deniah

just about each individual's balance of resources in terms of money vs time.

i had healthy amount of vacation funds and/or mileage, desire to checklist some destinations off, and i enjoyed the flying... and not too much time.

now the above is still true... exept i have almost no time at all.

sethweinstein

My family would sometimes take weekend trips from Boston to London by the time I was college-age. Not huge flying times, but the time-zone differences are significant.

I would still do something like that now, even someplace farther, if I haven't been away in a while and need a "fix" or if there's something special at the destination that can only be seen at that time. The latter of those might be worth doing even with a large family.

Seth

StartinSanDiego

We try to balance the desire to stay longer (and longer, and longer...) with the ability to get away. The more I travel, the slower I want to go. Our rule of thumb is one hour of air travel time for one day at the destination. So a 10 hour flight LAX to Western Europe, is, ideally, a minimum of 10 days. That's 2 travel days and 8 days at the destination. We are starting to regularly stretch the trips to 14 days gone from home, when the award flights or the desired activities mandate a longer trip. Longer is nicer, but, realistically, we can't travel much more than we are already doing and have things at home not fall completely apart.

The loss of income is greater than the expense of travel. We are not luxury travelers, and are often far off the beaten path, so the actual expenses of travel can be less than staying at home. Mr. San Diego just stayed in a gorgeous castle B & B that was $18 a night, including breakfast. When you are out of the tourist areas, things can be unbelievably cheap.


Short trips that have been well worth the trouble: 5 nights in Hawaii & 7 nights in China. Both fantastic, if a bit rushed. Many times on both trips I thought how lucky I was to be there, even if it was a whirlwind schedule. I would do Hawaii for 3- 4 nights if the opportunity presented itself. It's an easy 5 hour flight from SAN, which is a much easier airport for us than LAX.

For us, it's all about the destination. Maybe some of you have an easier time getting to your local airport, and only travel in better seats. I have a hard time understanding the allure of airports, airplanes and lounges as part of the travel. For us, they are means to end. Overall, that part seems to be a big hassle... traffic, parking, shuttles, lines, TSA, getting scrunched up in an airplane seat next to strangers(if in economy), and having most of the important points being completely out of your control, all after getting up at 2 am to get to LAX by 7 for a 10 am flight... is not mitigated by a nice breakfast in a lounge (if Priority Pass let you into it) or a bigger seat in the front of the plane (when I'm fortunate enough to be in the front). If all my non-stops were from SAN, I might have a different outlook, but most of our travel is from LAX, because that's where the flights are.

84fiero

At the end of the day you should do whatever works for you and makes you and the family happy.

My wife and I won't usually take a trip if the time at destination would be short in comparison to getting there. Things like class of travel, how often we may get back to the destination, other trips planned for the year, difficulty in getting to the destination, miles/cash budgets, etc. do factor in to our thinking. But it ultimately ends up being a gut feeling decision on what feels like a satisfactory amount of time.

Long Train Runnin

Well I don't think it would work out with a family in tow, but I was recently blown away with how much I got done in Guatemala with just a regular weekend. UA started a seasonal route to Guatemala City with great timings.

After a day in the office I headed straight to the airport. Made it to my hotel room in Guatemala city around 11:30PM. Got picked up at 4:15 to go back to the airport for a 14 hour day trip to the ruins at Tikal. Had a great day on the tour. Back at the hotel around 8pm. Next morning 6AM pick up to go to lake Atitlan and the Chichicastenango market. Then a brief ride through Guatemala city before getting dropped off at the airport for my red eye flight home. Landed at EWR went home slept a little more and was at the office right on time.

It was "only two days" but by being willing to travel at break neck speeds, and not sleeping a ton I was able to see everything I wanted in Guatemala without taking any time off. It was also costly to arrange the Sunday tour as a private one, but it gave me the flexibility I needed to pull it all off. Yeah I spent a bunch of money, but I had a great time while I was there.

