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Our Vacation Plans for the Next 12 Months

Last Updated: BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 57 Comments

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I know, I know, I’ve been talking about our vacation to St. Thomas/St. John a lot! I’m just too excited and it’ll be nice to get away to somewhere nice where the weather will be awesome. And we all know that I like to talk about vacations and traveling so much that I like to annoy everyone to death.

We don’t have a lot planned. Some parasailing (hopefully), a kayak + snorkeling trip, and lots of relaxing by the beach. The trip will be pretty cheap (relative to most vacations).

No more than $1,500 altogether (which includes everything). We are staying at an all-inclusive resort which I found a great rate for.

We’ve never done an all-inclusive, so I’m looking forward to this. Have you ever done all-inclusive? How was it for you?

I do have to think of ways to save on this vacation though.

I already have a bachelorette party in Memphis (Beale Street woohoo!) to plan, a couple’s vacation to either New Orleans or Colorado (still undecided) with two of our close friends, and another girls’ trip planned for next year (most likely Miami). And since we are talking about possibly getting married next year, we also have our respective bachelor/bachelorette parties as well. W also wants a guys’ vacation to Las Vegas (oh boy am I worried about that). Plus, W and I will most likely go on a vacation together by ourselves next year also.

So let’s recap that:

1. St. Thomas – Relatively cheap, $1,500
2. Memphis Bachelorette Party – This will be cheap, no more than $300
3. Couple’s vacation to New Orleans or Colorado – Relatively cheap, $1,000
4. Miami girl’s trip – Not too bad, $1,000
5. W’s Las Vegas trip – Expensive, Expensive, Expensive, don’t even want to know
6. Our vacation by ourselves – Expensive.

Now that’s a lot of trips that we have planned! Not as many as Michelle from Filling in the Dots (PS she is living my dream currently, check out her blog if you haven’t). I am super excited for them all but they will definitely hurt our wallets. It does help that because a lot of the trips will be with other couples, that there will be a bunch of us splitting the costs.

So besides of trying to think of ways that I can come up with enough vacations days for all of these trips, I also need to start saving enough money. We DO have a travel fund, but it is not large enough for all of these trips planned for next year. I will be working on building it up for these trips. I won’t be working on building it back up until AFTER my student loans are paid off though (read my $38,000 student loan payoff plan).

There are a lot of things that we thought about and factored in for this vacation.

Hotels.

Hotels are the number one way that we try to save when we go on a vacation. However, we aren’t trying to risk how comfortable we are in order to save a couple of dollars. We want a cheap hotel, but also something that is a good value. I’m the type of person who needs a very clean room or I cannot sleep at all.

For all of the trips next year (and the one next week), we will be staying in a hotel. And, for the girl’s trip and the couples’ vacation, we either want to get a 2 bedroom (or bigger) villas or rooms. This way we can save money and have more space.

Flights.

I can fly for super cheap (I hate bringing it up, but it’s because I inherited my dad’s retirement benefits) but when I go on trips with my friends, I leave it up to them and whether they want to fly or not. And of course I don’t want to fly by myself (in order for me to fly, I am on standby and wouldn’t want to risk not being able to show up because of a sold-out flight) so I leave it up to my friends.

It’s either we take a cheap flight to a place such as Miami (this is where we want to go for our girls’ vacation) or we drive. For a place like Miami, we will of course fly (that would be a horrific drive with 6 girls if we did that), but for the Memphis bachelorette party we will most likely drive as it is only around 5 hours away.

The New Orleans or Colorado trip will be a driving trip as well, as the guys like to drive (which is fine by me because I’ll just sleep!). And then W’s Vegas trip will be flying, since that would be a scary hungover drive home for them if they drove.

What are your vacation plans? What is your dream vacation?

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About Michelle Schroeder-Gardner

Michelle is the founder of Making Sense of Cents, a blog about personal finance and traveling. She discusses how her business has evolved in her side income series. She paid off $40,000 in student loans by the age of 24 mainly due to her freelancing side hustles. Click here to learn more about starting a blog!

