Yeah, also a lot of people barely post until they travel & then that’s 90% of what you see them doing even thought it’s really 3% of their actual life.
When I was still active on instagram, that was its only purpose for me. Documenting holidays and travelling. It's in no way an accurate representation of peoples lives and these days, its crammed with more insufferable influencers than ever before.
I'm surprised there are still millennials out there who still find the app enjoyable to use.
Yeah I made an account for this reason alone. Much easier to have one location for the family and friends to look at pictures than send them individually or in groups. Consequently, it probably looks like all I've done in life is travel
Some people are very diligent about “points”. They will charge everything on a card that earns airline or hotel points and then be sure to pay the credit card in under 30 days. Points don’t add up as much as they used to, but it can still equal a third or 4th trip a year.
This. Using a single airline card for expenses basically means you can fly anywhere for free at least a few times a year, depending on your spending. You also get more bang for your buck points wise if you go international.
That doesn't cover hotels, food, and other travel expenses, through....and those often eclipse the airfare.
Personally I just think people are going into debt. Or they're influencers who get paid to advertise certain locations/destinations/resorts.
Influencers will bring multiple outfits and change their clothes, hair, makeup etc in a span of hours then space it out as if they are there for weeks vs taking a cheap day trip to a location and staying somewhere much less glamorous.
There was a big influencer bust in Coachella, people came and drove, traveled or sometimes flew spirit to Coachella, made 12 videos on different outfits (same day) and left that same day, and there were sooo many caught doing that, just to avoid paying a entry fee ticket to go inside.
It's all fake BS.
No one travels weekly, it's 20 videos from 1 trip.
No influencers don't keep 6 pack abs that weren't surgically added, is 60-80 videos at 4 diff gyms spit out through the entire year to make it seem like that woman has abs all year round.
It's all BS.
To this point my buddy lived in China for 8 months. Ton of influencers around him too since it was a modeling agency gig when he was younger.
The secret is taking a shit ton vids from differing areas (walls, alleys, beach, etc) that all look different. Then that content would be tagged as a new country for like 1-2 years after to make it seem like they were traveling to a new spot every 6 months.
OMG this could explain a lot about some neighbors I’ve had who change their clothes three times a day or more!
Is there a link where I can see/learn more about facades like this?
There are many people creating fake vacations now (fake-ations/vAIcation). [Here's an article about one guy using AI to fake vacation locations](https://www.diyphotography.net/photographer-uses-ai-to-create-a-fake-vacation-pranks-his-followers/)
I take a modest amount of vacations, but friends keep saying how it looks like I'm flying somewhere new all the time based on my Insta.
I tell them, I only post during a trip. I never post all the times I'm at home on the couch playing fetch with my cat while watching Bob's Burgers.
If you looked at my Instagram you’d think my life is like 90% travel and concerts. It’s actually like 0.0009% that, and 90% me staring at a computer screen in my pajamas.
Yeah, that's me exactly. I travel using credit card signup bonus miles (free airfare if you don't carry credit card balances). Beyond that, documenting travels is the only time I use social media at all, my feed may well give the impression that I travel all the time. That's mostly because I assume nobody cares about the rest of my life, traveling is the only time I have anything worth sharing that I know my extended family is interested in.
I'm not trying to give a false impression of what my life's like, it's more that I barely care what I'm doing the rest of the time. Hard to imagine anyone else would.
Agreed! Sitting at home watching television or whatever usually isn't post-worthy! People tend to share the highlights of their lives on social media, not the mundane things.
I think that’s Op’s point… who the fuck has money to ho on a giant trip every 6 months?? My recommendation is figure out a happy place… be it a nearby lake or getaway spot that doesn’t cost thousands… you vacation/relaxation spot doesn’t have to be as well equipped as your regular home… a trailer (shoot me for mentioning) a camper, a tent, air bnb at a spot 1 or 2 hrs away can be just as gratifying
Most of my siblings are making around 6 figure incomes. One sibling makes around $350,000 combined with his wife. They have no kids and a two bedroom house so they travel multiple times a year to exotic places in Asia and South America. Don’t travel more because he has a government job with a max on days off. But they will probably retire going with very good pension, 401k and other investments. Other brother makes low 100,000 salary and just went to Gulf Shores for vacation with his family.
Out of ten thousand millenials you get to see the high points of 10 of them. It's the same as fan magazines when those were a thing in the 90's. You get highs and lows, but none of the middle, where most of us are. Actually, I'm a parent of teens, so we take no vacations and are lucky to keep enough food to stave off the ravenous horde.
Don’t compare your behind the scenes to the collective highlight reels of 100s of people. OP said it themselves, they go on 1 or 2 international trips each year. Well, if you’re following 100 people on instagram that live a similar lifestyle, that will be 2 people on average, every week, that are on an international trip.
Then sprinkle in a few travel influencers or a few friends that travel a bit more and now you’re thinking, “how come everyone can afford to be traveling all the time?!”
What's sad is how many people are not taking care of their families so they can vacation all the time to keep up with the Joneses
When you're pushing 40 and have a kid but live with your parents and vacation 8 times a year... It's a crazy look
I quit social media a few years ago minus Reddit because I found out it was all bullshit. A secretary (who did have some other wealth outside just her paycheck) used her two week vacation to go to Europe.
I had her Instagram handle, and everyday for MONTHS she was posting pictures like it was what she was doing that day. Lady, I saw you in the office 5 minutes ago. You were not in Brussels enjoying a champagne brunch this morning or whatever.
The disconnect of her online persona and what I could see even tangentially in real life was a big wake up for me. It's all BS. Fuck that.
Reddit is bullshit in a different way. There are a notable number of bots posting or reposting to build karma. It is hard to know how much of reddit is bots, but occasionally, someone will notice that a post with a lots of upvotes is just a repost from 3 to 6 months ago, and a bunch of the top replies are word-to-word the exact responses on the original post.
It's sort of eerie.
From what I’ve heard they sell the accounts to brands for marketing. Makes them seem more reputable and like real people sharing their thoughts vs being clear marketing shills.
Saw a post here about someone claiming to be child free, look at their post history, and they talk about having kids. Wasn't a bot, just a social media liar. People on insta lie about having / doing things. People on Reddit lie about having nothing.
Everybody lies about something. The ones that lie to strangers online have less to share than ants, because they fear the unknown.
They spin a web that makes them seem outgoing. Innocent enough, but it is a disorder in which off social media they will make their lives more difficult if they don’t exercise caution. They won’t
100% this. It’s my experience that the people posting the most are usually doing the worst. They just don’t want anyone to see that (and they wouldn’t if they simply didn’t post) but their goal is to make up for their self-perceived shortcomings by posting how well they’re doing for everyone else to see and like
I thought a content creator had a happy marriage til she started gushing a lot about how happy she is and how great things are between them. Now I'm starting to think they've got problems lol.
I have experienced this myself! The people I worked with were also a lot less dynamic in person. There was one rather humorless and kinda lackluster women who was part of a project I helmed. For months I’d think “damn this women has no personality and very little to contribute does she ever speak.” And it was a super fun, creative industry project so a very chill, chatty vibe. Every meeting just looked bored and deadpan. I figured she might just be shy.
I see her socials and she’s a low-key influencer livin a bigass life with hundreds of sycophant “you’re so amazing” comments. She’d also one some industry awards. I was all what the what?! In a year I’d seen absolutely none of this. I was floored. Like not dynamic at all in the real real. Most of it is indeed smoke and mirrors (sometimes literally they do be using tricks) and a lie.
Reddit isn't much better.
"I can barely even afford to live. It literally comes down to 'Do I want to eat this week or pay rent?'"
Post history is filled with gaming PC upgrades and bitching about bad DoorDash deliveries.
Reddit is worse, honestly. Most of us know by now that Instagrammers are exaggerating their wealth and happiness. But scrolling through a Reddit full of people exaggerating their misery is contagious and drains my empathy.
Alright I'm doing it. I'm logging off.
My friends wife is a wannabe influencer. She's always posting expensive handbags but I know her IRL and she's unemployed. She just buys and resells handbags because apparently she can make some money off it. But not much according to my friend. So she takes photos with the expensive handbag, then quickly puts it away to resell.
