Am I the only one that feels like they spend too much money sometimes over the course of the year travelling? Admittedly I sat down with a financial planner and she was "you really do take advantage of travel deals don't you? What website do you read? I'm interested...but back to spending on travel..."

I raise this issue in this forum because I often feel that my gay friends are taking some sort of neat trip and I don't want to miss out, or I plan a great trip and everyone tags along, aka Gay Disney and Ptown, summer trips to the beach, esaver weekends, etc. While this probably is true for both gay and straight I wonder if having a travel "lifestyle" is related to the GLBT culture and environment. Do taking fabulous trips prevent us from saving, buying houses, etc?

It's a bit of a philosophical discussion, but one I think apt for this forum as Gays and Lesbians have higher then average disposable incomes for travel.


[This message has been edited by catwood (edited 04-18-2002).]

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by catwood:
...While this probably is true for both gay and straight I wonder if having a travel "lifestyle" is related to the GLBT culture and environment. Do taking fabulous trips prevent us from saving, buying houses, etc?....
[/B]</font>

I think this topic is a bit of a stretch as far as being specific to GLBT. Do we like to travel more than the straight crowd? You wouldn't know it from reading the other fora on FT.

If in fact we do travel a bit more than the general public, it might be due to having an easier time getting away - many of us are without children. And we can find someone to look after the cats. http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttravel_forum/biggrin.gif

Even if we don't travel more, I do believe that we often pay more than straight travelers when we travel on gay tours/cruises, stay at gay resorts, etc.. Some travel writers refer to this as the "gay tax".

I think responses to your question are going to be mixed. As Flexible Flyer points out, may Gays & Lesbians do not have children, which, one would think allows for more vacations and trips, since there are no school issues to deal with, however, my partners brother and his wife take far more trips than we do, though ours tend to be a little more far away and perhaps exotic. While they “slum it” in a family camper during several extended weekend camping trips during the year, we perhaps may go to Bangkok and Singapore for the week. They may visit more family oriented spots such as their recent trip to Disneyland and Legoland in Carlsbad while we prefer to frolic in the Indian Ocean. Considering that they have two young children, the costs for their trips may indeed cost more for them than for us, even with the locations we choose. Meals for 4 or more, airline tickets, passes to amusement parks and such quickly add up for them.

For an upcoming trip to Paris in June, my partner, sister and myself will travel on Concorde and stay at the Prince de Galles for a little more than a week. While it seems extravagant, all were point and mile redemptions, the only expense will be food and perhaps a little shopping. Since 99% of all the vacations I’ve taken in the past 10 or so years have been point & mile redemptions, I’ve probably have spent far less overall than my partners or my brothers families, both which have small children, though our trips appear to have cost more.

I agree that most Gay & Lesbian households tend to have more disposable income, studies have proven this, but if our community had children, our disposable income would diminish as we would need to save for college funds, diapers, additional expenses for food, clothing and such. Even if we are ever fortunate enough to have children, the bottom line is that we enjoy traveling and children would not prevent us from traveling less, even with less disposable income.

DINK

Research has shown that gays do travel more often and spend more money on travel than the straights.

This is one reason why more and more travel-related companies are making a bigger effort to attract queer dollars.

d

I have to agree with Raffy in some ways. It's not that we are GLBT travellers, but FT'ers! Which means we are all probably a tad OC about travel and hence spend more on it. Then again, we are also savvy enough to eak out great deals. Let's face it, me and the other half flew to FL along with some friends. At the end of the day, we both flew UA and spent about the same on the tickets (about £370 each). They sat in the back in E-, while I cashed in our miles for upgrades and we sat up front (BTW separate flights so we weren't gloating to them!). So who got a better deal?

I do think that sometimes I travel more frequently and in much better style than my hetero counterparts, but I think that is more due to the fact that travel is my passion. I have always told people that my ultimate measure of personal success is that I would have the resources to travel where/when/how I wanted without worrying about the dent it would make in my daily finances.

For me, I love nothing more than dreaming about jetting off to far off locales. True, being gay does enable me to do so more easily, but I'm sure that when (not if) I decide to have children, we will be travelling just the same.

