BootsnAll Travel Community

So we've discussed where we've been and what we've seen, so I figured how we travel would be interesting to address. So how long and how often do you travel?

Kendrick

Question:
How often do you take non work related trips of a week or more?

Choices:
monthly
every season
every half year
once a year
every couple of years
once in a while

Question:
What is the average length of your journeys?

Choices:
1 month or less
1-2 months
3 months - 1/2 year
1/2 year to 1 year
over a year
I''ve been at it over two years and am still going strong.

 

That's a hard question for me to answer because everything has changed recently. If you had asked me that two years ago, I would have happily marked twice a year for a month or two. My husband and I are teachers, so we always travelled in the summers and three weeks at Christmas - for many, many years we did that.

However, in June 2006 we quit our jobs and took off for a year cycling around the USA and Mexico. Now we've been back in Boise for nearly a year with only one week in Denver at Christmas. But we're getting ready to take off for at least 2 1/2 years.

I think you need an option on your first poll: Whenever I can!

And an option on the second poll: However long I can take!

Seriously, I think it will be tough for most of us to answer because if I have the time/money I go. And it's not as regular as I would like.

Right now, I have a pretty fine job and decent vacation, so I'm averaging 2 trips a year - one in the US and one foreign. I get 5 weeks of vacation and I try to use it in travel, but it's not always possible.

Also those vacation trips don't count the trips to visit relatives and little weekend stuff.

I've always found these kinds of surveys tough to answer. Though I'm certainly glad that you asked because as my mom says, "If you don't ask, you never find out.."

hmmm. Thats a tough one cos my pattern keeps changing (perhaps that means it's not actually a pattern..?)

Over the last 3 years, while I've been living in the UK I've been on lots of long weekends or week long jaunts but this are usually city-breaks which I'm not sure I count as "travelling", they are more "getaways" to my mind.

I've also been on a few longer trips (anywhere from 2 weeks to 3 months) where I'm actually travelling around and exploring and working it out as I go, which is def my preferred stylle of travel.

On top of this I have also been home to NZ twice, both times for around 3 weeks - I'm not sure if that counts as travel or if all the time I'm in the UK counts instead?!!

Prior to coming to the UK I'd been on a few overseas trips, usually several years apart and lasting about 2 - 3 weeks. Mostly though it was jsut within NZ as we are too far away from everything and our dollar too weak to be able to just pop over to another country whenever you feel like it.
I'm about to return to this sort of patten as I'm going home in October to return to Uni so will be poor as pooor can be for the next +/- 5 years. Ouch!

I am surprised by the results. It seems the majority of people here go travelling once every 3 months.

Somehow I always imagined that the average traveller would take longer than 3 months to save up - so that when they finally did go travelling it was something of a big event.

I voted a while ago and didn't comment, but if I remember correctly, I voted for once a year and one-month trips, which, as a student, is all I can manage vacation-wise and (much more to the point) money-wise. I'm not really sure where living abroad fits in (does it count as "traveling"? It's not really the same thing, but it accomplishes a lot of the same goals...)

I'm about to become an exchange student for the second time- junior year in Sweden in high school, and now junior year in New Zealand in uni- which might bring my average time up, depending on how you count it.

Sorry, ignore my above post. I mis-read the results. I thought the answers were above the bars instead of below.

As some of you mentioned patterns do change, but most of us have a usual pattern if we look back over the years. Mine, as a teacher, has been 2 months every summer for the last 6, 7 with this one. However, if you followed my request for website review, you know I started another business which will break this pattern. Yesterday, I had two more requests for possible use of my services for this summer. That makes 7 possible jobs I lost to travel. Therefore, no planning ahead for next summer. If all goes well, I'll get a few photo jobs with 2-4 weeks in between to go somewhere at the last minute.

One pattern that has remained consistent for me is "Five places in three weeks."

I don't plan for this, but it seems that after every trip, whether it's long or short, this is what the average turns out to be. On the few long trips I've taken I've stayed 10 days to 2 weeks in some places, but have a lot more single-night stops. On shorter trips it's more evenly distributed ... a week in one city but two days at the beach and an overnight en route ... and I end up back with the same average.