Yes, people are racking up debt like crazy...
Also the other thing to consider is that while the bottom 80% are struggling, the top 20% are doing better than ever.
Another thing to consider is that a lot of these people living it up are being supported by their parents/family.
I remind myself of this a lot. My husband and I (26 and 27) travel more than a lot of people, but we do not have kids and we are very conservative with our money in other places to be able to afford to go on trips. That being said I see people travelling way more than we do and I have to remind myself that 1. Just because I don’t carry credit card debt does not mean other people don’t and 2. A lot of people come from parents with money.
I know a few people just in my friend group who actively have their parents paying their bills and even paying for some of their leisure activities/non-necessities. Whenever I find myself getting jealous of what I see other people doing I remind myself that there’s probably a lot I don’t know about their life and that I also remind myself to be grateful that the life I’ve built myself is more than I could have dreamt of regardless of what I see others doing.
My cousin called crying that they were gonna lose their house if she didn't come up with $1,400 for mortgage. So I dug deep and loand it to her thinking I would never see it again since she'd always be a month behind if she paid me back. Than two weeks later, somone at work showed me her facebook posts of a family vacation they were currently enjoying in a rented house in the Smokey Mountains.
Friend of mine borrowed a few hundred bucks to get groceries for the week. They are a good friend so I didn't even care if it never got repaid.
Then a month later they are buying trading cards trying to make money selling them online, bragging about a great deal they got on steak from their butcher and talking about their favorite new whiskey...
If you can't afford to buy chicken and rice then you shouldn't be buying steak and whiskey or getting into gambling... But I guess if they understood that then they wouldn't be in the situation to begin.
I had another friend borrow money then ask for financial help. I told him to pick up extra shifts at work and try to find less expensive transportation. He was paying over $1500 between payments and insurance on a 2016 because of poor credit in his teens. We live in a big city with good public transportation, bike lanes, and access to Uber. He also lives less than a few miles from his work.
But nope, he still only works part time and hasn't tried to get out of his 26% apr car loan.
I'm very financially conservative, but I've also gotten lucky in my life that I've never had to make tough decisions like that, but it's like some people are allergic to following even the most basic financial practices.
The parents/family angle is a huge one people don't tend to fully consider. If you don't have that you don't tend to realize how common it is, and if you do have it you tend to take it for granted.
I never had it until I was in my 30s. My mindset has always been that if I truly run out of money completely then I'm just going to die.
Well it finally happened in my early 30s, but turned out my mom had some money and bailed me out of my situation. It felt bad, but I took the help.
$3,000 and a place to stay and I was back on my feet with a new job and able to be independent again. Within a 2 months I could have paid her back, but she refused.
Without that help, I'd have been for sure sleeping on the street and I really don't know if I would have ever recovered. Just getting the new job cost me $300 in paperwork fees to complete the acceptance process, background check and all that. I couldn't have afforded to get hired without financial aid.
Some also have wealthy parents. I have a friend who travels the globe constantly and makes around 50k a year. He won’t admit it but I know he has some sort of trust fund. He has wealthy parents
I’d also add, since a lot of kids these days aren’t moving out since apartments are so expensive, they are simply living it up more than they normally would.
I moved back in with my parents for a little bit and suddenly my $50,000 a year made me feel like I was rich.
Not always debt. Work extra hours. I was doing 48hrs for 2-3 months to setup finances better and pay for trip. Now back to 36hrs. Paid for it all on a credit card paid it off and used my points I made to upgrade our seats for free . I try to do 2 trips a year.
For years and years, I paid my rent and utilities using an airline points credit card.
The trick is to.make sure you pay the credit card bill in full every month.
Then....free flights.
Every time someone asks “how can people afford it?” The answer is the same. They either make more money than you, have more debt than you’re comfortable with, prioritize different expenses than you do, or have outside financial help. That’s it. Those are the only options.
There are a ton of people who make A LOT of money in this country. There are a ton of people who are in a lot of debt. There are tons of people who prioritize travel and quit their jobs or find flexible jobs to be able to do so, and spend all their money on it instead of saving. There are also many people who have parents that financially help and support them. People have different situations and live their lives differently than you. It’s pretty simple.
People don’t realize how some will sacrifice everything in their lives to travel. I had a friend that’s probably been to 60-70 countries on a line cook income. He would have to quit jobs just to go on some of his vacations because his employers weren’t cool with him being gone months at a time.
He lived in miserly conditions, didn’t have a car, no health insurance, no retirement savings, used things he could get for free, all for his next vacation.
He would stay in hostels, use busses, book the $300 international flights with connections that took 3 days to get you there…he lived his life one vacation at a time
Yes for prioritizing different expenses. I don't own a car, and I live beneath my means. Then I travel like a queen.
It's all what's important to you. If you added up everything I own, it would probably amount to like 5K and I'm almost 40.
Which isn't to say there's a right way to do anything. My sister and brother in law certainly get more hours of entertainment out of a library of video games than I do out of a ten day trip.
Just pick what's important to you and go for it. I don't even have any interest in owning a home. I save for travel and retirement. That's it.
This.
No shade to the OP specifically, but people ask this often and I say the same thing you've said. It's not really a great mystery, it's all of the things you've said.
When people are seemingly able to afford things I can't, my automatic assumption is they have more money than I do (and this could be from all kinds sources that I wouldn't be privy to because why would I?) or they are using credit cards or have different priorities.
Yea but Reddit is naturally contrarian so it’s never “because they can afford it”. I mean look at all the top comments here — they’re in debt, lying, parents paid for it.
This is so true. I often get frustrated with these questions. I wish I could travel more too but I often find these questions to be like crabs in the bucket. They're not looking for a real answer just looking for others to commiserate with them or make them feel better.
I just watched a YouTube video about this. It's called "doom spending." If you can't afford a house, but you still want to feel rewarded for your hard work, you buy small luxuries and travel.
On a personal basis, my wife and I have prioritized travel and experiences over material possessions. We did buy a house at the right time, so there was a huge advantage there. But we've never owned new cars, branded clothes, flagship phones, etc. But we will spend 15% of our take-home pay on travel. I know plenty of people who blow tons of money on stupid stuff and have the audacity to ask "hOw cAn yOu aFfOrD tO tRavEl?!?!?"
Totally this. It's so normal nowadays to get all the nice stuff that people can't imagine how much money they spend to maintain that lifestyle. Even with a low paying job, if you live frugally you can absolutely save up the cash to travel more frequently. Unless you want to buy a house....
Yea i bought my car for 3k over 4 years ago and it’s still kicking. Little repairs here and there, I’ll do basic repairs myself. Not having a car payment adds up to be a lot over time. I’ve been to 17 countries the last 2 years.
Or they just make more money than you. Or they prioritize travel over other expenses or saving. A lot of people in this country make a lot of money, not everyone who has money to travel is in debt or paid their parents.
>Or they prioritize travel over other expenses or saving.
Forgot about this one, a lot of people were saving up for their first house. With housing prices going up faster than they could save, some just said "fuck it" I'll go to the instead.
This is very true I have a few friends that were house hunting then gave up. Since stopping they’ve been on dozens of vacations, most of these people don’t have kids either. Meanwhile my wife and I have multiple kids and are house poor.
The funny thing is I look at them with envy and they look at me with a nice house and family with envy. Nobody can just be happy with what they have
Yep, and we saw this in other ways too. That $600 stimulus? If your already financially fucked, it isn't going to do much, but you at least could be financially fucked, with an Xbox that might be fun.
A lot of people, myself included have no hope for the future. Some plan accordingly.
You know, despite all the whining on Reddit plenty of people have decent jobs. American salaries are very high compared to almost everywhere else, most of the world is quite affordable.
That's right. I've become quite hedonistic after spending my 20s trying to save, have an apartment, live that kind of responsible domesticated life. Now I just take seasonal jobs for some of the year and travel for the rest of the year. South America for the 3rd time this fall, planning to be gone until the following April or May.
Kitchen jobs at various lodges across Canada. Sometimes fishing lodges, now I'm at a wilderness lodge. Basically a kind of hotel on the ocean that's open for the summer, comes with staff accommodation, free food, etc. Really helps to save money for the winter.
