Vacations? Do you try something new or the same
 

Places over and over again?

We just started planning our 2022 trip, decided we’re doing spring break this year, we haven’t done a spring break trip since 2017 and it was hard deciding where.

We didn’t want to fly, it’s just so much for 5 of us, we’d talked about Pigeon Forge again, but aside from a Disney trip every 4-5 years, I’m not crazy about repeating vacation spots for our big trip. We love to explore. My in-laws have a cabin we visit every summer for a mini vacation, that’s basically the same every year.

We decided on St. Louis/Branson and will probably take a side trip to hit Ok, AR and KS to get closer to all 50 states. Currently I’m at 33!

Before I joined the Air Force, I’d never flown, only been to Florida and Georgia. Other than camping and grandparents houses, we never took vacations. So I love to travel now that we can.

How about you?

Until a couple years ago I would have said we do the same thing - until 2019 we visited my snowbird parents in Arizona each spring, then went camping in the summer months. Vacations have always been to visit family, my sister lives in Tennessee so we would go to see her.

Since my dad passed in the fall of 2019 we haven't been back to Arizona, so now we are trying to figure out the new normal for vacations too (add in covid, we haven't flown anywhere in a long time!)

Both. We've been to Disney and Universal a few times, but we've gone other places just once. We also stayed a few nights at an amusement park every year for a long time except this year. :( Covid has made me not want to travel. And definitely not air travel.

We haven't been anywhere in the last couple of years but there is the dream. We both love wine and dream of doing a wine tour somewhere in Europe, be it France, Spain or Portugal and then go to Greece before flying back home.

Oh I’d love to go to some of those places! Those are trips we’ll think about when we’re empty nesters! 😂

We love Disney and go every chance we can get but as far as "regular" vacations go we always try to do different places. There's just so much to go.do.see, with limited time and money, so I can't justify repeating places. Since we're active duty military we tend to just explore the area around where we're currently stationed. We drive A LOT b/c like you said, flying is just ouch. If all goes as planned we are going to Europe next summer, and I've been to most of the places we're going to, though not all, but I can repeat those b/c 1. It's Europe! and 2. for my girls to experience for their first time!

Not much travel at all for us since COVID, but usually we do a mix of old and new. We have our favorite places (like Hawaii) and we love going up to my parent's lake house, but we also love going to new places. I can't wait to travel a bit more again. We love cruising and being on the water, meeting new people and pretending it's our private yacht (hahaha). I like to go to different places when we cruise, though. I don't like doing the same itinerary. I really want to go to Croatia and the Med. That's my dream vacation right now.

Yes, it was so much easier when I was still Active Duty, for one thing, we had so much more vacation time to do things. And we always were in a new place, so our vacations were to see family and we'd explore the places we were stationed.

Now we really have to budget our time. I miss those 30 days compared to the 15 days I get now.

We take a nice long RV trip every summer, but it's basically to the same area in BC. Occasionally we'll do something else like the Oregon coast, or Montana... something like that. We used to go to Maui every fall, but it's been a few years since we did that.

We were planning a Disney trip when covid hit, so hopefully we'll be able to do that one soon. Otherwise we're planning a trip to Italy in 2023 with some friends. We've already decided to turn that one into a 3-4 week adventure and see England and Scotland (and Ireland if time permits.) We'll be leaving Sarah at home with our eldest for that one. My first trip to Europe, I'm not bringing any kids along! LOL I've waited my whole life to go there, so I really really hope it happens!!!

We try to go new places. There are a few places I've been quite some time ago that I would like to take my kids like Yellowstone and Ireland, but, otherwise, we try to explore new places if possible (or as money allows).

No kidding! There are so many trips I'd love to that we can't afford! LOL!

We did Yellowstone last summer, we drove and it was amazing.

We are a mix! In the past year we went to TN 3 times, but mostly because it was a days drive and the state was more open than MI! But even though it's TN 3 times in a row, we do different things and go different places each time.

We do Disney trips quite a bit (a cruise in 2019, a bday trip in 2020, my girls only trip in 2021, and then our first trip to DL next year). But even with our Disney trips, we do different things on each trip so it's not even the same.

I would love to visit all 50 states (I don't remember what number I am at). I have "plans" to visit more. If my 3rd oldest goes to CA for college, we have plans to visit her on breaks and visit the surrounding States. But as a family of 6, it's all up to the budget! We flew last Oct to FL for the first time because we got roundtrip air for all 6 of us, for less than $500! But that isn't the norm. Many times our budget and the costs of things tell us where we are going.

I do save money by using my Dad's timeshare, and we have traveled quite a bit. I think we're just in a travel slump right now (and having to pay 2 college payments). We have travel goals though, we'll get there! :)

Ooh fun! I would love to buy an RV and just travel all over (that is my retirement dream for my husband). Also, England, Italy and Ireland are on my overseas bucketlist! All my overseas countries start with vowels...it's very odd! Can't wait for your trip to live through you (post lots of photos!!!)

