Travel Tip #41 - Visit family

     Between summer vacation, fall break, winter break, spring break, Thanksgiving, and various 3-day weekends throughout the year, we probably go on 4 family vacations a year. As a school teacher, I have the time to do this because I'm off when my kids are. On the other hand, as a school teacher, the budget is tight. So how do we manage this? About half of our vacations are visiting family. Since hotels are the single most expensive equation in most vacation budgets, this helps tremendously. It also allows us to spend time with loved ones that we only get to see a few times a year. From our end it is a win-win situation. Now you might think we'd have worn out our welcome by now, but evidently my wife and daughters are super popular because we usually have more offers from family members to stay at their homes than we can accept since we don't want to change houses every night. Of course, we always reciprocate the offer. We usually have several visitors a year, and always enjoy their visits. Another way not to wear out your welcome is to not be underfoot the whole time. We make sure we spend some quality time with the family we are visiting, but we also make sure that we have other activities planned in the area so that they don't feel like they have to entertain 24/7. Naturally, we usually invite them to accompany us on our excursions, allowing them to decide whether or not they have the time or desire to visit some of the local sites. Another good idea is to offer to help out with the daily chores - preparing meals, doing dishes, cleaning up small messes, etc. Some people may be more particular than other about what they want you to help out with, but most appreciate the gesture. So the next time you need to get away from the house, but have a tight budget, you might want to consider strengthening those family ties. From our point of view, it is definitely worth it.