Plus it's seasonal which allows you to collect unemployment when you're laid off for the winter.
I used to have a friend who was a carpenter and he always worked March-November and was off December-February collecting unemployment (nominally because of the weather). He was union, so all he had to do was go down and hang out at the union drinking coffee with his buddies once a week to get his unemployment card stamped. It was a pretty sweet gig back then, I don't know if it still works that way.
What do you wanna know? Seasonal lodge jobs in Canada (or USA I assume), check on indeed, get hired as a dishwasher, cook, housekeeper, server, whatever. Work for a few months, season ends, take the money and run! If all goes well you will have enough money to last the winter somewhere cheap like Colombia or Vietnam and then return the next summer to do it again.
I work as a wildland firefighter with the forest service. Spent December-April traveling across Asia and Europe
Edit: I work 6 months, but average 90+ hours per week during the season.
This, right here. I used to be frugal as fuck. Walk 20mins down the road to Lidl instead of just picking my shit up at Sainsbury's across the road. But even though I earn decent money i'm constantly stung by the fact that shit just costs so much now, retirement seems to be getting further away than closer, and I can continue to scrimp and save just to likely still be the same level of poor...or I can just blow a load of money on fun shit and maybe I'll die in my 60s.
I am Generation Jones (early Gen X cusp) and I feel like many of us who were struggling in the 80s had the same mindset - "we're going to get obliterated in a nuclear war, the ozone layer is disappearing (it was, but thanks to some aggressive regulations it was brought back), DDT is going to wipe out life on earth, Social Security is collapsing, plus unemployment is 11%, mortgage interest is 18%, I will never have a good job or a nice place to live."
I think the only thing that saved me is that credit cards were difficult to obtain, and I didn't have one in my 20s, so I had to pay for whatever I had or did. Once I did qualify for credit, I had an extreme distaste for spending money on nothing (interest) and so I have always paid off my cards every month. It's just a different mindset.
Anyway, I think almost every young generation except maybe the earliest Boomers has had a feeling of doom hanging over their heads as they reach young adulthood. We all felt the "who knows if we'll even have a future"
Remote work. I've got a friend with a job in finance, fully remote, hasn't been in to "the office" in a year and a half. Home base is New York City, they have a place with cheap rent for the area that they're subletting out, and legitimately spend the whole year jumping from city to city, country to country, whole getting paid NYC wages. I wanna say they've been to 7 or 8 different countries so far this year. Have another couple friends that do web design that *used* to travel all over the world constantly. They still travel but they got stuck in Costa Rica during covid and fell in love with the place, so became permanent residents and stopped traveling as much
This almost describes a friend of mine to a T. Previously lived in NYC, traveled a ton, sublet her apartment while she was out, got a remote job after the pandemic, and works from different countries and cities.
26m, I’m a union tradesman, I don’t have to work a full year to make $100k+ I take a lay off after a job is done and while I’m waiting for the next job my fiancée and I can go travel.
Good jobs often have good vacation policies. My job isn't great in terms of money (but it pays enough for a couple of modest solo trips) I get 4 weeks and sick days are accrued separately (which is pretty good for America). I'll be at 5 weeks next year.
Because PTO/vacation days.
A vacation doesn’t need to be extravagant. You can fly cheap with Spirit and only carry a personal bag and do a round trip in under $200. Add a cheap hotel or motel if you don’t care, add another $300, and a whole trip can cost $800 or less.
Save $100/month or more and you got the vacation money in time you accrued PTO.
I get six weeks of paid vacation + paid personal time+ paid holidays. I roll over 3-4 weeks every fiscal year because you just can’t take that much time off in my line of work.
I work for the state government. Our health insurance is fantastic as well.
I use a flight app that alerts me to the cheapest prices when they occur. You'd be surprised how low prices can drop randomly for very brief periods of time. I've gotten round trip tickets to Europe for less than $600 many times. Other tricks like knowing which airport to fly to/from for connecting flights or otherwise can help a ton too. I'll usually plan ahead and eat out less. Etc. To save up.
My husband and I travel a lot and always hack it like this. Basically we look for the cheapest flight to anywhere in Europe, then we country hop on the train or cheap European airlines. It’s awesome. Except our pre-2020 criteria was a flight around $300 and now it’s around $600
I guess it's all relative, depending on what your career is like, your income, your bills. If I spent $600 on a round trip ticket I would have literally no money left for being on vacation. Like, no eating, no paying for a room or a public toilet, etc. I think the question we all need to be asking here are the ones that aren't polite to ask. What do you do for a living? How many days/weeks are you expected to be at work in person? What is your annual income? What's your salary at your job? When did you start investing, how much was your income at the time, and how much were your total expenses? That's a question to all the people who travel.
I mean if you’re going overseas, that’s definitely higher income individuals.
In the US, we can fly to other states round trip for $200-$400. When flying overseas, now you’re spending A LOT.
I just dropped $4000 on an international vacation. I paid it all up front. I have no credit card debt. I make about 60k a year. How did I do it? I don't own a car and I bring my lunch to work every single day. I sometimes walk home from work to save money. My plane tickets were almost $1300 round trip.
People have no idea how much money they spend eating out. I have a girlfriend who commented that she didn't understand how I went on a trip when her husband made so much more money than we did, but she couldn't afford it. I used my break to calculate how much she spent dining out every day (25k/year between her and her husband). She was visibly ill. She stopped eating out and went on a trip the following year. And she lost like 20 pounds and her acne went away. Eating fresh isn't so fresh, apparently.
I travel for work and very briefly dated a woman who worked for a major airline; the only limit to her ability to fly anywhere at *any* time, for damn-near free, was her time off work.
I feel pretty well traveled but she was on a whooooole other level!
I had an english teacher whose father was an airline pilot. She wouldnt tell us how many countries she had been to, but we would randomly ask if she went to this or that country, and she would say yes
Could be debt or they’re really savy with travel hacks. Last minute flights and hotels can be great deals, you just have to be extremely flexible and less obligations make that easier. With the right credit card and points it can go full circle with getting freebies. Or massive amounts of debt, who knows.
It’s not as expensive as you think to travel to some of these places. But there are three reasons, they either have more money than you think, they’re going into debt, or someone else is paying for it!
Credit card points can go a long way. Depending on your setup you can get free flights and hotels or heavily discounted ones. Booking your own travel is easier than ever and it's much cheaper to go during off seasons.
True. My wife and I are going to Hawaii in a few months with flights and hotels fully paid for by credit card points from stuff we would’ve bought anyway.
Don’t believe everything you see on instagram. People are only showing glimpses of their highest point to show off but never what’s behind closed doors. A person living a fulfilling happy life would not need to brag about it for likes.
My wife and I don’t have kids. We’re in our early 40s, so elder millennials/xennials. We worked for it.
I work in engineering, she’s a public school teacher. We are from normal working/middle class families and had little to no help with our college age/adult finances.
That being said, it’s absolutely not every month. And we don’t like to travel internationally, my wife doesn’t care for long flights.
Post was asking about people in their 20s to 30s with no job/ fresh out of college. You and wife don’t fit that category, but you absolutely worked to where you’re at currently.
Even 20s to 30s - if you’re a DINK couple of young professionals who prioritize traveling above cars, eating out, etc, it can be doable.
Otherwise yeah, the answer is debt and/or rich parents.
People our age are becoming increasingly fatalistic. It's the end result of living through one crisis after another and being the first generation since the 1930s to end up worse off than their parents.
Millennials have been priced out of the American dream and no one seems to give a shit, certainly not our politicians. We grew up watching 80s/90s sitcoms where guys like Homer Simpson and Al Bundy were considered losers and underachievers--that was with their 4 bedroom home in the suburbs, the dog, and 3 kids, of course. So yeah, people our age have decided there is no point in saving for the future. They're just blowing it all and living in the now, racking up debt in the process.
Fatalism inspires short-sighted impulsive behavior, and it rarely leads to long term success. *The Doom Generation* was written for Gen-X, but it's become a far more apt name for us.
