How to Make Your Dream Trip Become Reality – Part I

Several years ago I decided that 2010 would be the year of

The Dream Trip. 

2010, because we would both turn 50 and would celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary.  2010, because I would qualify for a third week of vacation and my husband would qualify for a fourth week of vacation.

And what would my “dream trip” look like? I always thought I wanted to go to Egypt, but as I thought about it, my heart was drawn to Italy, and I wanted to spend all three weeks in Italy! From the library I got a Rick Steves’ Italy guidebook and started to pencil out a 3 week itinerary.

How do you make your dream trip become reality?

For starters, read about it, talk about it, plan it, and eventually the dream goes from a wish to a concrete plan. I talked about it so much that my husband started to talk about it, and he had one stipulation – that the trip be paid for with cash and not on credit. Which leads to step two.

Start saving. I opened up a special Italy savings account. My profit-sharing checks, rebates, cash gifts, even cash refunds went into the savings account. When we moved to California and I left my job, I put my final paycheck, profit-sharing and vacation pay into the account.  That was the last big deposit since I haven’t had a paying job since.  Slowly and surely I saved.

October 2010, we took that dream trip and paid cash for it!

Firenze, Italy from the Piazzale Michelangelo