ChatNoir, I'll share what we did with you. We spent 26 days in Italy & France in April of 2002 and did it for only about $2600 each, including open-jaws airfare of $710 each (Seattle->Venice & Nice->Seattle), two five-day car rentals through AutoEurope, train travel from Venice->Rome, Rome->Siena, and Vernazza->Nice, and excluding personal purchases for gifts, etc. (This was, of course, back when only 90 cents bought one euro.)

The most significant way we kept costs low was inexpensive accomodations, around 70 euros per night in Rome, Siena, and Vernazza, less in Nice, and more in Venice. Not once did we feel shortchanged by our choices; in fact, we loved our inexpensive locandas in Venice & Siena. We also picknicked a fair amount and with, a few exceptions, avoided pricey restaurants.

I work 2 jobs. The first job takes care of my living expenses, savings and retirement. The second job (about 8 hours a week) takes care of fun stuff, travel, motorcycles, etc. I can leave that job whenever I want but I can also afford go to Europe pretty much once every 2 or 3 months. I also will do temp side work for extra money. An example of this is my friends house. He started to paint it and then stopped, he hates painting (so do I) and he offered me $400 to finish. It took me one saturday and 2 more days after work. There is airfare (almost) right there.
I also go to cheap places and stay in cheap hotels. I go to Eastern Europe (Poland Lithuania, Slovakia, etc...) For example, the hotel in Zakopane Poland was $14 a night for a double with breakfast, not the best or nicest place but it was clean, safe and had hot water.

Don't overlook home exchanges as a source for not only inexpensive (i.e., free) accommodations, but also very often the use of family automobiles is exchanged.

A home exchange is more than just a place to stay, it really immerses you in the local culture, everthing from neighbors and gardens to using unfamiliar appliances and other people's car-radio button choices! By using a home exchange and frequent flyer miles (gained mostly thru a credit card, putting everything, including groceries, on it), we did a three-week trip to England and Wales for 4 people for under $3000.

If travel is a priority in your life, you will find a way to accommodate it. I don't do the long, multi-week trips because they are too disruptive for me at present, but I do enjoy more frequent trips of shorter duration. I can generally put these together for $700-$800 per person for three or four nights for air and hotel in Europe. We somehow ending up eating no matter where we are -- even at home -- so at least some of the expense for meals is offset. Souvenirs are generally modest and I've also managed to avoid what I consider the somewhat strange practice some people have of "mandatory travel gift shopping" for a list of people. (What's that about anyway? Some kind of consolation because you got to go somewhere and they didn't? I'm not talking about things you hide until a birthday or the holidays here, but just running around and doing the 'I HAVE to find something for my second cousin twice removed' bit. Somebody help me with that one, okay? Do you know people like that?!)

Flyboy: Yes, I used to be like that, stressing out about buying souvenirs for everybody since I was lucky enough to travel.

I cured myself of the habit when I realized that most people thanked me profusely and then put whatever trinket I had brought in a drawer or closet or something. Now I just buy a couple of T-shirts (usually at the airport) for friends I know will wear them and a shot glass or two (also at the airport) for a close girlfriend who collects them.

Other than that, my relatives/friends seem to be satisfied with my witty postcards and even funnier travel tales when I return!

Whooo boy, I used to be like that. No more, never again. I used to bring back stuff for people and it got to be too much. I went from making a list for people to just getting people a bar of good chocolate. I went to Poland last year, brought back 12 bars of chocolate, started to plan on who gets which bar and then I said the hell with it. I kept the all the bars for myself, went to a Polish bakery, bought some poppy seed bread and brought that to work for the ladies, told them I brought it all the way back from Europe for them, they did not know the difference. Now everyone gets a postcard and thats it. Too much time and money spent. The only person thats gets anything other thatn the postcard is whoever drives me to and from teh airport.

Thank you all so much for sharing your ways of saving and planning to make your travel dreams come true. I need to take a look at our situation and try really hard to find ways of putting money aside. The thing is when one has already cut back as much as one can, and still finds that there isn't enough to put aside, then it becomes a little tricky. I'm determined though, so I'll try to work with all of your suggestions. So, until I can take another trip, I'll just keep reading this forum and dream.

To the original post, because your trips are so short they "cost more". What I mean is the airfare is a very major expense in any trip... then whether you stay only 4 days, or 3 weeks, well it doesn't cost all that much more to stay alot longer (is what I'm trying to say).

Stay in nice local 2-3 star places, eat at local cafes, keep transportation, food, extra costs to a minimun. You can get alot more than you might think out of each trip.

We have friends who do that "mandatory travel gift shopping" thing and it can be infuriating when one has only a short time to see a beautiful area but is asked to traipse along from shop to shop to buy for each family member they can think of. Given that for one of the mums they always want to buy swatches of material for patchwork quilting etc this can involve a hunt for specialist stores too.

We don't holiday with them much now, for various reasons, but we'd already resorted to just saying that we weren't buying presents for everyone and that we'd spend the day doing XYZ and meet them for dinner.

I think a very big part of it is the fact that neither of the two had travelled much before we started doing joint holidays - the Mrs didn't have a passport at all until the first joint trip. None of her family had travelled either which meant that it was a very very big deal and she got into the habit from that first trip of buying them all stuff. The Mr's family had travelled but if Mrs was going to buy gifts for her side that meant they had to buy gifts for his side...

I am very very lucky to have travelled a lot as a child. My parents and sister also still travel a lot. If we all bought gifts for each other everytime we'd fill each other's houses with crap in no time at all. As a child I'd buy for my best friends from my pocket money but that was an enjoyable thing for me as a kid.