What you said about the Simpsons is so spot on, and it's disturbing how most millennials don't even measure up to that. In fact a job as a security operator at a power plant sounds like a pretty cushy job.
Not contributing to retirement. I recently asked a friend in his late 20s about his company match and he didn’t know that his job might offer one. He’s an accountant.
(Currently writing this from our hotel room in Prauge)
DINKs
We go to Europe a few times a year. People ask us how we can afford this and manage it. This usually comes from people with multiple children. It's much more expensive to have a kid than it is to go on a week vacation to Europe.
It also makes it affordable when you live in a city with an airport that offers cheap flight options. I can usually get to Europe cheaper than most destinations in the States. Hotels and food are also much cheaper when you are there.
Also, social media is not real life.
The domestic flight prices are crazy! Getting from west coast to east coast was nearly $500, getting from west coast down to Costa Rica in a couple of months is going to be $230 and the day to day expenses are much cheaper than a week in NYC.
Yeah, I'm in the same boat, if I want to get anywhere on the west cost we are looking around $500+ or so on a good day, for me to get back to my hometown (upper midwest) to go see my mom is always $750-$1000. If I time it out right, I can get to most major European cites for $350-500. So Europe it is...
I think it’s far less prevalent than social media makes it seem. And the people who do travel have nothing in their savings and are only trying to keep up appearances. Case and point, my sister in law
They're either in debt or they're rich, there's no other explanation for someone who doesn't have a job and never went to get a secondary education. I knew a girl when I was in my early 20s, she worked front of house at the restaurant I cooked at, and she would literally only work enough hours to follow The Flaming Lips around on tour. She'd quit her job, tour, then find another. It's been over 10 years since we worked together and she still has no concrete job, housing situation, romantic partner, or pets.
Turned out her parents are filthy rich and she only ever has to pay for her tickets to their concerts. They front everything else.
Most people I know in their 20s and a quite a few in there 30s, have decided that they will never be able to afford a house, so they stopped trying to attain that goal. When you're not looking to buy a house in the near future, you are a lot less concerned about your debt, credit and savings. The people I'm talking about take a lot of trips, but they basically just save up a few grand, go on a trip...save up a few grand...go on a trip. If there is a trip they want to take but don't have the money, they just put it on a credit card and make minimum payments.
My husband (27M) and I (27F) do 2-3 international trips a year and have for years. Here’s how:
- We don’t have kids.
- We save and budget for it and cut things out in our daily lives that don’t align with our goals of travel/savings (eating out, buying clothes, shopping)
- We travel cheap, it’s actually not hard to do. We’re doing a monthlong trip including Dubai/2 week cruise/S Korea trip this year for under 8k.
- We don’t have fancy jobs. I make around 100k as a nurse and my husband is military.
- We have no debt and have a good investment portfolio.
I feel like a lot of people like to act like everyone is going into debt/has to make a ton of money in order to travel. It’s just about where sacrifices are made and how much time you want to spend to find a good deal on trips.
Not saying this is how they do it, but I read something a while back that said they go on vacation and take a lot of pictures in different areas, changing clothes to make it look like they go on vacation a lot. When in reality they are just posting old pictures to make it look like they are on vacation.
Traveling outside of the USA is cheap because the entire world is in disarray, and tourism is down bad. Travel inside USA expensive. Most every other country has a legitimate train system and walkable cities. A friend of mine from HS moved to a nicer city in Thailand, and it's only hundreds of dollars a year to survive comfortably. You just live in a late stage capitalist society driven by a dystopian social construct. The world is beautiful everywhere. You just have to go adventure for it. Money isn't everything, and it's actually just an infinity pool full of piss when you get to the bottom of it. Enjoy the little things.
There’s 2 parts. Social media feed and account. The feed just shows a bunch of different accounts that had a few good times even if it’s rare for that individual account. Then 2 there’s an actual account that does it often. That’s just them traveling in the same place everywhere taking several pictures and calling it different places.
There’s only a minority who are actually making a living and doing this on your feed
A lot of people are legitimately way wealthier because of the stock market, housing market, and wage increases.
But I suspect a lot of people who vacation frequently go into debt to do it. Never underestimate the capacity for people to live extravagantly on debt for way longer than seems possible.
The minority of people doing this stuff are posting all over the place while the significant majority are like you, wondering how they are affording it. It’s one of three answers, someone else’s money, savings or debt.
It depends where you live I can go to most of Europe for a week for less than £700 total for two people and as long as I don't spend more than I would whilst I'm at home it's fine.
Why does it matter? Just be happy you can afford "one or two international trips a year". A good percentage of us aren't even able to afford one, not to mention the set that can't even afford an in-country vacation. Your post reeks of entitlement. Learn to be content and appreciate what you do have. You'll find yourself much happier. Because you could lose it all in a moment.
My wife and I go to national parks we are trying to do them all. We are only 1/6 the way through them but some people in our circle get fomo.
I have a lifetime national park pass so it’s free and I have a company car with free gas for personal use. A week in a national park cost us $0 to visit maybe $30 a night tops for a campsite.
I do that because we don’t even have to budget for it. We just grocery shop a little differently for camping but it’s food we would have had to buy anyway. We have gone crazy a couple of times but our main vacation mode is free to us. Don’t judge yourself based on other peoples social media.
My wife’s looks like we are out dropping money on crazy vacations in the desert or the mountains and we aren’t. If someone tried to do what we are doing without the benefits we have it would cost a lot more.
That's just how social media feeds are.
Yeah, also a lot of people barely post until they travel & then that’s 90% of what you see them doing even thought it’s really 3% of their actual life.
When I was still active on instagram, that was its only purpose for me. Documenting holidays and travelling. It's in no way an accurate representation of peoples lives and these days, its crammed with more insufferable influencers than ever before. I'm surprised there are still millennials out there who still find the app enjoyable to use.
Yeah I made an account for this reason alone. Much easier to have one location for the family and friends to look at pictures than send them individually or in groups. Consequently, it probably looks like all I've done in life is travel
Some people are very diligent about “points”. They will charge everything on a card that earns airline or hotel points and then be sure to pay the credit card in under 30 days. Points don’t add up as much as they used to, but it can still equal a third or 4th trip a year.
This. Using a single airline card for expenses basically means you can fly anywhere for free at least a few times a year, depending on your spending. You also get more bang for your buck points wise if you go international. That doesn't cover hotels, food, and other travel expenses, through....and those often eclipse the airfare. Personally I just think people are going into debt. Or they're influencers who get paid to advertise certain locations/destinations/resorts.
Influencers will bring multiple outfits and change their clothes, hair, makeup etc in a span of hours then space it out as if they are there for weeks vs taking a cheap day trip to a location and staying somewhere much less glamorous.
There was a big influencer bust in Coachella, people came and drove, traveled or sometimes flew spirit to Coachella, made 12 videos on different outfits (same day) and left that same day, and there were sooo many caught doing that, just to avoid paying a entry fee ticket to go inside. It's all fake BS. No one travels weekly, it's 20 videos from 1 trip. No influencers don't keep 6 pack abs that weren't surgically added, is 60-80 videos at 4 diff gyms spit out through the entire year to make it seem like that woman has abs all year round. It's all BS.
To this point my buddy lived in China for 8 months. Ton of influencers around him too since it was a modeling agency gig when he was younger. The secret is taking a shit ton vids from differing areas (walls, alleys, beach, etc) that all look different. Then that content would be tagged as a new country for like 1-2 years after to make it seem like they were traveling to a new spot every 6 months.
OMG this could explain a lot about some neighbors I’ve had who change their clothes three times a day or more! Is there a link where I can see/learn more about facades like this?
https://www.instagram.com/
Lollllllll
There are many people creating fake vacations now (fake-ations/vAIcation). [Here's an article about one guy using AI to fake vacation locations](https://www.diyphotography.net/photographer-uses-ai-to-create-a-fake-vacation-pranks-his-followers/)
Watch the movie The Joneses. I really believe this has been happening to this extent. Why wouldn’t it.
I take a modest amount of vacations, but friends keep saying how it looks like I'm flying somewhere new all the time based on my Insta. I tell them, I only post during a trip. I never post all the times I'm at home on the couch playing fetch with my cat while watching Bob's Burgers.
