We plan trips around the places that are bargains at the time. This can save a lot. Much has already been said-go off season, etc. But travel is a priority with us as well, and that's why we spend our money on it. Great fun and wonderful experiences!

Wow - Europe for USD298!!! The lowest airfare to Europe I've ever seen ex Sydney is about $A1,298. Our dollar has also experienced very unfavourable exchange rates for the last couple of years, but I haven't let it stop me going anyway. Just shop around for good hotel bargains and luckily I'm not a huge eater. It usually costs more than US298 for me just to fly the round trip to Melbourne, which is only one hour away.

Sorry, that last US298 should have been AUD298.

Hostels! If you stay in hostels and prepare your own meals, you can do it on $50USD a day. And that's a high budget, with plenty for splurges on nice restaurants and gifts and souveniers. And hostelling is so much fun - I just did a two week trip on the East Coast, and met tons of people from all over the world.

For Tiffany

I wish we were wealthy-each trip I'd be stretched out in those reclining seats sipping champagne! <BR> <BR>My helpful hint is to encourage your friends to move overseas, and have your sister marry an Englishman-it worked for us! Actually, it just made it easier for us to rationalize why we should spend the money to visit each of them as often as possible. <BR> <BR>Our recent trip to Paris-the first to Europe for our 11 year old son-proves that our money was well spent. Each day as we left our hotel we passed a fabulous carnival-one that I was sure would tempt our son as much as it did his father and I. He never once mentioned it-but asked for several return trips to the Louvre! No toys, tennis shoes or sporting goods could ever provide that type of memory. <BR>

I think the key word is "pleasure" (and not "priority", that sounds like a politician's cliché, or a "yield" sign). Or, to be more colloquial, "kicks". If some people get their kicks driving a nice car and not travelling, why not. But, of course, there is a difference is getting your kicks "showing off" your new car and "driving" it. I for instance drive a motorcycle in Paris, and like to change often, have new models, etc. On the other hand, I love to travel, and am lucky enough to do it a lot for my job, which, on top of that, earns me enough miles to once a year fly free to any Air France destination. But, even when I was a student, I used to travel (I had never thought about our "privileged" situation in Europe, not having to pay off student loans, and having free health care... paid for by people working). Anyway, I am surprised that no one in this distinguished panel of American travel addicts mentioned house-swapping as a great way of cutting vacation costs. Of course, it's a little static, but it saves a lot. I know lots of Parisians who have exchanged their homes with American friends or colleagues. What's your experience on that ?

Vincent- <BR>I do not "houseswap", however, I love to entertain and often my friends from Europe and /or their children come to US to visit and stay with our family. When we go to Prague or Paris, for example, we have stayed with them. When my friends visit, I expect to cook huge meals for them and pick them up at the airport if they want me to. They can borrow one of the cars to go into Yosemite or Monterrey, etc. Once, we picked up friends visiting from Prague in a small private plane piloted by a friend....to show them capitalism! They responded by popping us in their car and driving us throughout Moravia when we visited. We were given a private tour of a wine cave by the mayor of a Moravian town. These are experiences one cannot plan....but the world becomes smaller with friendship.

Inspiring thread. <BR> <BR>I have a very frugal friend, and she gave me a piece of advice. She tries not to buy anything new. She says there's always someone somewhere dying to get rid of whatever you need. So when I decided to get a piano for my kid to take lessons, I decided to give it a try. I asked around to see if anyone wanted to unload an old piano. Guess what? Someone gave me a perfectly respectable piano! It isn't as chic as a new one, but it plays, and the savings will pay for a couple of nice trips.

No, I am definitely not wealthy, however I work for an airline which allows me to travel stand-by at a cost of next to nothing. If it weren't for this job I would not be flying to Paris for a croissant for the weekend.

