This is where travel hacking took us in 2018:
Not too bad, especially considering Baby J couldn’t get a passport until late last year. Below you’ll find our total costs and savings from all those trips, listed by month of the year. …
If you’re wondering which airline has the best champagne selection or the highest thread count on their linens, this is not the post you’re looking for.
Our family travel style is very middle-of-the-road for international travelers. We fly in basic economy most of the time. Sure, we love a good airport lounge and we very occasionally spring for the lay-flat beds on nighttime flights. But we also are not “luxury” travelers. We don’t care about alcohol selection and don’t like to be checked on every 10 minutes. We do love getting from Point A to Point B without dreading our travel days, even if Point B is halfway across the world.
So here’s my review of British Air and our flights to and from Switzerland this year with our preteen C and our little toddler J. …
December included a wonderful few days of celebrating Christmas with loved ones in our hometown, followed by the excitement of jetting off to Interlaken, Switzerland to ring in the New Year with some good friends. (I included the whole trip in our “December spending” even though it overlapped January by 4 days.)
A quick reminder: these monthly spending reports are an effort to keep myself accountable to the idea that doctors do not have to spend a totally ridiculous amount of money to live well and love life. We’ve now successfully done these spending reports for every month in 2018.
As I have mentioned before, we do not do traditional budgeting. You absolutely should do traditional budgeting if that works for you as a way to control your spending. More on this topic here. …
Joining Maui, Las Vegas, and Camano Island on our “2018 vacations we travel-hacked” list is Switzerland! This was my sixth time to Switzerland but my first time bringing kids along.
Once again, we traveled at a peak time to a destination famous for being expensive. We were in Switzerland for 7 nights over the holidays, and also traveled overnight getting there and getting home – so we were away from home for 9 nights, 10 if you include the airport hotel the night before the trip.
We were mostly in the Berner Oberland, exploring Interlaken, Thun, Murren, and Grindelwald, with a brief visit to Zurich on our way home.
We had the obvious advantage of staying with friends for the majority of the trip, although this did not mean they footed the bill for all our food. In fact, we ate out almost every day and consumed as much local chocolate and cheese as we could get our hands on… which you’ll see reflected in our dining/grocery spending.
We also willingly took on the extra expense of premium economy and business class air travel, as well as three nice hotel stays to make our flight schedule more convenient. You could easily do Switzerland for less than this, particularly if you don’t mind flying in basic economy in the off season (and if you have the advantage of flying from closer than the west coast of the USA). You could also do this trip for a heck of a lot more.
Below is the cost breakdown for our trip, and as such the last of our spending for 2018. This is for a family of 4 during the ever-popular travel time of Christmas break.
(You can also check out our review of flying British Air with the munchkins and our tips for air travel with infants.) …