Comments

  1. Laura @ NMS says

    We're going to NY ( hopefully twice!!) and either Vienna or Lucerne depending on the cost.

    It sounds like you have a fun year planned!
    My recent post Our Financial Goals for 2013

    Reply

  2. DC@Young Adult Money says

    All-inclusives are great! We went to one for our honeymoon and it was nice knowing that we had already paid for everything in advance. It was especially nice having all the food and drinks we could want. We ate very well.

    "W’s Las Vegas trip – Expensive, Expensive, Expensive, don’t even want to know" I had to laugh at this. My friends are headed to Vegas and I keep thinking of how much fun it would be to go with them. I had to pass, though, because we have some savings goals for 2013 as well as wanting to pour some money into upgrades for our house.
    My recent post Is Collecting things a Waste of Time and Money?

    Reply

  3. John S @ Frugal Rules says

    Wow, those look like some nice trips! We're hoping to be able to make it to San Diego next summer to see family. We're also hoping to take a nice cruise in a few years, so we're saving for that as well.

    Reply

  5. Brian says

    The only large trip we have is a cruise from LA to Mexico with my wife's family (won't be too bad since we only have to pay for our flight to LA, assuming I don't just churn a credit card to pay for it).

    Other than that we will probably take a couple of weekend trips away. I will try to time these with some hotel promos to make my next trip much less expensive.

    I'll be interested to learn about your all inclusive experience. They seem to be either love it or hate it. I hope you end up in the love it side of things!

    Reply

  6. munchkin says

    wow you have a lot of vacations planned! Can't wait to hear about all them. I just did my first ever all inclusive and it was awesome! Its such a cool concept to just go down to the bar or restaurant and order whatever you want without thinking about price. We could even order room service! It was really awesome. I think I am hooked now. lol
    My recent post Mexico Recap

    Reply

  7. Evencheap says

    All inclusive's are great, especially since you don't have to worry about food. We're planning a few trips next year to Costa Rica, Belize, and Jamaica. Hubby's from Jamaica and really wants to go. I would honestly prefer not to go simply because I have been there a ton of times and I like going places I've never been. Plus we were just there last year.

    Have lots of fun on your trips. I've been to Miami once, but never got to really explore the city. I would love to go back.

    My dream vacation would be Dubai! I have to make that dream come true!
    My recent post Regaining Your Financial Health After Bankruptcy

    Reply

  11. mycanuckbuck says

    Wow – sounds amazing. We did all inclusive once – it wasn't bad, but we overlapped with spring break, and it was LOUD! As for dream vacation..mmm..Hawaii..
    My recent post Cheaper to make from scratch or buy from the store?

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  12. SavvyFinancialLatina says

    We just came back from our vacation! We want to go on two vacations in 2013, but we will have to see where. I would love to go to Cancun (beach!). We have a huge down payment savings goal in 2013, so I'm not sure how pricey our vacations will be. It will probably be limited.

    Have you used Airbnb? We used in DC and it was awesome!

    Reply

  13. Budget & the Beach says

    I went on mostly inclusive trips, where I basically had to pay for a couple of meals, airfare, and anything I wanted to buy on my own. I have to say I really liked it. It helps you shut your mind off that much more. I'm undecided about where to go next year. I could visit my dad and stepmom in florida for basically nothing (points on southwest and staying in their condo), but it might be a kind of boring trip. And there are some weekenders to visit friends, but I have to figure out how to distribute my remaining SW points. And Hawaii is always an option because I have free places to stay, but I'd really like to go to Croatia. It's the next major thing on my list.
    My recent post Looking Back, Looking Forward: Part 1

    Reply

  14. Ashlee says

    Yay for vacations! I'm hoping for a beach trip in 2013! I've heard lots of good things about all-inclusive trips, so I'm sure you all will have a great time! As you already know, can't wait for the pics! Will you be instagramming while there? Or making me patiently wait? lol!

