16 Mar Vacation Hacking Without Travel Rewards

In the FIRE world there is a lot of talk about what to do with the RE portion of FIRE, retire early.  Either way along the way, even those of us still on the path to FI often take vacations to kick back, relax, and enjoy the fruits of our labor instead of just saving it all to retire a few months earlier than we otherwise would.  I love vacation, I love white sandy beaches, I love eating out at places I’ve never been to, I love top notch service, I love no cell phone.  The question is, does it have to be all inclusive, or can you save some cash and achieve all of this without going the all inclusive route?

If you’ve ever been all inclusive, I’m sure you know its legit.  Sure, buffet food could be better but that’s breakfast and lunch, for dinner you drag your cocktail drinking self into a shower, dress nicely and get dinner reservations on resort like a classy civilized person instead of that swim up bar buzzed bafoon you were around 3pm.  If you aren’t picking up what I’m laying down, let me just tell you, that’s my vacation life. We have a routine when we go on ocean vacations that is very simple and straight forward.  Get up in the morning, get a beach bag packed, grab a mimosa, screw driver, or both (heck its all paid for right!?) and we go sit in the sand and stare at the deep blue ocean.  Bliss.  Headphones in, podcast on, feel bad about yourself as you listen to personal finance advice and you are sitting on some $4,000 4 days and 5 nights and, and enjoy the morning.  Find yourself hungry around 11am or noon and head to the beach bar for something off the grill or dare to put a shirt on and go eat that buffet lunch.

After lunch we re-apply sunscreen and head to the party pool, there’s always a party pool.  DJ is bumping some sweet hip hop from the last decade and mixing in some current club bangers.  You wave down your bartender, get a cocktail and enjoy the pool life.  It’s a blast, its freeing, your phone and computer are locked in a safe.  You are free.

The question remains, can this be achieved for cheaper, with equal or near equal enjoyment at a much smaller price? I don’t have the answer but I like exploring it.  As you can probably tell from above, I love this type of experience but I’ve only partaken 5-6 times and a few of them were trips I won from work (I know, good for me 😊).  I think a few versions of this can be achieved and for others that are more minimalistic than me, there are probably plenty of other options out there.  For me however, here are two that can balance the budget and achieve similar love of vacation.

Find a beach side hotel somewhere in the US that has a kitchen, and get groceries for breakfast & most or all lunches.  You have nothing but time, you are on vacation so you can make it happen.  My wife and I are intermittent fasters and breakfast is the meal we skip so we just find ourselves needing to make lunch.  In April 2020 right before that whole pesky COVID thing started up, we were in Florida doing this very vacation.  We ate scrambled egg breakfast tacos every day for lunch.  Do you have any idea how good a breakfast taco is? Just imagine chipotle with scrambled eggs instead of chicken and the guy scooping your avocado isn’t making sure you know that scoop is $2.25 extra or whatever.  Its your avocado, your guac, you paid 99 cents and that’s it.

What about the morning beach routine? Same story, hit the liquor store, make your own morning beverage, bring a soft sided cooler to refill, and bam, you are at the beach.  The party pool, well this might not be quite the same, but hey small trade off. There is still a pool or ocean to swim in, fill your yeti up with a strong beverage and head on down to chill, life is good.  This just leaves dinner, which is an uber ride away since you’ve been basting all day (a friendly way of saying day drinking).  Dinner, my favorite meal to pay for.  Map out your plan before you go, find the best of the best and a menu that you are thrilled to pay for.  This Florida or costal trip can be achieved for about half of an all inclusive, without a huge trade off in my opinion.  When it comes to all things personal finance, and FI, while its personal, I think optimizing every dollar spent is critical to be considered.  We had a great time on this trip, I’d definitely do it again, and the difference in cost is well worth the drop off in experience of the worry free all inclusive.  One closing thought, if Florida or any flight interferes too much with your path to FI, do everything above in the city near where you live, maybe a quaint city just outside of town, or somewhere within a 90 minute drive.  Book an Airbnb, and do the same thing, I bet it is better than work in most cases.