Lds.net ladies travel club

[pam]

So there was a conversation on my facebook page and the topic of travel came up. A couple of ladies here from lds.net mentioned traveling to the UK and we jokingly said we should start an lds.net ladies travel club. Now wouldn't that be fun?

Of course, it would take me some time to be able to save up enough for any trips but still it sure is nice to dream.

[TalkativeIntrovert]

I am sure you have plenty of time to set that up Pam :)

I am a member of meetup.com and I have always thought it would be great to have a worldwide LDS meetup group.

Some of the group I am with now do regular bushwalks/bike rides/day trips on a weekend around the local area and also have a big holiday, often a year down the track, in the pipeline.

I don't do these things with my family because they hate doing them and whinge the whole time. There's a lot to be said for marrying someone with more in common than not!

I find the problem with the LDS social activities is that the married members tend to do family things, the single members do a lot of great activities but I would not feel comfortable attending ( being married and all :) ). Also, our ward is not very big, so not a lot of people that like doing active things that I like.

[Guest]

That would be really fun, provided I had the money. :)

Hey pammy, Gingy is back??

[Wingnut]

Okay, so I had to go back and look at that post on your FB page, Pam -- I didn't get any notifications about other comments on it! FB has been messing up my comment notifications lately, and it's getting frustrating.

[classylady]

If I had a year to plan, then I could probably save up enough money to go. It would totally be a blast.

[pam]

That would be the only way I could do it classylady. I'd have to have a year to plan.

[pam]

That would be really fun, provided I had the money. :)

Hey pammy, Gingy is back??

yeh the only way I could get him to show was to put the picture in my signature.

[dahlia]

There's travel and there's travel. You shouldn't need a year to save for a trip to DC, Chicago, Philly, San Antonio, Santa Fe, etc. especially if you can drive to your destination or take a bus/train. If you haven't been to DC or Philly you should go - almost everything in DC is free, and much of the historical stuff in Philly is also free. Now doing 2 weeks in Europe or Japan is another matter! I did a month in Europe on the cheap with a Eurail Pass, but my days of staying in hostels are over. I need a private room and room service.

Personally, I would like about 5 days in the San Juans (Washington state) with just me, the whales, and a high speed internet connection, but that's me.

I keep forgetting about meetup. I should look at it again as I have the same problem in my ward with so many young families. I do not want to do stuff with 3 yr olds. Sorry.

[pam]

There's travel and there's travel. You shouldn't need a year to save for a trip to DC, Chicago, Philly, San Antonio, Santa Fe, etc. especially if you can drive to your destination or take a bus/train. If you haven't been to DC or Philly you should go - almost everything in DC is free, and much of the historical stuff in Philly is also free. Now doing 2 weeks in Europe or Japan is another matter! I did a month in Europe on the cheap with a Eurail Pass, but my days of staying in hostels are over. I need a private room and room service.

Personally, I would like about 5 days in the San Juans (Washington state) with just me, the whales, and a high speed internet connection, but that's me.

I keep forgetting about meetup. I should look at it again as I have the same problem in my ward with so many young families. I do not want to do stuff with 3 yr olds. Sorry.

We were discussing a trip to the UK. :) So yeh..a year would be needed.

[dahlia]

Sorry, I missed that part. I would like to go to Ireland and Scotland, but I did a semester in London and took my son to England and Amsterdam awhile back. I suppose it's changed since then and might be worth another look. : )

[pam]

I would love to go to Ireland and Scotland myself. But I also want to go to England and Wales. So many places, so little time and money. :)

[pam]

There are 3 other countries I would like to go to and that is Austria, Croatia and Slovenia.

[Quin]

I go to England almost every year for Mothersday.

BritishAir usually has round trip tix for less than $200 out of NY

(Mothersday Tea w the Queen is usually the promotion name)

JetBlue often does $50 Anywhere-New York.

Voila!

Although if one has

- Tracelzoo Top20 &

- Airfare Watchdog

One can often go for even less. My least expensive UK trip was $120

AND If you get. BA credit card, then it's buy 1 (full price) ticket, get a 2nd companion fare free!

Depending on the promotion, it's sometimes cheaper to go halves with someone on a full price ticket.

It makes me almost nauseous to be shelling out $1,000 for my brother's stupid "emergency" he just couldn't plan according to airfare sales. Seriously, bro. Next time a crane is going to fall on you, couldn't you at least ring up BA first? That kid. Nothing but trouble.

Seriously, though.

If you want to go... BA, Airfarewatchdog, & Travelzoo Top20.

Q

[Leah]

There's travel and there's travel. You shouldn't need a year to save for a trip to DC, Chicago, Philly, San Antonio, Santa Fe, etc. especially if you can drive to your destination or take a bus/train. If you haven't been to DC or Philly you should go - almost everything in DC is free, and much of the historical stuff in Philly is also free. Now doing 2 weeks in Europe or Japan is another matter! I did a month in Europe on the cheap with a Eurail Pass, but my days of staying in hostels are over. I need a private room and room service.

Personally, I would like about 5 days in the San Juans (Washington state) with just me, the whales, and a high speed internet connection, but that's me.

I keep forgetting about meetup. I should look at it again as I have the same problem in my ward with so many young families. I do not want to do stuff with 3 yr olds. Sorry.

It might not occur to you or others, but some people can't afford vacations or travel at all. They are hard-pressed to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table, or have the gas or bus fare to get to work.. While you may have the income to do certain things, it doesn't mean that others "should" be able to do the same.

[Bini]

So there was a conversation on my facebook page and the topic of travel came up. A couple of ladies here from lds.net mentioned traveling to the UK and we jokingly said we should start an lds.net ladies travel club. Now wouldn't that be fun?

