I too want to go back to Japan so bad, it was our last family trip for Xmas and new years 2019/2020 right before the pandemic, talk about good timing. I'm just quoting what my wife has been spitting to me but I know she has been throwing numbers at me in the $1200 range while playing around with dates in/around Spring break so possibly if you're slightly flexible i.e. pulling kids out of school for early it can be had for much cheaper?

Having to pay for extra people, aka kids is a real bummer lol

I work for a small company, so we have what is called "unlimited vacation" - basically if my manager is cool with it, I can take time off.

I try to take around 4-5 weeks of vacation a year (so basically two vacations), but this year I'll be taking about 8 weeks off in total (including a week for a minor surgery).

Going to Hong Kong and Taipei next month, but that's a special case since I managed to snag two tickets during that Cathay Pacific giveaway.

On a site note, we never went on a family vacation with my dad before he passed in 2021. My mom says she regrets focusing on work instead of going places as an entire family (especially when we were younger). She went on a few trips with my dad, but us kids never went (school, work, etc). She always assumed that once she got older that we'd all have the chance to go together. I would highly recommend going on places together with your siblings and your parents if you haven't yet.

8 weeks a year, spring break, summer months and 1 week in Dec off. Spring break usually somewhere tropical with the kids, summer months are usually for myself, and Dec Xmas week with the extended family.
Wife has 6 weeks, she takes those during the summer when the kids are off school.
We going to China in March for 2 months next year so that burn up my 8 weeks.
We're allowed to use our OT bank for time off as well upto 2 weeks max.

when nonstop to asia used to be $600 r/t pp, now double-triple that with significantly worse service

heck, even skipped road trip this year

these days rather put funds toward camping gear and do that instead.. though late winter would call for flying somewhere warm

I’ve yet to be able to register for a god damn camp site. I’ve been trying to go to porteau cove for ever and I can’t even find a single date on a single camp site that’s near the water.

I don’t even know why I bother…. That system is so fucked

Porteau cove is probably one of the hardest campsites to book in the lower mainland.

My parents have lucked out several times previously but it would be for shoulder season mid week days.

Mid summer weekend waterfront fugghedaboutit

Ditto on this.

We recently came back from a 15-day "vacation" in Hong Kong. I had to take my mother in law to HK to renew her HK ID and risk of some financial assets being frozen/seized thanks to new Chinese gov't laws and stuff.

Long story short - we planned this trip well in advance, and even then, flights were $1850 per person and that was the "cheapest." Air Canada, EVA, Cathay etc were well into the $3500 - $4500 per person in economy. We managed to get our flights on China Airlines which was not bad, but service is not as polished as say EVA Air which is pretty good for its service.

Hotels - We got "lucky" and got our hotel of choice and location at what is in today's terms a fair price. Surrounding hotels were triple the cost.

Dining - You still can find good food for cheap but that's all relative. I don't think it's sustainable to eat curry fish balls or street side snacks all day unless that's your thing. Food is very expensive in HK now, often comparable to Vancouver prices, if not more.

I cried when I saw my credit card bill at the end of the trip.

our flights to Hong Kong was 9200 for business on AC. utterly insane. I was able to cheap out and grab premium economy for myself (since i only went for 10 days instead of my wife's 2.5 months) and then use my eupgrades to get bumped up to buisness. Even premium economy was 3900 for round trip

dont get me started on food... on average like 1000hkd (175 cad) per meal per person not including booze.

We traveled multiple times a year before kids and covid. Typical large trip before 2019 was around 7-8k before any expensive shopping (shopping doesn't always happen), plus a few local excursions to the Okanagan or to Seattle/Portland, and an annual snowboarding trip to an interior mountain.

We splurged hard on our trip for Euro Delivery in 2018 and spent about 11k before shopping. We knew that was potentially our last huge trip with just the two of us and went relatively crazy.

Kid arrived in 2019 and covid happened so we haven't really done anything until last month when we cruised to San Diego. The cruise for 4k, accommodation in SD was under 2k, plus car rental and we ate cheap. I think total was around 7-8k with 2 kids. Before that we've done Kelowna, Whistler, and Victoria a few times. Whistler is a little cheaper at around 1k for 3-4 nights, Victoria and Kelowna adds up with travel.

