Traveling is fun for our family for many reasons that I wont get into in this post. I think it is interesting to take an eye bird’s view at how much we spend on travel overall. I like to dig a little deeper to see how we were able to accomplish this or to see where we could improve. I’ll start by sharing our overall travel costs for the last 2 years.
Year | Destination | Purpose | Costs |
2017 | Puerto Rico | Renee’s Birthday | 1,336 |
2017 | Aruba | Anniversary (2 yr) | 1,914 |
2017 | Pittsburgh | Fun and Exploration | 166 |
2017 | Fort Myers | Family and Friends | 466 |
2017 | Orlando | Family and Friends | 449 |
2018 | Jamaica | Anniversary (3 yr) | 1,030 |
2018 | San Francisco | Fun and Exploration | 1,172 |
2018 | Orlando | Family and Friends | 405 |
2018 | Punta Cana | Family and Friends | 817 |
2019 | Cancun | Family and Friends | 1052 |
Total | 8,807 |
I think of travel in 3 categories:
- Family and Friends: Events we are invited to (think destination weddings, birthday get aways)
- Fun and Exploration: For the heck of it
- Anniversary: My wife and I go on a (mandatory) trip every year to celebrate or anniversary
The only trips I track will be those that are paid for with joint family funds. In other words, the cruise to Cuba we took for my wife’s birthday and our trip to Breathless resort in Riviera Maya, Mexico for my birthday, will not be reflected here because they were paid for by our individual funds.
In future posts I will try to dive into each trip deeper and see what went right or wrong and what we would do differently from a financial standpoint.