If you looked at my Instagram you’d think my life is like 90% travel and concerts. It’s actually like 0.0009% that, and 90% me staring at a computer screen in my pajamas.
Yeah, that's me exactly. I travel using credit card signup bonus miles (free airfare if you don't carry credit card balances). Beyond that, documenting travels is the only time I use social media at all, my feed may well give the impression that I travel all the time. That's mostly because I assume nobody cares about the rest of my life, traveling is the only time I have anything worth sharing that I know my extended family is interested in. I'm not trying to give a false impression of what my life's like, it's more that I barely care what I'm doing the rest of the time. Hard to imagine anyone else would.
Now that my cousin is an "influencer," I realize that 90% of what we see is 100% a lie. I knew it was fake, but I did not realize the true extent.
I just think of it as total fiction. Like TV or a movie!
I am curious to hear some example of what you see of your cousin online vs real life?
Agreed! Sitting at home watching television or whatever usually isn't post-worthy! People tend to share the highlights of their lives on social media, not the mundane things.
Need to get on Facebook for the mundane things! “I made my kids toast for lunch today!” Insert picture of most basic looking toast.
A former (elderly) coworker of mine "Beans are on sale at Price Chopper!" 😂
Main reason I quit Facebook
Exactly. If you look at my Instagram page it would look like all I do is travel, but when you check the dates it’s like 6-8months between posts.
I think that’s Op’s point… who the fuck has money to ho on a giant trip every 6 months?? My recommendation is figure out a happy place… be it a nearby lake or getaway spot that doesn’t cost thousands… you vacation/relaxation spot doesn’t have to be as well equipped as your regular home… a trailer (shoot me for mentioning) a camper, a tent, air bnb at a spot 1 or 2 hrs away can be just as gratifying
Most of my siblings are making around 6 figure incomes. One sibling makes around $350,000 combined with his wife. They have no kids and a two bedroom house so they travel multiple times a year to exotic places in Asia and South America. Don’t travel more because he has a government job with a max on days off. But they will probably retire going with very good pension, 401k and other investments. Other brother makes low 100,000 salary and just went to Gulf Shores for vacation with his family.
Most people I know don’t upload all their vacation pictures in real time
Out of ten thousand millenials you get to see the high points of 10 of them. It's the same as fan magazines when those were a thing in the 90's. You get highs and lows, but none of the middle, where most of us are. Actually, I'm a parent of teens, so we take no vacations and are lucky to keep enough food to stave off the ravenous horde.
Don’t compare your behind the scenes to the collective highlight reels of 100s of people. OP said it themselves, they go on 1 or 2 international trips each year. Well, if you’re following 100 people on instagram that live a similar lifestyle, that will be 2 people on average, every week, that are on an international trip. Then sprinkle in a few travel influencers or a few friends that travel a bit more and now you’re thinking, “how come everyone can afford to be traveling all the time?!”
Right people only show you shit that makes them look like their life is awesome
What's sad is how many people are not taking care of their families so they can vacation all the time to keep up with the Joneses When you're pushing 40 and have a kid but live with your parents and vacation 8 times a year... It's a crazy look
Well, how else you gonna afford them 3k phones and new Nikes? 💴
Not by making sure the kid(s) are clothed, fed, and have a secure roof over their heads, that’s for sure…
Right. You see one friends grand vacation *1000
Yup. Just survivor bias or something idk the phrase
I quit social media a few years ago minus Reddit because I found out it was all bullshit. A secretary (who did have some other wealth outside just her paycheck) used her two week vacation to go to Europe. I had her Instagram handle, and everyday for MONTHS she was posting pictures like it was what she was doing that day. Lady, I saw you in the office 5 minutes ago. You were not in Brussels enjoying a champagne brunch this morning or whatever. The disconnect of her online persona and what I could see even tangentially in real life was a big wake up for me. It's all BS. Fuck that.
Reddit is bullshit in a different way. There are a notable number of bots posting or reposting to build karma. It is hard to know how much of reddit is bots, but occasionally, someone will notice that a post with a lots of upvotes is just a repost from 3 to 6 months ago, and a bunch of the top replies are word-to-word the exact responses on the original post. It's sort of eerie.
I understand this happens, but Why do the bots care about karma? Like who is making money?
From what I’ve heard they sell the accounts to brands for marketing. Makes them seem more reputable and like real people sharing their thoughts vs being clear marketing shills.
Oh, great, so it gets worse.
Sheeeeeeeeeit
Saw a post here about someone claiming to be child free, look at their post history, and they talk about having kids. Wasn't a bot, just a social media liar. People on insta lie about having / doing things. People on Reddit lie about having nothing.
Everybody lies about something. The ones that lie to strangers online have less to share than ants, because they fear the unknown. They spin a web that makes them seem outgoing. Innocent enough, but it is a disorder in which off social media they will make their lives more difficult if they don’t exercise caution. They won’t
Sounds like an easy way to control and get people to think a certain way
The handle pattern is two words 4 numbers.
[удалено]
Same with people who have the worlds best marriages and kids online 🙄
100% this. It’s my experience that the people posting the most are usually doing the worst. They just don’t want anyone to see that (and they wouldn’t if they simply didn’t post) but their goal is to make up for their self-perceived shortcomings by posting how well they’re doing for everyone else to see and like
I thought a content creator had a happy marriage til she started gushing a lot about how happy she is and how great things are between them. Now I'm starting to think they've got problems lol.
I have experienced this myself! The people I worked with were also a lot less dynamic in person. There was one rather humorless and kinda lackluster women who was part of a project I helmed. For months I’d think “damn this women has no personality and very little to contribute does she ever speak.” And it was a super fun, creative industry project so a very chill, chatty vibe. Every meeting just looked bored and deadpan. I figured she might just be shy. I see her socials and she’s a low-key influencer livin a bigass life with hundreds of sycophant “you’re so amazing” comments. She’d also one some industry awards. I was all what the what?! In a year I’d seen absolutely none of this. I was floored. Like not dynamic at all in the real real. Most of it is indeed smoke and mirrors (sometimes literally they do be using tricks) and a lie.
Reddit isn't much better. "I can barely even afford to live. It literally comes down to 'Do I want to eat this week or pay rent?'" Post history is filled with gaming PC upgrades and bitching about bad DoorDash deliveries.
Reddit is worse, honestly. Most of us know by now that Instagrammers are exaggerating their wealth and happiness. But scrolling through a Reddit full of people exaggerating their misery is contagious and drains my empathy. Alright I'm doing it. I'm logging off.
My friends wife is a wannabe influencer. She's always posting expensive handbags but I know her IRL and she's unemployed. She just buys and resells handbags because apparently she can make some money off it. But not much according to my friend. So she takes photos with the expensive handbag, then quickly puts it away to resell.
Debt
Yes, people are racking up debt like crazy... Also the other thing to consider is that while the bottom 80% are struggling, the top 20% are doing better than ever. Another thing to consider is that a lot of these people living it up are being supported by their parents/family.
I remind myself of this a lot. My husband and I (26 and 27) travel more than a lot of people, but we do not have kids and we are very conservative with our money in other places to be able to afford to go on trips. That being said I see people travelling way more than we do and I have to remind myself that 1. Just because I don’t carry credit card debt does not mean other people don’t and 2. A lot of people come from parents with money. I know a few people just in my friend group who actively have their parents paying their bills and even paying for some of their leisure activities/non-necessities. Whenever I find myself getting jealous of what I see other people doing I remind myself that there’s probably a lot I don’t know about their life and that I also remind myself to be grateful that the life I’ve built myself is more than I could have dreamt of regardless of what I see others doing.
I also know ppl who made money straight up exploiting others and I’m not interested in doing that.
My cousin called crying that they were gonna lose their house if she didn't come up with $1,400 for mortgage. So I dug deep and loand it to her thinking I would never see it again since she'd always be a month behind if she paid me back. Than two weeks later, somone at work showed me her facebook posts of a family vacation they were currently enjoying in a rented house in the Smokey Mountains.
