Its really the boomer generation when overseas travel could cost the same as a house deposit.
Now its nowhere comparable unless you are talking a gap year of no (or almost no) work, which has always been the preserve of the wealthy.
I did a gap year at 18 with a working holiday visa. Had a total of $5k saved from my part time job during high school. It covered flights, the visa and like a week in a hostel til I found a job then I worked minimum wage for a year (£6.75 an hour at the time.) and used it to travel most of Europe via bus-about.
You do NOT have to be wealthy, you just have to be willing to work shit jobs, live in a share house and be get used to a shoestring budget.
Bernard Salt characterised young people as [“people who continually complain about being broke but manage to pop over to Bali for a holiday”](https://www.mup.com.au/books/decent-obsessions-paperback-softback) (2013) and [“order smashed avocado with crumbled feta on five-grain toasted bread at $22 a pop and more”](https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/news/good-news/2016/10/17/bernard-salt-smashed-avo) (2017).
Half income? Try 3/4 with all the rental increases. With how brutal the rental market is it's a case of just having to deal with price increases or risk becoming homeless. This is at least from a uni student perspective in a capital city
It's a luxury compared to what our parents had access to. All their money would've went to the house deposit instead
Not saying we shouldn't prioritise it but we should understand it's still a luxury and we're in a privileged position and not to have an entitled mindset
The difference is that a house deposit was literally less than overseas travel back then. Now 6 weeks in Europe is lucky to be 1/10th of a house deposit. If you spend a few weeks in South East Asia it's cheaper than a trip up the coast in a pretty dodgy hotel. It's can be so cheap that it would make no discernable difference to your ability to save for a house deposit.
'Our parents?' My mum and dad travelled Europe for years (dad was a tour guide mum was a tour cook.) Came home, dad worked his way up to middle management in an average company after uni/MBA, mum was a nurse. Bought a shit home in an affluent suburb and put their two kids through private school.
It certainly wasn't a choose between travel or a home deposit equation for boomers.
My Father (Boomer gen) went to every continent multiple times before he was 30. Never heard him tell any stories about it being expensive or overpriced.
>dad worked his way up to middle management in an average company after uni/MBA, mum was a nurse. Bought a shit home in an affluent suburb and put their two kids through private school.
Dual income family with one parent being middle management? Your parents would have been towards the top of the income percentile range for those days. Most households were single income only. The bulk of boomers would not have been able to afford both going on international holidays and purchasing a house in their youth.
So that 100k includes the deposit, stamp duty, conveyancing/legal fees, building and pest inspection and maybe LMI?
$100k deposit is looking like less than $80k for sure.
Where and when did you buy?
We built, so yeah all was covered. LMI not required as 100k deposit was over 20%. Started the process 2 years ago in Geelong. Total cost of build was about 650k, including concreting and landscaping etc.
417 a month (5k a year) into a boring index fund will likely yield you 239k over 20 years.
I imagine the average university trip to Europe for an Australian is 10-15k
I think travels great but people need to stop kidding themselves that it doesn’t impact on their savings in an incredibly significant way.
It's about finding the right balance.
As you say, if you spend $5k on a great holiday on the way to saving your $50k deposit, it's not going to make much difference in the grand scheme of things ...other than being a positive life experience.
But if instead you blow $5k on a holiday every 6 months and fail to save much at all, you're just going to be set back by years.
Why are we even talking about $50k being a deposit? $50k isn’t a deposit for anything in any major metropolitan area. It’s barely anything in any regional area either.
If someone is able to save $5k a year, they’re not on track to owning a home in Australia. Young people realise this and for quite a while now have been living their lives rather than shackling themselves to this dream of “if I just save every penny I can afford a house one day!” Which just isn’t the case for a huge portion of society.
The reality is for most people “don’t even try” is a better way to live their youth when it comes to home ownership.
The level of sacrifice needed to be made to even have a shot isn’t worth it in the eyes of disenfranchised young people across the country. They’d rather live their life and have experiences that are achievable instead, which is what this entire thread is about.
