A ‘family vacation’ is part of being American. Good or bad, it is something that we all work for. We plan all year for it, work extra shifts at work to help pay for it, plan for friends to watch the house, take the dog to grandma’s, and pay the neighbor boy to pick up our mail and our newspapers.
Since becoming a dad this has been pretty much how I got ready for every family vacation. And I am never able to think about planning for a trip without having a National Lampoon flashback. I have another trip coming up and have already laid the ground work as to how I will plan it and pay for it.
One of our family’s favorite vacations is a camping trip. We hook up the camping trailer, load it with supplies, and set off. Since we live in California we tend to explore west of the Rockies. Our longest trip was 22 days. Three weeks in a confined space with your loved ones can tend to take you to the breaking point. We didn’t end up with Aunt Edna tied to the roof of the family wagon but if you listened closely you could hear “holiday road” playing in the background.
Saving for a camping trip usually takes place quite some time in advance. We have a jar that we put money into every night. That’s for the gas and campground fees. Most of the rest of the saving for a trip takes place at the grocery store. You find a few extra things on sale here and there and the extras get squirreled away in the trailer. Bottles of water, tea, pasta, canned goods, peanut butter and dog food. All gets put into the trailer.
The other way we save up for a vacation actually takes place on the vacation. We do it by not eating out. Lots of people that I have told this to don’t understand how that works. It’s simple, when we are on a camping trip we simply tend to not eat out except for once a week or so. The rest of the time we cook our own meals. Maybe it is the remoteness of where we camp, or that we have planned out all the meals for the entire trip in advance. Whatever the case we actually spend less on food when we’re on a camping trip.
The next trip we are taking in the coming year is actually already planned out. And, already fully paid for. The reason is that my wife won this next trip. It’s the second trip we’ve won. This one is to Texas and it includes airfare, hotel, rental car, activities, meals and some pocket money. It’s sort of a family vacation, but only my wife and I are going. My seventeen year old son doesn’t want to go on this trip with mom and dad. He’s too old for that now, so he gets to drive us to the airport. We get to take a break from vacation planning this year.