    Reply

  15. Frugalista Married says

    All that travel you have is going to add up but it's worth it. Just because we have bills doesn't mean we should have to stop living as long as you plan and be smart about it. I'm the same way with hotels. It has to be clean. I'm not staying in a crappy place to save $50 bucks or whatever. I pretty much just had my dream vacation when we went to Europe for 15 days in Oct. It's nice to have that under my belt but it doesn't mean I don't want more. Next big vacation I would like to be Greece and Sicily but I won't even think about us doing that until 2014. In the meantime I'll be content with short getaways like Vegas, Sedona AZ and whatever else we can do for free with our timeshare.
    My recent post Holiday Giveaway :: Shoe Lovers Only

    Reply

  17. Allie says

    those are some fun plans! This year Jim and I are moving to the west coast, either the bay area or Portland, OR, so I think we'll be taking a million little weekend "vacations" to explore our new area! If it's the Bay Area I'm excited to visit Tahoe, Big Sur, Napa, Squaw Valley and Mendocino…if it's Portland it will be the Olympic peninsula, the Oregon sand dunes and maybe even Alaska. Can't wait.
    My recent post Azienda a Solatio & La Torre Antica

    Reply

  18. therandompath says

    Wow, Michelle!!! So awesome that you are going to all of these places for vacation 🙂 We don't have any vacations scheduled as of yet, but I hope we can fit one into our budget!
    My recent post Dear Santa…

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  19. Jason Clayton says

    My dream vacation is a year to travel the world with extended stays in Paris, Cape Town, and Fiji…. I'm a little short on the budget.
    My recent post 50 Side Business Ideas – You Can Start Today

    Reply

  20. Erin says

    The only vacation plan we have so far is going to Jordan to visit my husband's family. And a side trip to either Turkey or UAE. I've never been out of North America, so I'm pretty stoked! But it is going to be so freaking expensive!

    We are also planning on moving to Portland from Cleveland in Summer 2013, and roadtripping. So that's kinda like a vacation I guess :).

    Reply

  22. Living Debt Free Rocks! says

    Sounds like a busy travel year for you in 2013!

    Well you already know we're heading to Trinidad for two months. Also in 2013 we'll be taking a honeymoon trip, don't know where and it's not going to be a cheap one. I normally have my annual Girls' Weekend in November so that's a couple hundred dollars right there. Other than that I'm not sure but we tend to do a couple last minute getaways if we can swing it so I always keep a steady cushion of cash for that.

    I stayed at an all-inclusive resort when I went to Panama and I loved the experience. For supper I ended up dining a la carte 4 out of the 7 days at no extra cost which is pretty darn good and the restaurants were fabulous! Even the buffets were very good. It was an easy and pleasant experience overall.
    My recent post Sunday High Fives! And The Winner Is…

    Reply

  25. Pauline says

    I have done all inclusive a couple of time and was always pretty bored, as the hotels were far from everything and the food kind of the same every day. But it is ideal to just relax and do nothing. Now I prefer to plan my own holiday, it is cheaper too!

    Reply

  31. Lisa @ Cents To Save says

    My dream vacation would be to see Ireland, Greece, Italy, Norway, Sweden… it is an endless list. 🙂 But for next year we would like to go to Vegas and or South Dakota.
    My recent post It's a Fabulous Thursday!

    Reply

  32. Anne_UGifter says

    Pretty big fan of your descriptions, "expensive.."
    Sounds like a solid set of trips that should be fun, enjoy them!

    Reply

  33. Baylee says

    I stayed in an all inclusive in Puerto Vallarta one time. I really didn't like it. The food was awful, it wasn't near anything, it advertised a "night club" which was awful. I didn't have a good experience with it. And it was a 4 star hotel!
    My recent post inspiring boho homes

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