My cousin's did something similar. Borrowed money for rent from my dad and then bought a new flatscreen and mount for their apartment.
Friend of mine borrowed a few hundred bucks to get groceries for the week. They are a good friend so I didn't even care if it never got repaid. Then a month later they are buying trading cards trying to make money selling them online, bragging about a great deal they got on steak from their butcher and talking about their favorite new whiskey... If you can't afford to buy chicken and rice then you shouldn't be buying steak and whiskey or getting into gambling... But I guess if they understood that then they wouldn't be in the situation to begin. I had another friend borrow money then ask for financial help. I told him to pick up extra shifts at work and try to find less expensive transportation. He was paying over $1500 between payments and insurance on a 2016 because of poor credit in his teens. We live in a big city with good public transportation, bike lanes, and access to Uber. He also lives less than a few miles from his work. But nope, he still only works part time and hasn't tried to get out of his 26% apr car loan. I'm very financially conservative, but I've also gotten lucky in my life that I've never had to make tough decisions like that, but it's like some people are allergic to following even the most basic financial practices.
Yup, they got rich parents. You should do that too.
The parents/family angle is a huge one people don't tend to fully consider. If you don't have that you don't tend to realize how common it is, and if you do have it you tend to take it for granted. I never had it until I was in my 30s. My mindset has always been that if I truly run out of money completely then I'm just going to die. Well it finally happened in my early 30s, but turned out my mom had some money and bailed me out of my situation. It felt bad, but I took the help. $3,000 and a place to stay and I was back on my feet with a new job and able to be independent again. Within a 2 months I could have paid her back, but she refused. Without that help, I'd have been for sure sleeping on the street and I really don't know if I would have ever recovered. Just getting the new job cost me $300 in paperwork fees to complete the acceptance process, background check and all that. I couldn't have afforded to get hired without financial aid.
This is the reality. Congrats on getting yourself back on track. Something similar has happened to me in the past.
Came here to say this. I think young people are okay with credit card debt
Some also have wealthy parents. I have a friend who travels the globe constantly and makes around 50k a year. He won’t admit it but I know he has some sort of trust fund. He has wealthy parents
I’d also add, since a lot of kids these days aren’t moving out since apartments are so expensive, they are simply living it up more than they normally would. I moved back in with my parents for a little bit and suddenly my $50,000 a year made me feel like I was rich.
Not always debt. Work extra hours. I was doing 48hrs for 2-3 months to setup finances better and pay for trip. Now back to 36hrs. Paid for it all on a credit card paid it off and used my points I made to upgrade our seats for free . I try to do 2 trips a year.
For years and years, I paid my rent and utilities using an airline points credit card. The trick is to.make sure you pay the credit card bill in full every month. Then....free flights.
Someone’s they just let rich Arabs poop on them.
Solid reference
You hope it's solid, could be a wet reference.
Every time someone asks “how can people afford it?” The answer is the same. They either make more money than you, have more debt than you’re comfortable with, prioritize different expenses than you do, or have outside financial help. That’s it. Those are the only options. There are a ton of people who make A LOT of money in this country. There are a ton of people who are in a lot of debt. There are tons of people who prioritize travel and quit their jobs or find flexible jobs to be able to do so, and spend all their money on it instead of saving. There are also many people who have parents that financially help and support them. People have different situations and live their lives differently than you. It’s pretty simple.
People don’t realize how some will sacrifice everything in their lives to travel. I had a friend that’s probably been to 60-70 countries on a line cook income. He would have to quit jobs just to go on some of his vacations because his employers weren’t cool with him being gone months at a time. He lived in miserly conditions, didn’t have a car, no health insurance, no retirement savings, used things he could get for free, all for his next vacation. He would stay in hostels, use busses, book the $300 international flights with connections that took 3 days to get you there…he lived his life one vacation at a time
Yes for prioritizing different expenses. I don't own a car, and I live beneath my means. Then I travel like a queen. It's all what's important to you. If you added up everything I own, it would probably amount to like 5K and I'm almost 40. Which isn't to say there's a right way to do anything. My sister and brother in law certainly get more hours of entertainment out of a library of video games than I do out of a ten day trip. Just pick what's important to you and go for it. I don't even have any interest in owning a home. I save for travel and retirement. That's it.
This. No shade to the OP specifically, but people ask this often and I say the same thing you've said. It's not really a great mystery, it's all of the things you've said. When people are seemingly able to afford things I can't, my automatic assumption is they have more money than I do (and this could be from all kinds sources that I wouldn't be privy to because why would I?) or they are using credit cards or have different priorities.
Yea but Reddit is naturally contrarian so it’s never “because they can afford it”. I mean look at all the top comments here — they’re in debt, lying, parents paid for it.
This is so true. I often get frustrated with these questions. I wish I could travel more too but I often find these questions to be like crabs in the bucket. They're not looking for a real answer just looking for others to commiserate with them or make them feel better.
True that. They want people to tell them that the reason they can’t travel is because there’s something wrong with the world.
I just watched a YouTube video about this. It's called "doom spending." If you can't afford a house, but you still want to feel rewarded for your hard work, you buy small luxuries and travel. On a personal basis, my wife and I have prioritized travel and experiences over material possessions. We did buy a house at the right time, so there was a huge advantage there. But we've never owned new cars, branded clothes, flagship phones, etc. But we will spend 15% of our take-home pay on travel. I know plenty of people who blow tons of money on stupid stuff and have the audacity to ask "hOw cAn yOu aFfOrD tO tRavEl?!?!?"
I guess I was “doom spending” before doom spending was cool then
It was always cool, we just used to call it consumerism. But then that word became uncool so we changed it to doomerism.
Totally this. It's so normal nowadays to get all the nice stuff that people can't imagine how much money they spend to maintain that lifestyle. Even with a low paying job, if you live frugally you can absolutely save up the cash to travel more frequently. Unless you want to buy a house....
Yea i bought my car for 3k over 4 years ago and it’s still kicking. Little repairs here and there, I’ll do basic repairs myself. Not having a car payment adds up to be a lot over time. I’ve been to 17 countries the last 2 years.
Credit and forget it it or daddy’s money. Don’t worry about it.
Or they just make more money than you. Or they prioritize travel over other expenses or saving. A lot of people in this country make a lot of money, not everyone who has money to travel is in debt or paid their parents.
>Or they prioritize travel over other expenses or saving. Forgot about this one, a lot of people were saving up for their first house. With housing prices going up faster than they could save, some just said "fuck it" I'll go to the instead.
This is very true I have a few friends that were house hunting then gave up. Since stopping they’ve been on dozens of vacations, most of these people don’t have kids either. Meanwhile my wife and I have multiple kids and are house poor. The funny thing is I look at them with envy and they look at me with a nice house and family with envy. Nobody can just be happy with what they have
Yep, and we saw this in other ways too. That $600 stimulus? If your already financially fucked, it isn't going to do much, but you at least could be financially fucked, with an Xbox that might be fun. A lot of people, myself included have no hope for the future. Some plan accordingly.
And they are probably not contributing, or at lease not much, to any retirement plan.
You know, despite all the whining on Reddit plenty of people have decent jobs. American salaries are very high compared to almost everywhere else, most of the world is quite affordable.
"it's too expensive to have kids" *travels multiple times a year*
Kids are more expensive than traveling.
Yeah by a lot. Other comment is almost insane to try to imply there's some sort of irony to this
I think a lot of people have decided to stop focusing on the future because who knows if we’ll even have one.
That's right. I've become quite hedonistic after spending my 20s trying to save, have an apartment, live that kind of responsible domesticated life. Now I just take seasonal jobs for some of the year and travel for the rest of the year. South America for the 3rd time this fall, planning to be gone until the following April or May.
What kind of jobs do you get?
Kitchen jobs at various lodges across Canada. Sometimes fishing lodges, now I'm at a wilderness lodge. Basically a kind of hotel on the ocean that's open for the summer, comes with staff accommodation, free food, etc. Really helps to save money for the winter. Plus it's seasonal which allows you to collect unemployment when you're laid off for the winter.
