Our travel budgets are intrinsically linked to our planning. As we are planning a trip through Europe, with most time in France, we know we’ll want to have quite a food and wine focus. Local food markets, wineries, and good local restaurants will be planned into the itinerary. If we have heard about a particular restaurant and really would love to try their food, we’ll decide that it is worth eating simple, cheap fare for a night or two so that we can indulge in their sumptuous food. Many fabulous memories are based on wonderful meals.
The cruise home will take us through parts of the world that are new to us, so we will probably choose to do some of the planned onshore excursions even though they may seem expensive. They can help you decide whether you want to return to a place and explore it further. Where we are returning to a place we tend to do our own exploring of the harbour or town.
Gray has been known to say, “you can only spend each dollar, once”, so therefore it is important that we make sure we know how much money is required to enjoy the experience. Getting the balance right is important to us. We don’t want to be so constrained by our budget that we cannot enjoy ourselves but on the other hand at our age we realise that the holiday fund is not an infinite pot of gold. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it were? We have travelled with folk who noted down their spending each day, often whilst we were out and about. We felt very uncomfortable by this and are sure that they were not having much fun either. Once the spending has been planned and agreed, we believe it’s time to enjoy ourselves.
So this ‘philosophical statement’ as Gray defines the budget, is a good guide to ensure we make the most of our experiences away. I interpret the budget as ‘an enabler’, stretching it as far as possible to enable us to have a good time. Together we manage to make successful budget decisions and keep on enjoying traveling.