I'm planning to go to HK next year, and potentially swinging down to Singapore during, and up to Shanghai on the way back. It'll be a larger 3-4 week trip and it'll depend on where I am at work at that time. I expect it to be a 20k trip with 2 kids, and that's with accommodations already in place for all three cities.

I've always had 3 weeks of PTO every year and typically use it all up. Covid happened and somehow all my jobs became unlimited vacation but with no way to use them. Now I am back to 3 weeks vacation as we are starting to travel again. Go figures.

What?! So Badhobz is all alone by himself in the Richmond mansion for the next 2 months?!

Time to call the hookers and par-tay it up~
(Or we can borrow Mike's pic to create a profile on POF or Tinder, and go wild with it.) :alonehappy:

Meet at Hobz

nah nah she's already back. she was gone in early sept till now

badhobz needs a detached garage

I’m surprised I didn’t use leolist and call 20 hookers (10 will likely require refunds which I’ll then shoot on the way out of the house)

Too bad lousy spy balloons got the entire house wired up with nest cameras. Supposedly for the dogs but it’s more so I don’t jerk off everywhere.

My dad and his buddies just went to Thailand and Cambodia and flew Eva in Premium economy YVR - Taipei - Bangkok for $2400 taxes in round trip.

You got raped paying that for AC.

Wait, $175 CAD per meal per person? That's not typical though. That's like a nice dinner with your uncles and aunties right? HK isn't that crazy?

No offence to anyone who mentioned it before but all these jobs that have “unlimited time off” seem like they are all the same, you get “unlimited time off” but you can never take it or even use an amount a regular arrangement would provide you lol

I only get 4 weeks vacation.

We try for one family vacation a year, usually ends up costing 5-7K but we haven't went since covid. This year was a little hectic with my work, wifes job and my sons football schedule not aligning.

I go to Vegas at least once a year on my own, cost varies depending on the type of trip whether I'm just playing poker or I'm with my friends. Next year I'm probably going to skip this trip, the cost of Vegas in general is getting out of control, money could be better spent somewhere else.

I usually do one trip for an NFL game per year, take my son. This year we went to Minnesota, trip was relatively inexpensive honestly but I had some flight credits I had to use. I spent well under $2,000 Canadian including airfare, hotel, game tickets and food for the 2 nights we were there. Memorable trip because I forgot my wallet including credit cards and DL at home and didn't realize until I was in Seattle and my flight was leaving in 90 minutes, don't do this lol. Thankfully my buddy and his son were also on same trip, he saved the day.

My wife and son go on a few camping trips a year, I'm not about that tent life so I just hang back with the dog and get the house to myself for 3-4 days at a time.

Yeah but I refuse to fly connections so I’m stuck paying those prices. Direct or no go for me

No man. That’s friggin dai pai dong (street vendor) food. Yeah okay we had seafood but still. Dim sum in Stanley cost 20 dollars per har gao. One har gao. One.

For family meals, this is about normal'ish. The reality in HK has changed dramatically.

Be prepared to shell out a premium for dai pai dong.

dafuq, triple digits for street food?!

Man you guys are dropping serious dime on flights, notably to Asia.

We lucked out recently with our flights to Thailand in this upcoming February 2024. Direct flight with Air Canada, $1,200 roundtrip.

The deals are out there, you just really need to look for them.

Google Flights price alerts are a godsend if you're flexible.

Thailand =/= HK

Ill just throw up some random meals receipts i took throughout my trip. Note these are pretty run of the mill places that my wife and her cousins eat at everyday

This one is from the dai pai dong
https://i.postimg.cc/hGBymCBs/IMG-9856.jpg
https://i.postimg.cc/FHcC1M21/IMG-9855.jpg

https://i.postimg.cc/ZKDzrz7c/IMG-0764.jpg
This one below is in causeway bay, near sogo. Some vietnamese place and it wasnt even good
https://i.postimg.cc/Pxmd4Vpq/IMG-0713.jpg

This is some central brunch place. like i said all the prices are insane nowadays
https://i.postimg.cc/dtZ4xMQn/IMG-1431.jpg

20 bucks yo. 20!!!! for one...
https://i.postimg.cc/NGJzn76G/IMG-1222.jpg

you add in the real fancy places like 10 Shanghai restaurant in HK and it works out to an average of 1000 bucks per person per meal. utterly insane.
http://www.10-shanghai.com/