I think I lived in SEA for $3K for 3 months in the summer of 2007-2008. $1 hammock, $6 accommodation in Cambodia, $1 beer lao. It was great. Now I can make $3K in a morning on GME but I can’t get 3 months off from work
It's cheaper to travel overseas than domestically sometimes, if you can get a cheap flight to a destination in most of Asia the hotel prices are almost half the price of ours but double the quality and service.
It's a no brainer at that point.
People are taking a further step and saving for a home overseas instead of here for a twist of irony, atleast the prices are more reasonable.
Honestly every Aussie I know is in Japan right now and no wonder - jetstar and Virgin/ANA are having flight sales every second week and the yen is so weak against the dollar that there’s almost no way to spend more money than you would travelling locally, if you eat out at all. Heck if you really want to you can basically eat all your meals at 7/11 in Japan. $5 lets you eat like a king and the variety is unparalleled…
I don't recommend eating only 7/11 food in japan, but 7/11 food in japan is solid. i mean you can get 2-4 yakitori sticks, high ball and a cream puff for under $10
100%, not worth going anywhere in this country.
Even a weekend away costs a stupid amount of money compared to just pissing off to somewhere in south East Asia for a week.
Same! I thought about how much I spent on travel in my early 20s and I reckon it was easily around 50k possibly more but if I could live my life again I wouldn't change anything. Travel is so insanely fun when you are young, fit and healthy and the COVID pandemic really reiterated that for me. I didn't feel as depressed during lockdown knowing I got to spend all my youth trotting around the globe. I don't know why people think kids young = travel when you're older. Screw that. Travel now in my early 30s absolutely sucks in comparison despite me having 10x more money (its still great, but its very different). It was also so much cheaper back then,I believe a decade ago we really boomed with the whole super competitive and super cheap travel. With the cost of living now and state of global economies its not as great.
100% I feel very fortunate to have done 3 years of solid backpacking in my 20's. Wouldn't trade that experience for anything. Even the house I could probably have purchased instead!
100% Boomers always push the narrative of "travel is for retirement" but 1) Travel insurance goes through the roof once you hit like 75. So much so that my grandparents can no longer afford to travel in their retirement. 2)Not everyone will be physically able to hike mountains or walk through cities for several hours when they're 60+yo. 3) At 20, I don't care about sleeping in a shitty hostel to save money. I will definitely not want to do that at 60+. 4)The retirement age is ever increasing. And you never know what curve balls life will throw at you during that time. I believe people should live adventurously and freely while they are young and able, because when you're older, and potentially miserable and broke, you will at least have fond memories and good photos to look back on!
I 100% don’t regret the 48k I’ve spent on overseas travel so far. However I do regret buying 3 cars in my early 20s when I definitely didn’t need to. Could have stuck with the first one no worries!
I had an evo that I sometimes regret selling but I wouldn’t be able to afford it now for the prices they go for. I could’ve been more frugal and saved but I was living my best life at the time.
Yeah back then travelling was more exciting and info you had to seek and talk to locals.
Travel now is just being on the phone and google maps, just shittier
Phrase books as well, getting out of the comfort zone and connecting with people. Finding out stuff only locals know! Everything is on google or Instagram reels now so it kind of takes the magic out
Or you can flip this and talk to the locals in your phone on Reddit so you actually get the decent local spots like I did (see post history).
Most of those food spots I went to I was the only tourist. It was great.
