I am back last week from 15 day trip of paris swiss and Amsterdam. I am so much fascinated that I have already planned for another trip (this time bavaria and rome/venice) this October itself.
Am I doing right thing? My wife says that I have gone mad. Is this OK?
Yes, and its OK.
We would need more information before we can make a clinical diagnosis. Is your wife living in penury? Are your children running around with no shoes are their feet? Do you find yourself spending time on travel forums while your in-box is overflowing? These could be warning signs.
Just depends on how you or she defines "mad." It is not unusual for people to return to Europe. I think we are up to 14 trips but have kind of lost track.
I would suggest that you find your support group here, with us. Even though we might all be a bit co-dependent.
At least you waited to get home. I have been banned from planning the next trip while in the middle of the one we're on.
It's the beginning of something great. Some of us are working a year or two out, planning 3 trips into the future. You just can't let her know until you get closer to the time. We're not mad, or at least not too mad.
If you're being financially smart about it and traveling within your means, then you're not being "mad." Maybe your wife has a problem though!
Sam - we were brought up in middle class family but now doing decently. According to her, having no child and being debt free, is making me spend on these luxuries. May be I am worried of not able to travel after having child :)
It may be time to play the airline miles/points game, if you aren't doing so already. This is a great way to feed your craving for constant trip planning! It goes like this: EVERYTHING that you charge on a credit card accumulates points/mile on a major airline (or on a card that can be used on multiple airlines). That's the card that you link to your monthly auto-pay bills. That's the airline whose website you first pull up before doing on-line shopping - and then go to the "points/miles" shopping link. (I bought a $75 watch last year on an airline's shopping link, using that airline's cc, and got 350 points for my purchase! Yippee! I'm still happy about that one). If you play the game really really well, and do your trip planning many months in advance, you can often fly round trip from mid-America to Europe on miles/points, at least annually.
At least it makes the trips seem more "free" - though Italian restaurants and hotels seem to not want to let me pay in miles/points once I get to Tuscany...
And also keep checking this website several times a week! Last November, thanks to a posting here, I jumped on a very brief Delta fare sale and got a round trip fare of $405 (including taxes & fees!) for New Orleans - Rome; Venice-New Orleans, for this coming autumn. With a fare like that, how could I NOT plan my next trip?
No, not mad if you have the resources and the spark to do the trips while you can.
I worry about myself when I have deposits on more than one trip at a time -- compartmentalizing and separate files are key.
I must say that I do admire that you planned your next trip after JUST being back from your last one. After each long, overseas flight I always swear I will NEVER do that again (but then, months later when travel catalogs arrive, I cave). Maybe that's why I take the dual trip planning approach -- commit before reminding oneself how much those long flights are disliked :o
Enjoy your travels -- you could be up to much worse :) But, we have to assume your wife also enjoys traveling?? If not, she may truly think you are mad (not understanding the pull).
I came away from last year's trip to Dublin and England having over budgeted and underspent, and having had way too much fun that I immediately planned another trip to England and then the Netherlands. Good thing I have 200 leave hours that have to be burned up as well :-)
She enjoys travelling, may be not as passionate as me. She is just being cautious with money.
Definitely easier and cheaper to travel pre-child. If you can afford it without going into debt to do so and can take the time off, do it now. Not to mention that if you wait, the political situation in a country may have changed so that you're no longer comfortable going there. We went to Turkey in 2012 and loved it but I would not feel comfortable going there now because of its authoritarian leadership that sometimes makes negative comments to his people about the United States. I regret not going to Egypt years ago because I doubt I will ever get to go there now.
You have been bitten by the bug. We did this too. Just got back from 2nd trip to Italy which we had started planning the month after the first trip. We head to England in Sept, also a 2nd visit we did not plan for. This trip is an extra after getting super cheap airfare offer. Someone here recently said they are working at doing these trips cheaper and that is what we are doing. I love it too because it reminds me of my childhood living in foreign countries while my father was stationed overseas. Its a huge motivator. Like going home but home is the next country I visit.
I second doing this before starting a family. At least a couple trips.
No, not mad.
However you just caught the disease most of us here have. Apparently there is no cure, but most people like to be sick with this ailment. Neither Obamacare or Trumpcare covers it, but it costs less than the average surgery in an American hospital, so enjoy it while you are sick.
No, you're NOT crazy. On the airplane returning home from a European trip, my husband and I would separately list what had been our most favorite thing, our least favorite thing and lastly, where we wanted to go next. The "go next" part would be our top 3 destination choices and we would choose the one we had in common. Surprisingly, we actually always did have at least one in common. So, in essence, planning (or at least thinking about) our next trip while on the way home from the current one. Worked for us.........
Sorry, but I just burst out laughing when I read your post. Welcome to the club. If you live in an area where there is a Rick Steves meet up, I'd encourage you to go so you can find others who feel the same as you do!
I am a carpe diem kind of traveler. My Mom's only regret at the end of her very full 94 year life was that she didn't go on a safari and didn't see the Great Wall. I don't want to have travel regrets!