This weekend I'm heading to the Maldives for only a couple of days. You just need to be willing to maximize your ground time, and plan ahead and you'd be amazed how much you can see in a couple days.

Again this wouldn't work with a family, but if can work solo, or with someone who understands the schedule is going to be tough.

mhnadel

My normal rule of thumb is that I want to spend at least 3 times as long at my destination as it takes getting there and back. That is violated all the time for business trips and for certain personal trips (e.g. a recent trip to PDX for a memorial service) but it works most of the time.

evergrn

Thanks a lot for the different feedback on this. It's definitely helpful to hear about differing perspectives on this, so that perhaps we can dissuade ourselves from getting into a habit of planning these types of trips in the future and yet we can also justify it if/when we decide to do it.

@Long Train Runnin:
2 full days of sightseeing in Guatemala on a regular weekend with no additional time-off for someone near EWR is amazing. A trip to Maldives for a couple of days... that sounds even crazier! I'm sure it'll be great, though.
Optimal flight times are essential, isn't it? Living in SEA, what really helps is that we have red-eyes to Asia (EVA from SEA/YVR, CX & China Airlines from YVR) that really help minimize waste of vacation time for outbound travel (sleep on plane and get there early).

@StartinSanDiego:
You are right about the loss of income outweighing the cost of travel. That is a huge factor for me. It's the reason why it's difficult for me to take trips that are >10days long (2 weekends + 6 days off) these days. If our family takes a 3-week vacation, I come home alone early. And I'm in the type of work where the first day back after vacation is crazy... the longer the vacation, the crazier it is... to the point where I often think about the first day back even during vacation.

@CDTraveler:
Not the first time I've heard similar critiques about my parenting. My list of shortcomings as a parent is probably endless. I admit both my wife and I grew up in sort of the sheltered environment that we raise our kids in. One thing you have to give me credit for: my kids always fly coach.

CDTraveler

Not a critique as I don't know you or your kids. Comments were meant as a thinking point. I grew up in a "mixed environment" - went to school with kids from very wealthy backgrounds and kids from the proverbial wrong side of the tracks. The most unhappy people I know are the ones who grew up feeling entitled to the very best and don't have the same financial status as adults they had as kids. Flip side is the happiest people I know are able to find pleasure in simple things as easily as grand - and it doesn't matter what background they came from. It's a hard lesson to teach, and I speak from experience as a parent.

Annalisa12

Premium.

Of course I still get annoyed at some things at decide I hate the travel part. Unfortunately going to a lot of great places involves a long flight and I often have limited time.

RustyC

Re: OP. I think the FT "classic" answer is that there's a strong mileage lure, especially status miles, and/or some chance of flying in front at least part of the time. The January Singapore "do," which I made it to once, is a real classic in terms of long trips to build miles. Maybe a day or two of eating chili crabs and black pepper crabs and checking out Orchard Blvd and all the flown miles and all that.

Of course, things are much worse now with the programs and you have people like myself no longer trying to requalify status on the legacies. They also award far fewer RDMs on lower fares even though they're still minting RDMs like crazy via credit cards. So the old patterns aren't as prevalent and increasingly now the province of those who have to do enough biz travel to still be deeply into the game. Maybe that "turn" in South Africa puts them over the top for diamond instead of platinum (and they can explain how that's a must for having any chance at a transcon upgrade, etc.)

I've been amazed at how many posts I've read over in Mileage Run Deals where some cheap long-haul fare is bought by someone who posts that they're just flying a turnaround for the miles, even with 12+ hours flying each way. I've never been able to do that, but OTOH I've always been in the minority in using miles for free trips rather than upgrades.

Kagehitokiri

at commercial airports, paid VIP services allow commercial pax to avoid a lot at commercial airports

who cares re short trips when flying top F/suite ?

some of us fly Y, ive done transatlantic/transcon Y for short trips
the transatlantic i did, my hotel cost was what some spend on J

kids can be extremely adaptable or become used to things