Living in Orlando I tend to d staycations or day trips. There is just so much to do here, honestly, but when we do travel out of state it is usually to see family for a vacation. We have never been to Vegas and I so want to go there some time :thumbup:

I haven't traveled for quite awhile. Last trip was 5 years ago to see my dad in NC. Thankful that I did because he passed away suddenly a month later.

My hope when I retired was to travel more but until the dental issues were figured out, I said no way... got to be able to eat wherever I am! Then COVID hit. But now the dental issues are figured out, I'm able to eat again but holding back a few more months to see what other surprises COVID brings.

I did tell my cousin in July when they were here that I might consider going down to see them in Orlando this winter. Have to wait and see.

I do plan to visit a friend in the Black Hills next summer. She'll be fully recovered from her 2nd knee surgery by then. I plan on driving so I can see some states I've never been to in the process. Might swing down to Missouri to see another cousin on the way home.

Pre-pandemic a cousin that is also single (never married, no kids) had said she would like to do some traveling as well. We wanted to do the Rocky Mountaineer train trip through the Canadian Rockies with a side cruise to Alaska. Now she says she's not going anywhere because of COVID. (She and I are both vaccinated even).

So now I have to find another travel partner because some of these things are just made to be done with others.

The kids go to their uncle's & aunt's lake house every summer for a long weekend but otherwise, we've only been on a couple of vacations and just ones with my family. We were supposed to go to Disney in April 2020 (which got cancelled, of course) so we are now going to Florida over the kids' Fall Break next month since those plane tickets/vouchers expire in January. I'm excited because the kids have never been on a plane, to Florida, or seen an ocean before.

My boyfriend's family has a tradition of going to Chincoteague during the summer but otherwise I hope we get to visit lots of fun new places in the coming years.

We don't go on vacation... :crying:
Maybe because we are horrible planners, maybe there is always a house project happening, there just isn't any money left for trips.

Our vacations are typically to visit family. My sister usually plans the whole thing, so there's not much wiggle room for us to do our own thing either.

Same here, our vacations are really influenced by where we're stationed. We very rarely revisit a place (although my son did go to France 3 times by the time he was 27 months old when we were stationed in England!) When we were in Turkmenistan, we went to Thailand, Sri Lanka & UAE, and also a trip "home" during the summer. Now we're in Alaska & we most likely won't go visit our family back home while we're here because it would be crazy to leave Alaska in the summer. And almost as crazy to leave in winter to go to another wintery place. We'll be going to Hawaii in December...and maybe again in February but a different island. We're really hoping that our next assignment will take us back to Europe because now our kids are an easier age to travel with and it was so easy to go to so many places. And also because if we don't get Europe or Japan, my husband will probably retire and I'm not ready for that, haha.

I love our lifestyle & we're so, so fortunate to have been able to live & travel in so many places, but I did see a friend's post about an annual extended family trip to the same place (they went when she was a kid & now she has kids & a grand-kid there too) and it seemed like such a warm fuzzy, fun thing to have as part of their family 'culture'.

Oh, also, not completely related, but I'll say it anyway...
A couple of years ago, I was on a plane with a connecting flight in Germany. The girl next to me was in her early-mid 20s and she said that she was meeting up with her parents & siblings at the airport and that's when she would know where she was going! She said every year or two her mom plans a surprise trip-- she sends them a packing list and they find out where they're going when they all meet up at the airport! I still wish I would have given her my email so she could have told me where she ended up going...I've wondered more than a few times, LOL.

Now that DH has end stage kidney failure and is on dialysis 5 days a week we aren't able to take a lot of vacations anymore. Add in COVID and we haven't been anywhere for a few years now.

We used to at least visit his family in TN once a year and then some family in Chicago and see the sites.

Now we can do short day trips, but with COVID we haven't been on any yet.

I'm so sorry Kiana!!

always different . . . . it's a whole big world out there and I want to experience it all and would love my children to have experiences as well!! :wub:

That sounds so much fun! What a definite adventure!! Maybe I should try something like that when my girls are all grown up and married!

Always different. We do stop off and visit family in the summer and at Christmas..but hubby loves to travel and see it all. We have done Disney a lot this past year. We are actually going back this coming weekend....We had 10 day tickets that got nixed when Covid happened so we have been trying to use them up. We have 3 left so long weekend here we go.

Hubby and I try to take a small trip just the two of us once a year or at least a staycation while the kids are with grandparents over the summer. That will be ending soon with my soon to be 17yr old working and soon graduating from high school...AHHH!