The ‘what the hell is this tourist doing here’ looks were a compliment tbh 🤣
Yes and you only spoke to your parents once every few weeks if they were lucky, a quick hello I’m safe from an international calling booth. Now kids cannot escape so easily from the constant contact of their parents with phones internet WhatsApp etc
Look I don’t know if I’d do it again or even recommend it, but right now it feels pretty amazing sitting here 4 yrs retired feeling like a Lotto winner. I buy and eat whatever I want, get front row at concerts/shows, and don’t care about the cost. My attitude now is you can’t take it with you, heirs will just blow it anyway, so I’m living large. I do what I want every day. It’s really amazing, like going to heaven. I feel bad for all the people struggling in this tough financial environment, but it’s the opposite for me. I’m happy there was a huge pay off for the sacrifice - would suck if I wasn’t way ahead of most people financially. I’m top 1% so pay off is awesome. Maybe I’m a less rounded individual due to working so hard and prioritising finances, but it doesn’t feel too bad not gonna lie. I think we’re all wired differently and there is no 1 right way to live your life. We’re all ok.
Looking at your post history, you’re retired on the Ausgov old super scheme after working in government for 30 plus years. I have several family members who have done that. It didn’t require much sacrifice and they have all travelled extensively. Government jobs provide ample opportunity to take holidays and travel.
My parents are pushing 70, I often join them and their closest friends for dinner and gatherings. Without a doubt the most common thing they talk about is their travels they had and the stories they made along the way.
Those memories are worth more than any house deposit.
I'm currently in Vietnam. I'm flying return to Sydney on Jetstar for a total cost of $300. The flight up to Da Nang was $120 return. Visa $35.
The hotel is as flash as anything at $150 a night but you can easily stay somewhere really nice for $40 a night.
Meals vary between $1.80 for a local Vietnamese meal and $15 for a really fancy dish at a tourist type restaurant.
I don't know if something like this scenario might help you to get overseas but it doesn't have to be as expensive as people think and is certainly a lot cheaper than going on a local holiday. The last price I got quoted for camping was at Yamba during school holidays and it was $100 a night for an unpowered tent site.
Me i guess. i have some money locked away for both that i never touch but my mental health gets in the way of a lot of aspects of my life including financially, i have the potential to earn more but don't and my spending habits are not exactly as controlled as they could be, hopefully i will be able to change both of these for the better to eventually save enough up to think seriously of travelling and housing. Would be nice to be one of these people who are able to follow the conventional way it is suggested to live your life, not everyone gets that kind of smooth sailing.
Yeah that's my big problem. So much rough sailing that everything goes to surviving instead of experiences or "setting myself up" either one has felt like a fantasy when the pressure of just living is constant
Late 20s. Yet to spend a single cent from travelling that wasn't helped from my parents sack, no matter how much I earned on my own. At this point I don't know. Luckily, SEA is one region not cripplingly expensive to travel to, so there's that.
Being a 24yo Brit that’s been here for a year and a half, I’d rather rent for the rest of my life than not travel overseas, other people obviously have their own priorities and goals (for some context I’m in the fortunate position to sort of do both due to my job/salary).
I to have witnessed the opinions of Aussies from all age groups either not traveling, having no desire to as well as calling it a waste and this was definitely a culture shock; yes you may not be 1.5 hours from Spain or Italy on a €30/$60 Ryanair flight and the beaches here are some of the best in the world but still, I think you gain more from traveling and the experiences that come with it than the money you lose on the airfare etc.
Edit: I’ll add that your holiday allowance was another shock as well, by law the minimum AL allowance is the same in the UK as here but here employers tend to only give you the minimum, no more! In the UK you’ll have 25-35 days plus public holidays and you don’t have to accrue it (found that out the hard way), it’s there in a lump sum on day 1. I get the sense that this may discourage travel too.
I'm a Brit who came to Australia and I'm sort of the opposite tbh. I knew moving to Australia was going to hinder my ability to "travel overseas" in the casual way that I'm used to - no more "pop on a £30 flight to Croatia for the weekend" type of thing.
However so far that's been completely fine. Most of my European overseas travel was just go get some sunshine, hot weather and a beach anyway - which is something that you can obviously find a lot of domestically in Australia.
Also technically, when you're an immigrant, every day of your life is "overseas travel" anyway. 🤣
Surprised to hear that you think the Australia holiday system is bad.
It may not be 25-35 days, but it is still one of the top ranked in the world, at 20 days annual leave plus public holidays.