Welcome to the Club! My husband and I plan our next trip on the way home and sometimes we plan 2 trips at a time. The travel bug bit me when I was 3. Although I did have a couple of decades of not traveling due to raising our family, now that they're out of the house, we plan one trip a year and sometimes sneak in an extra one...or 2!
Enjoy it while you can...as long as you can afford it.
If no medications are involved, you are not mad. :)
I regularly attend 2 RS travel groups in Northern California, so that when I am not currently planning I can vicariously enjoy others plans and trips.
I wasn't able to take my first trip to Europe until I was 39 although I had been dreaming of it since I was 8!
Now I'm 70 and I recently returned from trip #14.
And. yes, I am already thinking about what I might do next, and, of course, how I can afford it with credit card points and inexpensive but clean and safe lodging.
Perhaps your wife could read this thread ... She might see that you aren't really crazy (!) and that you are in good company!
And happy trails!
I have the next two trips planned on paper. I made hotel reservations for one place for 2018 (it's a small B&B, visit is during a local festival). I have a list of places to visit that is longer than I will live.
Start putting equal sums away for kids and travel.
Look for travel deals.
We are here for you.
Bravo for your planning the next trip. I'd go in mid-Sept-October too,... my plan too just after returning. It depends on the flight prices. Should they be acceptable, I'm back over there, have already started repacking after cleaning the spinner. out.
No, you're not mad but it sounds like you've been bitten by "the travel bug". I suspect that most of us here are already starting to think about the next trip, even while on the flight home from the current trip. Unfortunately, I don't think there's a vaccine for that "bug", although lack of money can suppress the symptoms to some degree.
Happy travels!
We were infected in 2010 and are finding it is a chronic condition. We have a philosophy: Postpone nothing! We could sock away the money and leave it to ur kids, but let 'em earn their own. We travel so we can enjoy time together and like Zoe, my list of places to go -- and to return to -- is longer than the traveling years we have ahead of us. Wish we'd started sooner!
Keep on dreaming and planning . We're just finishing Week Four of a six-week trip. Have a week planned in November due to cheap airfare, and already thinking about where to go in 2018 (and how to earn the dough to pull it off).
When we were finally able to take our first trip to Europe in 2008, we thought - if we can go every five years, we'd be so happy. Welllll...before we even got home we said every two years, and we even did two years in a row (2014 and 2015). We've been over 6 times in 9 years (including this year) and I'm already planning Europe for the next two years (the USA is on hold now...for...um...a couple years ;) Hopefully I can lift my self imposed exile in 2021).
So easy to get addicted. We never had kids, but money was an issue for us until, well, even until about 2012, but we made the other trips over work by saving money from every paycheque. Go while you can. Life...and finances...may get in the way. Certainly don't put yourself into great debt, but you never know when you won't be able to go again, perhaps for years.
The exchange rate is worse than last year at this time, if just by a little.
@ Tim...Bravo! my compliments on getting through week 4. Keeping plugging away at it. Looking back I should have booked 56 days on the ground instead of only doing 52, ie making the trip eight full weeks.
praveenroam - your too funny! My DH just rolls his eyes at me. We just got home from our RS tour June 18. I booked our next two back to back tours (2018) on July 4th!! So, no you have not gone mad!!. In my head, I have 2019, 2020 and possibly 2021 tours mapped out that I wish to take. So send me to the funny farm also!
Kim
I'll offer my non-professional opinion: No, you have not gone mad. It's this addictive thing called travel. It took me awhile to give into the compulsion to just let go and GO somewhere, but now we do it on a regular basis.
And I do understand the money thing. It is important to be financially responsible, but it is also important to live a little. So often we save for tomorrow, and then something horrific happens and tomorrow doesn't turn out the way we'd planned.
That's my own way of saying that if I live to be 120, I'll probably be begging on the streets but I should have SO MANY frequent flyer miles by then... ;-)
No, you have not gone mad but rather you have gone to Europe.
I usually settle for checking out a tall stack of travel guidebooks from the library when my wife and I return from a trip. It's good to pace yourself, there is such a thing as diminishing marginal utility of travel (like anything else). That said, I found myself with some extra time off in the fall and 2016 was a year of two Europe trips for me. I advise you to give it a month before you book anything and see how you feel then.
When I compare my life usable life expectancy (before age/health issues ground me) to the places I want to see, I realize I have less time than I need. I plan to take two Europe trips a year (a little over two weeks each) until I retire, then hope to travel much more but at a slower pace.
I too have the travel bug. It's amazing how much time one has once the kids are gone. The only thing holding us back now is that the wife just doesn't have enough vacation to fit in all of the trips I want to do.
I also find myself within a day or two of returning from a trip planning the next one. I am pretty OCD and have a one-track mind so I have to be careful with dividing up my energy to make sure I take care of everything else that needs done instead of just spending all my time planning trips
My wife is the exact opposite and much more happy-go-lucky so I drive her nuts with this