We have done a lot of road trips to national parks...this summer was the biggest one with 2 weeks and 5,449 miles...visited 18 or more national parks, state parks, monuments. So far we aren't traveling at Thanksgiving but that could change. We were in Disney last year, Universal the year before and DC the year before that I think and California the year before that...so we go a lot. Hubby has a goal of visiting all the national parks and checking off all the states so we will be doing a lot more traveling

Now growing up traveling was the beach...same beach every summer. :)

We aren't really traveling right now due to Covid, but before it most of our vacations ended up always being the same places to visit family. The majority of our vacation time is spent in Connecticut or New York (where my family is) or in Pennsylvania (where my parents rent a house for a week every summer for a family reunion). After hardly taking any other vacations for many years, we took our first one to Disney in 2016 and vowed to continue taking 1 new trip with just the 5 of us each year. We've done Disney a couple of times, but all the others have been different. We do a bigger trip like Disney one year and then the next year we do something smaller like a long weekend someplace in our area. We were just about to do our first bigger non-Disney trip (to Chicago) when Covid hit. My oldest is a high school senior, so I don't know yet how his college schedule will influence our future travel.

I am not a fan of repeating vacation spots. There are so many places I want to see in the world. There are a handful of places I have been to multiple times, Orlando, Las Vegas, Hampton Roads area of Virginia and Charleston. The last two are because I was visiting my cousin while she was stationed there. Growing up we always went to Minneapolis on vacation. Every year. Now I live closer and it's just a weekend trip for me. Next year we are hoping for a Christmas in Hawaii vacation. This year we did a summer Northwoods camping vacation. I like to mix things up, my husband likes lazy vacations, I like doing things vacations.

Both!

Pre-Covid, we went to the same hotel in Bali for a conference for seven years, and I loved the feeling of coming back to a place where we had so many memories.

But, also, there are so many amazing places in the world, and I want to visit all of them! I love discovering new places and having new experiences.

I don’t usually vacation but will try to take a mini trip each summer. I was supposed to go on a cruise in August but COVID cancelled that.

I am planning for Scotland next year as I did Ireland 4 years ago. I would like to go the the East Coast-Nova Scotia, Newfoundland but that would probably be in 2023.

We had a cruise canceled too because of Covid, June of 2020, the pushed to June of 2021. We ended up doing Yellowstone and then this year we did a Florida road trip. It was a lot of fun.

We cancelled the cruise in January, the deposit was only $100 so that’s all we lost, thankfully. It was only a 3 or 4 day one as I had never cruised before. We still can’t cross the border to the US by land here in Canada.

Because we are a family of 6 and flying is so expensive, we ted to do a lot of the same places. We go all up and down the east coast .... we do Disney every 3 years usually. We love the Smoky Mts and Nashville, Myrtle Beach, Williamsburg, Poconos, Jersey Shore.... We also have been to Lake Lure, NC Ashville NC, Destin FL, Vero Beach FL, Tampa, Black Hills SD..... Two years we went to Massachusetts for the first time... it was beautiful and we think we will go back each fall. Now that the kids are older, we can start traveling farther and maybe flying again.

The only thing we repeat is a few days Disneyland Paris. Because we had annual.passes for about 10 years. ( and WDW a couple of times)
For other vacations we try new countries,and citytrips.Mostly in Europe.

This might sound strange, but we've only been on one "real" vacation that didn't have anything to do with a business trip! That was a cruise in 2004 (?). Other than that, the only vacations we've been on were when hubby was going to a conference, or meeting and we tagged along and explored while he was busy. I guess one thing we did that was vacation-ish was have Disneyland annual passes. We would go there quite often.

We were basically empty nesters, and started dreaming of travelling, but then both of our boys moved back in, and my mom moved in with us. My mom needs help, so we won't be travelling for a while.

I keep dreaming... someday!

We haven't been on vacation in 6 years. At least not a real vacation. We did go to PA last fall for my FIL's memorial service, but that was the closest we've came since 2015. We moved to the farm in 2015 and we have so many animals that vacation is hard. We are working to get a coop set up with doors on timers so that someone could come in once a day to take care of our animals and not have to let chickens out in the morning and close them up at night.

Before kids we would go to see family one trip and do something else the next. Once kids came, our trips were always to see family, either to Pennsylvania where my husband was born, or Arizona where I was raised (and he ended up in junior high). When my son was born my SIL and her family came to visit us and we decided that we'd meet somewhere new every other year for Thanksgiving. We did that for several years. We'd pick a place between KS (where we live) and PA (where they live) to meet, visit, and site see. It was a great mix of getting in something new and seeing family.

We really are homebodies though, so we need a reason to go on vacation, not just the idea of going on vacation. For example, we live 2 hours from Branson, but we've only been once. We've driven through several times and we've even driven up just to eat at Lambert's outside of Branson, but only made it a point to stay in Branson and do things there once.

I only go on a real vacation once every two or three years and it is always Disney. :)