I got the travel bug while traveling for a government job. I traveled to some wonderful locations within the US and whenever possible tacked on a vacation at the end of the trip. The down side of traveling on government per diem is the low travel allowance. The advantage is that I learned to do without luxury as well as some tricks in order to avoid staying in flea bag hotels. Now that I travel on my own, my top three strategies are: <BR>Look for and ask about discounts---I currently qualify for AAA, student discounts, and government discounts. <BR>I limit yourself to just one special meal per trip and even that is not outrageously expensive. <BR>I thoroughly explore one area rather than paying extensive transportation costs (and wasting time) to move around.

I must agree with those who travel to meet friends in other locales. My three previous trips (and the upcoming one is May) have all been 'who I know' trips, rather than 'what I had to spend' trips. So far this has afforded me the ability to see Britain twice & Paris and Amsterdam once. As travel is meant to expand our boundries and make the world a smaller place, take advantage of it and meet people, I'll gladly host someone knowing that in the future someone else will host me. <BR>

We are a family of four. It makes it a little harder to get the cash together for trips for all of us. Kids come with a lot of daily expenses. IWe had travel a lot throughout the US, camping or staying in Motel 6 type places, and had covered a lot of ground. About 5 years ago, I discovered the mileage plus charge card, and found many ways to get miles without even spending any morey. ( I changed to MCI more times than I care to admit-how about the others out there?) Anyway, we are going on our second family trip to Europe this year. We will only be paying cash for one and one half tickets. If I can get us there cheaply, a vacation there isn't anymore than a vacation here. Only one hotel in our planned three weeks will cost of $70 a night for all four, and some include breakfast. We have a home exchange with a family in Pompeii (for a future exchange). They happen to live near the town where my grandparents were born, and have two daughters the same age as mine. I found them reading a bulletin board two years ago. So, our family may only go a a major every two or three years, but when we go, we stay as long as possible.

Ok, had to put in my two cents... <BR> <BR>I too am also far from wealthy, last May <BR>I started working a part time job (on top of full time job) to pay for my now <BR>third trip to England!!!!! <BR> <BR>Sure I'm tired and am not home as much <BR>as I want, haven't cooked all that much <BR>either (frozen dinners are great) but <BR>my priorites shifted and now I want <BR>to travel. <BR> <BR>I have a small condo (which is cheaper <BR>than renting in my neck of the woods) <BR>and buy my clothes on the off-season <BR>for ridiculously reduced prices. <BR> <BR>Every other time at the hairdressers I <BR>just get my bangs cut for $5 versus <BR>the normal $30 for a haircut, bring my lunch/dinner everyday to work, workout <BR>at home versus gym, buy groceries in <BR>bulk, rent videos on the 3 videos/ <BR>3 days/3 bucks rack, don't smoke/drink, <BR>don't have cable (cost of cable equals <BR>30 movies of the 3/3/3 deal), etc. etc. <BR> <BR>You can do it!!!!! Good luck!!!!! <BR> <BR>Estelle

As has been said, this is an inspiring thread. I'm glad someone resurrected it. Your flight is typically or can be your single most expensive expense. If you get that down to the price of domestic flight (through special offers or by flying off seaon), you are set. Obviously, the exchange rate in Europe has been beneficial for the last few years or so. I'd like to hear other's comment on this point: In the US, I have trouble finding decent hotels in a good location within major (and some minor) cities for less than $100/night. Yet, I've stayed in very nice hotels in Paris, w/in walking distance of the Eiffel for $85/night. Enchanting, rural areas offer even cheaper accomodations. Thus, parts of Europe can be very reasonable.