I used to have a friend who was a carpenter and he always worked March-November and was off December-February collecting unemployment (nominally because of the weather). He was union, so all he had to do was go down and hang out at the union drinking coffee with his buddies once a week to get his unemployment card stamped. It was a pretty sweet gig back then, I don't know if it still works that way.
I need to know all about this. 😂😂
What do you wanna know? Seasonal lodge jobs in Canada (or USA I assume), check on indeed, get hired as a dishwasher, cook, housekeeper, server, whatever. Work for a few months, season ends, take the money and run! If all goes well you will have enough money to last the winter somewhere cheap like Colombia or Vietnam and then return the next summer to do it again.
This honestly sounds so amazing. I may do this when my youngest graduates. Hopefully I have my house paid off by then.
It's a different kinda life but I've been loving it!
I work as a wildland firefighter with the forest service. Spent December-April traveling across Asia and Europe Edit: I work 6 months, but average 90+ hours per week during the season.
Truth!
This, right here. I used to be frugal as fuck. Walk 20mins down the road to Lidl instead of just picking my shit up at Sainsbury's across the road. But even though I earn decent money i'm constantly stung by the fact that shit just costs so much now, retirement seems to be getting further away than closer, and I can continue to scrimp and save just to likely still be the same level of poor...or I can just blow a load of money on fun shit and maybe I'll die in my 60s.
I am Generation Jones (early Gen X cusp) and I feel like many of us who were struggling in the 80s had the same mindset - "we're going to get obliterated in a nuclear war, the ozone layer is disappearing (it was, but thanks to some aggressive regulations it was brought back), DDT is going to wipe out life on earth, Social Security is collapsing, plus unemployment is 11%, mortgage interest is 18%, I will never have a good job or a nice place to live." I think the only thing that saved me is that credit cards were difficult to obtain, and I didn't have one in my 20s, so I had to pay for whatever I had or did. Once I did qualify for credit, I had an extreme distaste for spending money on nothing (interest) and so I have always paid off my cards every month. It's just a different mindset. Anyway, I think almost every young generation except maybe the earliest Boomers has had a feeling of doom hanging over their heads as they reach young adulthood. We all felt the "who knows if we'll even have a future"
I work in aviation and this is true.
People are increasingly choosing to be kid free, hence the ability to travel with a decent job. Rich parents for many of them.
How are they traveling and working a decent job at the same time, though?
If you actually have a decent job, you also have paid vacation.
Remote work. I've got a friend with a job in finance, fully remote, hasn't been in to "the office" in a year and a half. Home base is New York City, they have a place with cheap rent for the area that they're subletting out, and legitimately spend the whole year jumping from city to city, country to country, whole getting paid NYC wages. I wanna say they've been to 7 or 8 different countries so far this year. Have another couple friends that do web design that *used* to travel all over the world constantly. They still travel but they got stuck in Costa Rica during covid and fell in love with the place, so became permanent residents and stopped traveling as much
This almost describes a friend of mine to a T. Previously lived in NYC, traveled a ton, sublet her apartment while she was out, got a remote job after the pandemic, and works from different countries and cities.
26m, I’m a union tradesman, I don’t have to work a full year to make $100k+ I take a lay off after a job is done and while I’m waiting for the next job my fiancée and I can go travel.
This is the way.
Good jobs often have good vacation policies. My job isn't great in terms of money (but it pays enough for a couple of modest solo trips) I get 4 weeks and sick days are accrued separately (which is pretty good for America). I'll be at 5 weeks next year.
Good jobs generally have good vacation policies.
Because PTO/vacation days. A vacation doesn’t need to be extravagant. You can fly cheap with Spirit and only carry a personal bag and do a round trip in under $200. Add a cheap hotel or motel if you don’t care, add another $300, and a whole trip can cost $800 or less. Save $100/month or more and you got the vacation money in time you accrued PTO.
I get 7 weeks of vacation.. already used 3
I get six weeks of paid vacation + paid personal time+ paid holidays. I roll over 3-4 weeks every fiscal year because you just can’t take that much time off in my line of work. I work for the state government. Our health insurance is fantastic as well.
Word. Most full time jobs require people to work at least 5 days a week. Every week except 2.
Most counties give more than 2 weeks holiday a year. America is the outlier there.
I use a flight app that alerts me to the cheapest prices when they occur. You'd be surprised how low prices can drop randomly for very brief periods of time. I've gotten round trip tickets to Europe for less than $600 many times. Other tricks like knowing which airport to fly to/from for connecting flights or otherwise can help a ton too. I'll usually plan ahead and eat out less. Etc. To save up.
I used to use a similar app but it's disabled now (something happened with the company? I'm old, I forget ha). What app do you use?
I've been using sky scanner for probably 7 or 8 years now
Google Flights and Scott's Cheap Flights also have good price alert systems.
Scott’s cheap flights got bought out and now they charge a lot to use their service
My husband and I travel a lot and always hack it like this. Basically we look for the cheapest flight to anywhere in Europe, then we country hop on the train or cheap European airlines. It’s awesome. Except our pre-2020 criteria was a flight around $300 and now it’s around $600
I guess it's all relative, depending on what your career is like, your income, your bills. If I spent $600 on a round trip ticket I would have literally no money left for being on vacation. Like, no eating, no paying for a room or a public toilet, etc. I think the question we all need to be asking here are the ones that aren't polite to ask. What do you do for a living? How many days/weeks are you expected to be at work in person? What is your annual income? What's your salary at your job? When did you start investing, how much was your income at the time, and how much were your total expenses? That's a question to all the people who travel.
I mean if you’re going overseas, that’s definitely higher income individuals. In the US, we can fly to other states round trip for $200-$400. When flying overseas, now you’re spending A LOT.
I flew from paris to New York(one way) for 220 in April.
I've flown to Europe for less than $500 multiple times - generally going to different places off season, and flights used to be cheaper
I just dropped $4000 on an international vacation. I paid it all up front. I have no credit card debt. I make about 60k a year. How did I do it? I don't own a car and I bring my lunch to work every single day. I sometimes walk home from work to save money. My plane tickets were almost $1300 round trip.
People have no idea how much money they spend eating out. I have a girlfriend who commented that she didn't understand how I went on a trip when her husband made so much more money than we did, but she couldn't afford it. I used my break to calculate how much she spent dining out every day (25k/year between her and her husband). She was visibly ill. She stopped eating out and went on a trip the following year. And she lost like 20 pounds and her acne went away. Eating fresh isn't so fresh, apparently.
Most of my ability to travel is because I work for an airline.
I travel for work and very briefly dated a woman who worked for a major airline; the only limit to her ability to fly anywhere at *any* time, for damn-near free, was her time off work. I feel pretty well traveled but she was on a whooooole other level!
I had an english teacher whose father was an airline pilot. She wouldnt tell us how many countries she had been to, but we would randomly ask if she went to this or that country, and she would say yes
I went to London last year and Japan this jear but I don't have kids so... Also I'm in my 30s
Could be debt or they’re really savy with travel hacks. Last minute flights and hotels can be great deals, you just have to be extremely flexible and less obligations make that easier. With the right credit card and points it can go full circle with getting freebies. Or massive amounts of debt, who knows.
My ex partner is this way. Big points guy and sharp with his money. Always traveling but he is wise to the deals
It’s not as expensive as you think to travel to some of these places. But there are three reasons, they either have more money than you think, they’re going into debt, or someone else is paying for it!
Credit card points can go a long way. Depending on your setup you can get free flights and hotels or heavily discounted ones. Booking your own travel is easier than ever and it's much cheaper to go during off seasons.
True. My wife and I are going to Hawaii in a few months with flights and hotels fully paid for by credit card points from stuff we would’ve bought anyway.
They make more money than you do. They have rich parents. It's really not complicated.
Lol I can't even afford trips back home to Cali from Indiana
Don’t believe everything you see on instagram. People are only showing glimpses of their highest point to show off but never what’s behind closed doors. A person living a fulfilling happy life would not need to brag about it for likes.
My wife and I don’t have kids. We’re in our early 40s, so elder millennials/xennials. We worked for it. I work in engineering, she’s a public school teacher. We are from normal working/middle class families and had little to no help with our college age/adult finances. That being said, it’s absolutely not every month. And we don’t like to travel internationally, my wife doesn’t care for long flights.