Nowadays I buy only if I happen to see an item which I think a particular friend or family member will really love. That's just how I am at home too.

I don't see the need to be equal with everyone I know - that kind of "well if I buy something for Jane I ought to get Jill something".

Over our lifetimes it evens out.

I also don't feel I have to pay penance to those who don't travel as much because I'm lucky enough to travel - most of the time they earn more than I do but choose to spend their income elsewhere.

When they buy that new hi-fi do they feel the need to buy me a small tape cassette consolation present?

Some of this is somewhat tongue in cheek but it generally is how I feel about it...

Thanks for the replies on travel gift shopping. I probably should have started a different thread, but I know that the practice is out there and it occurs with people from various countries.

Everyone has listed such great ways to save money! I save money each month also into a kind of "trip fund" but it's more a mental thing than an actual separate account. I keep a certain amount in my savings account, and anything over that is pretty much my trip fund.

I also take advantage of any opportunities that come along. For example, my sister was in London for 3 months for work, so in January I went there for 2 weeks - free place to stay, FF miles for the airfare, so even with the bad exchange rate, it was a pretty inexpensive trip.

I am going to a conference for work in Colorado in September (I live in DC), and am staying a few extra days. Airfare is paid for - and I'm staying in cheap hotels after the conference, so again, a pretty cheap trip.

I often travel off season when prices are cheaper and places are less crowded. It definitely helps the budget!

Good luck,
Karen

Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and say "I'm going and that's that." Two years ago my mother organized a girls' trip to Italy. She invited my daughter, my sister and her daughter, and me. I opted out, telling everyone that it was too many females for me to cope with! The real reason was that I didn't want to lose more than two weeks' worth of wages. What a miserable little penny-pinching scrooge I was to value a paycheck more than a trip with my family. They all had a fabulous time.

In the two years that have elapsed, I have been very careful with our budget, and now my husband and I are making an Italian trip. And we are also working on a full family trip--parents & siblings with family. Yes, it's expensive to travel, no matter how cheaply you do it, but to paraphrase that credit card commercial, the memories are priceless!

Princess, I think the key to travel without debt is to live slightly below your means. I am a teacher and hubby is mid-level at a Fortune 500 company (he keeps changing jobs as companies get bought out)--we are middle-class. Even though my husband of 4 years and I have lived in 2 big cities/high cost areas (DC, Chicago), when we decided to buy our first home, we bought a condo in an "up and coming area." By doing this, our plan was to make travel one of our priorities rather than keeping up with our peers and trying to see who can own the biggest SUV's or have the largest pre-fab houses in far-away suburbs. We take several U.S. trips a year to keep up our frequent flier miles and Marriott points. With the business travel my husband does occasionally adding to the points, we have done some extraordinarily cheap vacations. We have decided to put off baby plans too for a while, although we do plan to pursue living abroad via my hubby's job opportunities by the time I'm ready to have a kid and leave teaching school. I have friends who have neveer been out of the U.S. and some who have never left their home states because they "can't afford it." These are the same people whose DREAM is to go to Disneyworld. I have paid hundreds and hundreds less to go to Europe or south America than some of them who get nickled-and-dimed at theme parks for little children. Other tips: go in the off-seasons, give each other the trip for Christmas rather than any other presents, use your tax refund to begin the travel fund, get a cheap vacation package off the internet, DON'T put it on the credit card, why drive fancy cars? don't get house-poor, decide on priorities... If you really want to travel on middle class money, you can!

Princess, these are all great ideas and here are a few of my own-my husband came up with the great idea of saving singles, for example, when he breaks a five or higher, he puts away the singles in our trip fund-it's amazing how quickly that adds up. Also, I've given up my daily iced tea fix in the afternoon at work and now brew my own. When trips get close we really watch and buckle down and pass up on times where it would just be easier to pick up something for dinner and think about how we would rather spend that money on a dinner in Italy or wherever. Finally, once we're there we never stay at hotels more than $100-150 a night, look for hotels that include breakfast, and eat only one "sitdown" meal a day. I love the markets and they're great for picking up a picnic lunch!

My sister does something for her Christmas $ that would work as well for a vacation fund. All year long, she stashes all of those unexpected checks she gets in the mail i.e. rebates,reimbursments, refund from an overpaid bill, deposit refund, etc. You get the idea. It adds up to a surprising amount.

"If we all bought gifts for each other everytime we'd fill each other's houses with crap in no time at all." - that's why I don't buy souveniers for others, just go to a local supermarket or pharmacy and get candy bars, jams or something else edible but not available where I live. People feel "remembered" and I don't spend much. But then I face a dilemma: should I eat it myself or give away

Faina, have your cake and eat it, too! Invite your friends over for dinnner and use all the delicious edibles you've brought home with you. They get to eat an authentic meal and listen to your travel stories, and you've "killed two birds with one stone." Send them all out the door with a candybar or something similar.

I figure with all the saving I do to finance my trips, I'm not buying for everyone else while on vacation. I have been guilty of bringing things back for others and after getting home, my selfish side comes out and I end up keeping it for myself! But then, I'm worth it!

I'm guilty of the 'gift shopping' thing but like Faina, I'll stick to inexpensive food items that aren't readily available at home. That way I know they'll put it to good use, that's if I don't eat it all first

I stopped buying gifts for my non-travelling relatives and friends.

They resented hearing our "wonderful" tales and often didn't appreciate the value or worth of the gifts since they could not relate to them.