After most of us just enjoyed a four-day weekend (or turned it into an even longer break — lucky you), it’s time to go back to work and … talk about winter vacation strategies! In the wintertime, do you prefer to escape the cold and snow by going somewhere warm with beautiful beaches, or are you into winter sports and like to travel somewhere with wintry weather for skiing, etc.? Maybe you live somewhere that doesn’t even get a real winter and so you seek that out — snow crunching under your feet, a crackling fireplace, a cup of hot chocolate, and so on? (To that, I say … no thank you! OK, except for the hot chocolate.) Another aspect of winter vacation strategies: savings! According to a recent NYT article, the cheapest days to depart are 12/26 or 12/29 — and I have at least one friend who uses those savings to go on major, multi-week vacations around now. (Here’s another article on strategies for saving money on winter vacations from Forbes.)
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The Best Winter Vacation Strategies
Tales from the Wallet: What’s Your Vacation Money Strategy?
Here’s a fun question for today: what’s your vacation money strategy? What’s your overall strategy about vacations and budgets — how do you plan to budget while on vacation — and how do you pay for vacation? There are a lot of questions here, such as:
- Overall vacation money strategy: What do you consider getting the most “bang for your buck” — frequent and small vacations, one big vacation every year or two, or something else? From the “time vs money” perspective for vacations, do you gravitate towards the more expensive but all-inclusive cruise, resort, or tour so that you save time at the research phase — or do you prefer (for money or enjoyment) to DIY your vacations? For those of you who go to the same place often (such as spending a week every summer at Cape Cod or the Jersey Shore, or heading to DisneyWorld once a year), how big of a role does budgeting play in that decision?
- Budgeting while on vacation: do you have ways of saving money while on vacation that you use no matter where you go? For example, bringing protein bars with you so your breakfast is covered, or making sure to hit the “included breakfast” at your hotel and eat a ton so you don’t have to eat a big lunch?
- How to pay for vacation: Do you save in advance for your trip, or put it on credit card? Does anyone use automatic transfers to savings to set aside money regularly to keep for vacations? Is anyone heavily into airline miles or points?
4 Types of Vacation Packages for Busy Women
2017 Update: We still stand by this advice on vacation packages for busy women— links have also been updated below.
Travel planning can be a lot of fun, but it’s also time-consuming — and stressing out about a vacation kind of defeats the purpose. Vacation packages can take almost all the planning out of the equation — and they don’t have to be the run-of-the-mill, giant-tour-bus trips that might spring to mind, either.
We’ve rounded up five types of vacation packages that seem just right for busy professional women who don’t have a lot of time to spend researching hotels, restaurants, activities, sightseeing spots, and so on. These companies are booking through 2017, but if you’re looking for something last-minute, you’re in luck: Now is a good time to find deals, as late summer is a less popular vacation time than early/mid-summer. (Check Last Minute Travel, CheapCaribbean, Travelzoo, or Groupon. You can also read our guest poster’s tips for traveling solo, as well as check out our last discussion about using all your vacation time.) [Read more…]
Weekend Wednesday: Stylish Travel Dresses
This is the first in a new occasional Wednesday feature where we explore weekend-wear more in depth.
I wouldn’t wear any of these to work, but if you’re on the hunt for a packing-friendly, easycare dress for any upcoming summer travel (or, hey, just brunch or other weekend activities), I thought we’d round up a few. I like that all of these are able to be dressed up and down — wear them with flip flops and a beach tote one day, with a nice necklace, clutch, wrap and fancier heels the next. The plus-size option from Travel Smith is even four dresses in one — two necklines and a reversible fabric! Ladies, do you have any favorite travel dresses, or favorite adventure clothing companies? What is your must-pack item for every vacation you go on?
Pictured: Woolrich / Eddie Bauer / Lily Pulitzer.
(The full roundup is after the jump!)
You’ve Just Won the Lottery. Like, a LOT. Now What? (Fantasy Open Thread)
I was looking around the designer dresses and clothes at Nordstrom recently and found myself thinking, man, if I ever win the lottery I am immediately going to the closest Max Mara store. (Then I started debating myself — Akris Punto? Armani? Hmmn.) So I thought this might be a fun fantasy open thread today — what would YOU do if you won the lottery? I’m assuming many of you would pay off student loans or credit card debt — maybe even family members’ student loans. (I seriously know someone this happened to!) After that, where would you turn? Just for kicks let’s say you’ve won $50 million dollars.
For some reason here’s what comes to my mind (after mortgage, college for the kids, and checking with close family and friends to see about helping with debts, and doing some serious thinking about charitable donations/setting up our own foundation):
Open Thread: Vacation Time
As the close of 2015 is almost upon us, here’s a question: did you use your vacation time? If you did (congratulations), please regale us with stories — wheredja go, whadja do, how’d you find the time to plan/schedule it, which app/service would you recommend, etc. — but if you DIDN’T (which historically was me), why not? Did you just have too much work? Did you not feel comfortable scheduling something with your work calendar? Was it a budget/priority thing? For everyone — do you have any big plans for 2016?
For my $.02 — I almost never used all of my vacation time, and looking back it was largely because I worried it would reflect poorly on me at work. I also was worried that I would spend all this time/energy/money researching a vacation only to have it cancelled at the last minute due to work. I felt pretty comfortable in BigLaw scheduling trips to see my parents, both because we had religious reasons (Christmas, Easter) for the trips, as well as because I knew my parents had good Internet service and would understand if I had to turn it into a working vacation. And of course I would tack on a day or two here or there if I was traveling for a friend’s weekend wedding or whatnot.
But in terms of fun vacations, particularly in places without reliable Internet access? The stress usually stopped me from going. For example, my now husband took me to Paris a few months after we started dating, and I was terrified the trip would be cancelled, that there would somehow be a disaster ON the 5-day trip (I had nightmares of having to find an “Internet cafe” to work in for hours, paying in 15-minute increments with a dial-up modem). I worried that when I left I would be working without sleep to get all the work done — and I worried that when I returned there would be a mountain of work waiting for me. The trip turned out fine, of course. (Ok, I got food poisoning, which was less than awesome for a romantic vacation, and we totally failed to make it to Reims because I misunderstood the train schedule, but workwise it was fine.)
Another reason I didn’t travel much while working in BigLaw: I could never get the timing right to travel with friends, and I never dated anyone seriously enough to even ponder a vacation together (until I met my husband) — and I was hesitant to travel by myself as a single woman. In my non-profit job, I didn’t have nearly as much vacation time, I didn’t have seniority to choose when to take it, and we didn’t have the budget anyway to take vacation without some serious sacrifices. [Read more…]