Personally, I am a senior at MIT. (Read: poor, starving college student) http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttravel_forum/smile.gif However, because I am more travel savvy than the average traveller, I travel very well. I've chosen a FF program that enables me to fly FC for free whenever it's available. Since I'm a student, I don't travel with the business masses, so my upgrade percentage even as a Silver is pretty good, even on the dirt cheap fares that I always book (I never pay more than around $250 for any ticket I or my parents are purchasing).

I also work for a travel software company, so I have access to industry discounts at hotels, etc. So while I quite often stay at many beautiful hotels, I am doing so at a fraction of the cost.

Also, this board enables us, as someone said earlier, to take advantage of some excellent deals through the sharing of knowledge. I am among the many that are purchasing lots of IF subscriptions for the SPG points. I'm then transferring 65k SPG points into my QANTAS account for a RT Concorde/First trip on BA from JFK to LHR then onto Rome, and another 100k points into NZ AirPoints for a RT FC ticket from LAX to AKL, then onto SYD and back.

All of this cost me about $3100. Thankfully I'm graduating, so my parents are giving me one hell of a graduation gift. Two dream travel experiences crossed off my list at 23 years old. I really can't complain.

But to bring this back to the topic, I've often pondered as such. Are we all free spirits by nature, or does our nature enable us to be free spirits? I don't know if I've yet come to an agreement on that point. But I know for me personally, I will always travel until the day I die, because nothing gives me more pleasure than escaping my daily world into one of paradise or wonder.

Ryan

(Edited for grammatical errors. http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttravel_forum/smile.gif)

[This message has been edited by RChavez (edited 04-19-2002).]

i took 13 vacations last year.. and only 1 was on a free ticket (flew w/ a friend who works for United)....

:P :P

I think I spend about 30% of my income on traveling, although this year it's climbing up to 50%

-nate

DINK is one part of it, but vet bills and housesitters can soon add up to one child's worth of stuff in a year....

another is - we don't spend tons of money on new dvds, cds, dinners out at home etc...

We have pretty good jobs, a modest housepayment and some discretionary income. We chose to travel over buying a new car. Maybe next year it will change.

We also fly in Y and use upgrades, stay with friends and try to travel in the off-season, which brings travel costs down immensely.

We also work in the same field, often going to the same meetings, so we can pool perdiem and get a nicer hotel and sometimes make a long weekend out of a work trip.

lala

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by lalala:

another is - we don't spend tons of money on new dvds, cds, dinners out at home etc...</font>

Speak for yourself ... I just had to put in a third bookcase for my movie collection http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttravel_forum/wink.gif

oy, i meant we...

well, okay, we spend on books, but the better half is starting to enjoy the wonders of the library too...

we are looking to build even more bookcases for books, running out of wall space though.

lala

dirty little secret:

i spend, maybe, $2000 a year on travel. some of it's because i have someone to split all those $59.95 Hilton weekend rooms with (and she lets me have the points and the miles...isn't she so perfect?), but also because i know how to sit here, brood, look at fares carefully, blah blah in order to save myself some serious cheddar.

thus, i don't think i overspend. but i know that i have it pretty lucky because i have the ability to plan like this, i work my brains out for enough $ to travel, and my partner is willing to pull a little more weight sometimes in order to keep all well.

i get almost all of my FC seats by upgrades, too. and because i live in a dorm or at home with mommy, my cost structures are a bit different. but don't deny yourself travel; think of cutting somewhere more reasonable, like working harder to get groceries on sale and finding new ways to earn more miles. IMHO. YMMV. watch out for snakes. http://www.flyertalk.com/travel/fttravel_forum/smile.gif

oy, there are so many threads to catch up already since I joined recently but I'm just totally hooked and love this community.

Although making a very humble salary (just graduated not too long ago from grad school), I allocate my travel budget from other expenses. I can save money for travelling. Well, except ballroom dancing where most of my free money every month goes there... :-(

Staying at friendss, hostels or hotels with good deals is the major way to save accomodations cuz we folks know hotel fees are usually even more expensive than a flight ticket!

As travel savvy as we are, we dont' necessarily spend more money on travel. The only thing I can think of is that we travel more often or join more expensive gay cruises/vacation packages.

FM Maniac

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- I am a Freqnt Miles Maniac and a Ballroom Dance Miniac :-) -