping than camping.
Between my family, travel with DH, and work, I've been to every continent except Africa and Antarctica, all 50 states, and multiple countries in each of the continents I've visited (except Australia, LOL).
Prekids we would do a lot of other vacations - major cities, Europe, etc.
In this phase of life, WDW is just perfect, and
DCL too, but WDW is our preference, especially with DVC.
Who knows later in life where things will go.
Agreed - scuba diving in Bora Bora and French Polynesia was one of my core memories in pre-kid travel. We'd usually take one beach or scuba trip a year, and one cultural/city trip a year.
Pre-COVID (and pre-DVC), we did longer aspirational trips, including the Great Wall, Machu Picchu, Thailand and Cambodia (Angkor Wat), etc., but that level of travel has subsided a good bit.
We are "unofficially" capped at 900 points, specifically because we don't want to spend all of our vacation time at Disney, and there is a huge real world outside of Disney World.
Same - our kids are at the perfect age (and same schools) where we can all take time off together, they pack and carry their own stuff, and while they love Disney they also appreciate other trips. (But they also love Disney because they know it well and can have a level of independence they don't get otherwise.) Now with our lotsa points, we bring other families, my dad, my sister's family, enjoying it before high school for the older kid curtails when we can go places.
We have a lot of places we love and a few bucket list to-do items saved for when the kids get a bit older. Before we had kids @MrsNVDISFamily and I would try and hit a new spot every year and had some adventures.
Same! Last summer we took the kids to Greece (Athens + some islands) and and we missed all the bad weather. Also went to Hawaii (Aulani + Waikiki) . This year, New Orleans and probably London. My 8 yo wants to go to "real Paris" despite ODD having been there 2-3x already, and YDD was there in 2018 but only has hazy memories. We were going to visit a friend stationed in Shanghai in 2022 (planning from 2019) and that would have been our first non-US Disney visit but we all know what happened then ... kids have only been to Europe and N. America, last year the flights to Hawaii and Greece were challenging but doable, so I think we will look farther in the coming years.
Locally, we ski in VT, have a few driving-distance kid-friendly resorts we hit occasionally for a weekend for outdoorsy stuff. Then something Disney-related at least 2x a year, and something else longer distance and not-Disney: this year, London/UK (probably only 4 days) and New Orleans (4 days).