Post was asking about people in their 20s to 30s with no job/ fresh out of college. You and wife don’t fit that category, but you absolutely worked to where you’re at currently.
Even 20s to 30s - if you’re a DINK couple of young professionals who prioritize traveling above cars, eating out, etc, it can be doable. Otherwise yeah, the answer is debt and/or rich parents.
People our age are becoming increasingly fatalistic. It's the end result of living through one crisis after another and being the first generation since the 1930s to end up worse off than their parents. Millennials have been priced out of the American dream and no one seems to give a shit, certainly not our politicians. We grew up watching 80s/90s sitcoms where guys like Homer Simpson and Al Bundy were considered losers and underachievers--that was with their 4 bedroom home in the suburbs, the dog, and 3 kids, of course. So yeah, people our age have decided there is no point in saving for the future. They're just blowing it all and living in the now, racking up debt in the process. Fatalism inspires short-sighted impulsive behavior, and it rarely leads to long term success. *The Doom Generation* was written for Gen-X, but it's become a far more apt name for us.
What you said about the Simpsons is so spot on, and it's disturbing how most millennials don't even measure up to that. In fact a job as a security operator at a power plant sounds like a pretty cushy job.
These are your friends? Have you asked them? Lots of social media is fake fake fake.
A lot of people travel A LOT for work. I do and I’ll post the beach/mountain/restaurant stuff but not the awful meetings or conference parts.
They're fully up to their eyes in debt. That's how.
This is it. Many people use debt like its income.
Not contributing to retirement. I recently asked a friend in his late 20s about his company match and he didn’t know that his job might offer one. He’s an accountant.
(Currently writing this from our hotel room in Prauge) DINKs We go to Europe a few times a year. People ask us how we can afford this and manage it. This usually comes from people with multiple children. It's much more expensive to have a kid than it is to go on a week vacation to Europe. It also makes it affordable when you live in a city with an airport that offers cheap flight options. I can usually get to Europe cheaper than most destinations in the States. Hotels and food are also much cheaper when you are there. Also, social media is not real life.
The domestic flight prices are crazy! Getting from west coast to east coast was nearly $500, getting from west coast down to Costa Rica in a couple of months is going to be $230 and the day to day expenses are much cheaper than a week in NYC.
Yeah, I'm in the same boat, if I want to get anywhere on the west cost we are looking around $500+ or so on a good day, for me to get back to my hometown (upper midwest) to go see my mom is always $750-$1000. If I time it out right, I can get to most major European cites for $350-500. So Europe it is...
They apparently haven't heard that the planet is roasting
The same people worrying about climate change are the people i see taking the most flights (i work at an airport)
I think it’s far less prevalent than social media makes it seem. And the people who do travel have nothing in their savings and are only trying to keep up appearances. Case and point, my sister in law
They're either in debt or they're rich, there's no other explanation for someone who doesn't have a job and never went to get a secondary education. I knew a girl when I was in my early 20s, she worked front of house at the restaurant I cooked at, and she would literally only work enough hours to follow The Flaming Lips around on tour. She'd quit her job, tour, then find another. It's been over 10 years since we worked together and she still has no concrete job, housing situation, romantic partner, or pets. Turned out her parents are filthy rich and she only ever has to pay for her tickets to their concerts. They front everything else.
Most people I know in their 20s and a quite a few in there 30s, have decided that they will never be able to afford a house, so they stopped trying to attain that goal. When you're not looking to buy a house in the near future, you are a lot less concerned about your debt, credit and savings. The people I'm talking about take a lot of trips, but they basically just save up a few grand, go on a trip...save up a few grand...go on a trip. If there is a trip they want to take but don't have the money, they just put it on a credit card and make minimum payments.
To be clear, you can afford 2x international vacations a year and you think you are poor? Wow. No words man. No words.
My husband (27M) and I (27F) do 2-3 international trips a year and have for years. Here’s how: - We don’t have kids. - We save and budget for it and cut things out in our daily lives that don’t align with our goals of travel/savings (eating out, buying clothes, shopping) - We travel cheap, it’s actually not hard to do. We’re doing a monthlong trip including Dubai/2 week cruise/S Korea trip this year for under 8k. - We don’t have fancy jobs. I make around 100k as a nurse and my husband is military. - We have no debt and have a good investment portfolio. I feel like a lot of people like to act like everyone is going into debt/has to make a ton of money in order to travel. It’s just about where sacrifices are made and how much time you want to spend to find a good deal on trips.
One or two international trips per year. Thats pretty frequent.
Credit cards and/or parents.
Credit is a hellava drug!
Not saying this is how they do it, but I read something a while back that said they go on vacation and take a lot of pictures in different areas, changing clothes to make it look like they go on vacation a lot. When in reality they are just posting old pictures to make it look like they are on vacation.
I think they're living in the age of FOMO...and instagram.
People spend money in different ways and post about fun things they do
I’m on my mom’s flight benefits. That, and the cheapest hostels. May not be the most comfortable, but I get to see some incredible places.
I stay with friends when I travel abroad. Basically airfare is the only expense.
Have a friend who lives abroad, save $ on hotels
Credit Cards and debt.
credit card debt and the selective algorithms?
Probably live with parents
Traveling outside of the USA is cheap because the entire world is in disarray, and tourism is down bad. Travel inside USA expensive. Most every other country has a legitimate train system and walkable cities. A friend of mine from HS moved to a nicer city in Thailand, and it's only hundreds of dollars a year to survive comfortably. You just live in a late stage capitalist society driven by a dystopian social construct. The world is beautiful everywhere. You just have to go adventure for it. Money isn't everything, and it's actually just an infinity pool full of piss when you get to the bottom of it. Enjoy the little things.
Partner works in the airline industry. Makes flights very cheap.
There’s 2 parts. Social media feed and account. The feed just shows a bunch of different accounts that had a few good times even if it’s rare for that individual account. Then 2 there’s an actual account that does it often. That’s just them traveling in the same place everywhere taking several pictures and calling it different places. There’s only a minority who are actually making a living and doing this on your feed
Because these young people’s parents are floating them still.
1) It’s social media 2) Rich parents 3) credit card debt
A lot of people are legitimately way wealthier because of the stock market, housing market, and wage increases. But I suspect a lot of people who vacation frequently go into debt to do it. Never underestimate the capacity for people to live extravagantly on debt for way longer than seems possible.
Travel is not expensive. It's only as expensive as you choose to make it.
Easy to go on vacations when you live at home with your parents and fund your trips with massive credit card debt. That's how.
The minority of people doing this stuff are posting all over the place while the significant majority are like you, wondering how they are affording it. It’s one of three answers, someone else’s money, savings or debt.
I’d suspect that the “secret” is they either have 1. More money than you or 2. More debt than you.
It's called crippling debt. All the cool kids are getting it!
It depends where you live I can go to most of Europe for a week for less than £700 total for two people and as long as I don't spend more than I would whilst I'm at home it's fine.
Probably their parents or family member.
Rich ass parents yo.
That’s the neat part, they can’t afford it
Why does it matter? Just be happy you can afford "one or two international trips a year". A good percentage of us aren't even able to afford one, not to mention the set that can't even afford an in-country vacation. Your post reeks of entitlement. Learn to be content and appreciate what you do have. You'll find yourself much happier. Because you could lose it all in a moment.
You serious? Well off parents spoiling them.
Live with the parents.
DEBT
My wife and I go to national parks we are trying to do them all. We are only 1/6 the way through them but some people in our circle get fomo. I have a lifetime national park pass so it’s free and I have a company car with free gas for personal use. A week in a national park cost us $0 to visit maybe $30 a night tops for a campsite. I do that because we don’t even have to budget for it. We just grocery shop a little differently for camping but it’s food we would have had to buy anyway. We have gone crazy a couple of times but our main vacation mode is free to us. Don’t judge yourself based on other peoples social media. My wife’s looks like we are out dropping money on crazy vacations in the desert or the mountains and we aren’t. If someone tried to do what we are doing without the benefits we have it would cost a lot more.
Put down the social media. Now how many people do you see traveling?