Of course, it would take me some time to be able to save up enough for any trips but still it sure is nice to dream.

My thoughts are that this kind of group would become an exclusive activity and for several reasons. Obviously, depending on the kind of travel and its cost, most people cannot afford extended holidays out of country -- let alone across the nation for a weekend. Secondly, it seems that something like this would best suit 'empty nesters' versus women that are still tied to childcare responsibilities, etc. Personally, being a stay at home mother to a toddler, I would not feel right about vacationing somewhere without my husband and daughter -- not at this point in our lives -- maybe when she's older or we're empty nesters but as it stands, we do such activities as a family or I do short spurt trips that don't exceed a few days (like Comic-con).

That said, we are very blessed to do annual overseas trips visiting family in both Europe and Asia. I take this for granted much too often and I shouldn't. It's certainly a privilege.

[pam]

My thoughts are that this kind of group would become an exclusive activity and for several reasons. Obviously, depending on the kind of travel and its cost, most people cannot afford extended holidays out of country -- let alone across the nation for a weekend. Secondly, it seems that something like this would best suit 'empty nesters' versus women that are still tied to childcare responsibilities, etc. Personally, being a stay at home mother to a toddler, I would not feel right about vacationing somewhere without my husband and daughter -- not at this point in our lives -- maybe when she's older or we're empty nesters but as it stands, we do such activities as a family or I do short spurt trips that don't exceed a few days (like Comic-con).

That said, we are very blessed to do annual overseas trips visiting family in both Europe and Asia. I take this for granted much too often and I shouldn't. It's certainly a privilege.

Agreed Bini. Just like an lds.net skiing club would be rather exclusive because not everyone can or wants to ski. I just threw it out saying it would be fun. It just so happened that two people who said they would love to join me are ladies I met right here on lds.net.

Even our get togethers are rather exclusive unless you live close to the Salt Lake City area.

[classylady]

I go to England almost every year for Mothersday.

BritishAir usually has round trip tix for less than $200 out of NY

(Mothersday Tea w the Queen is usually the promotion name)

JetBlue often does $50 Anywhere-New York.

Voila!

Although if one has

- Tracelzoo Top20 &

- Airfare Watchdog

One can often go for even less. My least expensive UK trip was $120

AND If you get. BA credit card, then it's buy 1 (full price) ticket, get a 2nd companion fare free!

Depending on the promotion, it's sometimes cheaper to go halves with someone on a full price ticket.

It makes me almost nauseous to be shelling out $1,000 for my brother's stupid "emergency" he just couldn't plan according to airfare sales. Seriously, bro. Next time a crane is going to fall on you, couldn't you at least ring up BA first? That kid. Nothing but trouble.

Seriously, though.

If you want to go... BA, Airfarewatchdog, & Travelzoo Top20.

Q

Quin, do those prices include taxes?

I already belong to Travelzoo. I haven't heard of Airfarewatchdog. I'll check them out.

[Smudge]

I would love to go to Ireland and Scotland myself. But I also want to go to England and Wales. So many places, so little time and money. :)

They are all in the UK - and you could visit them all in one trip - especailly if you aren't adverse to budget bus travel for example using Megabus! I am travelling down to a friends wedding for a whole £2.50 for the round trip.

Then you can book hotels like travelodge for £20 which is about the same as a bed in a hostel.

[classylady]

Some of our neighbors wonder how my family and I could afford to travel to Europe and South Korea this year. They don't realize that we scrimp and save, and then are very frugal. For example, my husband and I traveled to Germany last month for just over a week. Our total cost was under $1000. And we traveled extensively through southern Germany and Austria. Our flights were just over $100 per person. ( I have flight benefits from working for the airlines). Our hotel stays were around $50 a night, (and most of them included breakfast in the price). Also, it helped that we stayed two nights at a friends home. We rented a car, (price was divided between our son and his wife). Most of our meals we shopped at the local grocery store and bought sandwich makings.

For our trip to So. Korea, for four people, we spent a total of $600. Our flights were $35 each. Our hotel was about $30 per night. It helped that my daughter who lives over there picked up a lot of our food tab. She didn't have a large enough apartment for all four of us stay with her, so my husband and I had to stay in a small "love" hotel across the street.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is if a person can find inexpensive flights, they can travel quite frugally and see a lot of the country they are visiting. There are ways to find inexpensive travel while there, and you don't need to stay in 4 star hotels to have a nice place to stay.

[dahlia]

It sounds really expensive to say 'I rented a flat in London,' but when I took my son, that turned out to be the best deal for us. It was cheaper to rent some rooms with a small kitchen and bath and cook most of our meals than to stay in a regular hotel and have to eat hotel food all the time (not that I don't like dong that when I'm at a conference).

I guess a lot of people don't consider it a vacation if they are cooking, but for just the 2 of us, it was no biggie and saved me a lot of money in a high cost city such as London.

Another way to save is to travel between cities on the train (or I guess, the bus, but not as comfy) at night. You see city A all day, then sleep on the way to City B. There are a lot of places where you only want to spend a day, so it's not bad, and you can stay longer in the places with more to see if you've saved money by sleeping on the train.

[TalkativeIntrovert]

I love budget travel. I have more memories (good and bad) of that kind of travel than I do of staying in a resort.

We have a lot less opportunity for holidays now as my husband will not do budget and we can't afford more than that. So instead of a cheap family holiday each year we end up with an overpriced holiday every 5 or 6 years. This is the year for it and I am stressing greatly about how much it will cost and whether we have enough fun family time for the cost!

When the kids are independent I am looking forward to solo travel. It is just a shame that the airfare from Australia to most places is so expensive.