I was very fortunate to be able to travel for about 4 months when I was 24. People are like “oh my GOD how did you afford that?!” but the cost of the travel itself isn’t the expensive part. I think my GF at the time and I spent <$15k for the entire trip total (living in a state with ~free college tuition really helped us pull it off financially). Travel isn’t expensive when you’re semi-roughing it and have lots of time to travel overland. It’s the having lots of time that’s exceedingly hard for most Americans.
We should normalize gap year, but unfortunately it’s giong the opposite direction.
Yah, smoking is one of the few things I really dislike about Europe. If there’s a cool patio there’s probably gonna be some douchebag nearby ruining it with smoke.
I feel like the smoking is different in USA. Like there are probably a handful of chain smokers really dragging up the average, whereas in Europe it seems like there are tons of casual smokers.
Travel is really interesting for Kiwis. Virtually every location outside New Zealand (save for Eastern Australia) is prohibitively expensive to travel to so they usually spend years saving up money and vacation days for a mega-trip every 8 years or so in lieu of smaller trips annually. Like they might start in USA, hit up England, somewhere else in Europe, head over to China/Japan then make their way back to New Zealand. They know it might be a very long time before they get the opportunity to travel again.
Gap year is also super common there. I didn’t even know it was a thing until I lived there.
Where does this forum stand on bringing really young kids on over the ocean business class? Because we had 2 toddlers that both cried their way over the ocean and it really, really sucked.
I’ve got no problem with people traveling business class with toddlers so long as they check them at the gate and don’t cram them in the overhead bins.
If the airlines want to put a minimum age on business class, I wouldn’t object. As it is, family can book those seats so who am I to tell them how to travel. It seems like it would be easier to manage kids and their restlessness/tantrums by having a legitimate bed for them as opposed to being upright for 8+ hours, so I can’t blame them.
Should there not be kids in the back either? Those passengers want to sleep and not be disturbed all night either.
SEA is just barely doable (still pretty long flights), but like any classic destination will be minimum 11 hours away (Tokyo, LA, SF) and Europe is super far away.
I was surprised how remote New Zealand really is. Before arriving, I thought it’d be easy to bang out a few trips to SEA, but then I realized it’s just too far and not cheap for those trips (besides maybe Bali).
It’s funny how your perceptions of what’s cheap can change based on the order you travel.
I started with Wellington, New Zealand, which is pretty expensive and eventually made my way to Lyon, and it seemed very cheap to me.
Eventually I spent 4 years in Latin America which is reeeeaaally cheap compared to anywhere in North America and W. Europe. Over the Winter I made it back to Lyon and was complaining about the prices. Stuff like fruit and eggs are not really that cheap. You won’t find a meal that isn’t fast food type stuff for under 20 euros. The prices in Latin America kinda ruined me for other places. I used to dream of living in France/Spain, but I think now it’s probably not worth it when there are so many other great places at a fraction of the cost. Some of them are near Europe and you can just visit those places from time to time with the extra money you save.
Istanbul right now is so cheap due the Turkish Lira getting smashed. It’s gotta be the #1 value destination in the world and it isn’t particularly close. I mean you can sit on top of a ferry that goes from Europe to Asia and it costs 40 freakin cents and the views are probably better than a Seine Tour in Paris that would probably cost 100x or more and Istanbul is loaded with amenities and sites and maybe has more history than any city on the planet.