Like everyone else here, we make travel a priority. We purposely simplify the rest of our lives to save money for early retirement so we can, of course, travel more. <BR> <BR>For those who are really interested in maximizing their saving and getting rid of the clutter, consumerism and forgetting about keeping up with the Jonese, you may want to read Your Money or Your Life, by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. You may also visit the Simple Living Network website, which has lots of great boards discussing money saving tips and the YMOYL book, among other things. <BR> <BR>The discussion boards are located at: <BR>http://www.simpleliving.net/discussi...troduction.htm

"immensely wealthy" is a term that is hard to define. What do you mean by "wealthy?" One person's idea of "going in the lap of luxury" is another's idea of travelling "on the cheap". We have worked hard when were were young and now do as we please with our combined retirements. We don't scrimp, but don't, by the same token, don'tthrow it around. We buy and do what we want, keeping in mind that there will be a next time. I consider us very lucky in this regard. We use common sense and take advantage of any opportunity to save a little--for instance, we always stay, when in Europr, in a place that includes breakfast,eat a big one, and then don't eat again til late. We alternate between simple meals, and a great dining experience (hang the cost). we picnic a great deal (but don't consider this any deprivation). It is one of our great pleasures, and it helps to be older to travel in luxury.

This is an interesting thread. I usually do take a couple of trips a year - one is in the winter when we want to escape the snow, the other in the summer. However, that trip is usually spent visiting family and friends on the west coast - we use frequent flyer miles to get out there and all we need to do is rent a car and treat our various hosts to dinner. We also take at least 1 very nice long weekend during the year. <BR> <BR>I realize that we're very fortunate. We both have fairly good jobs and we don't have to worry about where we'll get the rent money. But we also make choices based on our decision to travel. We have 1 older car (1 drives, the oher takes transit). We bought a very small older house in a neighbourhood that is less 'desirable' and we've done all the renovations in the house ourselves. We also put everything on Visa - to get the frequent flyer miles - and we pay the visa off every month. <BR> <BR>I do have one comment. Coming from Canada, the exchange rate hasn't been good for us! $100 US is equal to approximately $150 CAD. That is no bargain! When we travel, we choose the less expensive destinations and we always shop around for cheaper accommodation. <BR> <BR>But the bottom line is that we are fortunate that we can travel.

About that last post, sorry I can't buy that thing about the Canadian dollar. I don't understand why Canadians talk like their exchange rate is so bad. Just because we both call them dollars doesn't mean a thing. That's like saying the French have a horrible rate because it takes almost 7 of their francs to make one of our dollars. If they called their currency "dollars" would it make a difference? We visited Canada at length last year. We stayed in some motels that cost us $120 Canadian that would probably have been $80. US in a similar town. We ate in a nice restaurant in Toronto where the main courses were $30 to $40 Canadian and I felt that a similar restaurant in New York the prices would be $20 to $30. Your dollar is not the same as our dollar, but neither are your prices.

I had been frustrated, not only by the financial restraints, but by the time restraints of the pitiful 2 week annual American vacation, versus the 4 week plus European standard. Travel time from Los Angeles means that “long weekend” discount trips to Europe are difficult to take advantage of. While I know this isn’t feasible for most people, I finally decided to do something about it. In June of 1997 I moved Italy. <BR> <BR>What a fantastic experience. I started teaching English at first, but managed to find a job working for an American University in Bologna. This meant an unheard of 7 weeks of vacation each year; not to mention that a day trip was an hour to Florence or 2 hours to Venice; a weekend was a room in a Tuscan farmhouse or the Eurostar to Rome (2 hours, 39 minutes); and a week was anywhere in Europe. <BR> <BR>Of course, in the mean time, I was in Italy full time, learning the language and enjoying the food and the people. In addition to being culturally enriching, learning the language had economic advantages as well. So often I cringed when I learned what someone paid for a room in a Tuscan farmhouse, just because they booked through an English speaking agent. Taking advantage of the Italian “agriturismo” system, we stayed in breath-taking places in the countryside for less than $30 per person per night, including room, a several course dinner, and breakfast. <BR> <BR>Sadly, I have returned to the states after 2 years and 4 months of travel paradise. (Not that it was without its challenges). Even after 6 months I still find I am adjusting back to life in the U.S. It was truly a life changing experience. <BR>