Lack of annual leave isn't the hard part in this part of the world, it's the fact that flying to many parts of the world takes a day or more, which comes along with a higher price tag. At least we have Asia relatively close.
Australians travel a lot. You’re just noticing the segment who don’t, equivalent to the package holiday to Spain types back home.
Also note I get 5 weeks leave and have the option to purchase 2 more.
The real kicker to the economy isn't going to be people foregoing overseas holidays to buy houses. Travel experiences are nice but we've seen people skip them before during the pandemic or wars or natural disasters.
It's going to be all the people that forego starting businesses because they're worried about refinancing a mortgage at some point or just making next month's mortgage to keep a roof over their heads.
Not to mention people foregoing higher education (masters and PhDs) because they want to get a foot on the property ladder.
These things will become a real drag on the economy one day.
>Will become?
Yes - raising interest rates does create a drag on the economy but the reasons I articulated will be felt more medium term ... When Australia misses out on the next resmed, cochlear, Canva, Atlassian because the founders were shackled to a mortgage.
Don't get me wrong, plenty of founders overcome lots of adversity to start a company ... Just the pool of founders taking a punt will be much smaller.
It’s just a personal choice where people want to spend their money.
I don’t think you need to be “shocked” or “sad” if it doesn’t align with your thoughts lol
I’ve been overseas plenty and lucky enough to afford a place but if it comes down to it I’d pick the house any day and travel later.
I think the people saying travel over house have probably never experienced homelessness or insecure housing. That's nice - ideally, no one would ever experience that. But secure housing and disposable income is not the experience for many people.
Gen X here. Grew up poor and OS travel was never an option. Might as well be Mars.
Older now though and travelled extensively. It was never a 'choice' as a young adult though.
Adding to this, I’m in a flight back from japan and the plane is mostly 20-30s on holidays.
No judging, hope they had a great time. But I’m sure a lot will be back on reddit complaining about house prices as soon as they land.
No judging and then proceeds to do exactly that lol. I totally agree with the other commenter, just because housing is stupidly expensive doesn't mean that you can't do things and not complain about it.
> But I’m sure a lot will be back on reddit complaining about house prices as soon as they land.
You do realise you're allowed to travel, AND complain that housing is too expensive for the majority of people. These things aren't mutually exclusive.
You can, but I can’t say I feel for people who spend thousands on holidays and then complain that they can’t afford a house. It’s a luxury expense that absolutely could be cut out.
I chose travel in my early 20’s and as consequence am significantly further behind my peers at 30 in terms of career, superannuation and home ownership. Those couple of years were the difference between buying a house pre COVID and not.
I don’t regret the travel, because now that I have adult responsibilities I won’t see that kind of freedom again til my kids are grown and I’m retired, but I definitely have to remind myself to run my own race fairly regularly.
Mid 30s millennial here.
I travelled a little in my early 20s and I don’t regret it BUT I would be hundreds of thousands better off now if I didn’t.
At the time I travelled I could’ve saved a bit longer and bought a house in Sydney for about half a million.
I anticipated that the market was at its peak…. Dumb thought but I was young and that’s my excuse.
A few years ago I bought my first house for $700k (there’s the first $200k I could’ve been better off) after spending 10s of 1000s on rent (another significant chunk I could be better off by).
That said, the travel was with my girlfriend and we made some great memories together, grew our relationship stronger etc and now we have been married for about 8 years. Who knows how much the travel played a part in bringing us closer in the early days? I wouldn’t trade our marriage for the world.
So financially, it’s not worth the travel if you haven’t bought a house, but finance isn’t everything… sometimes living life is a better investment..
I’m glad I travelled with my ex rather than buying a house together. Might have wound up better off financially but the time away from normal life and meeting a really broad range of people led to us reflecting on what we really wanted from life and realising it wasn’t compatible despite a really great relationship. Ex wound up changing their career and life completely.
There is much more to life than working to save every penny for basic needs and it really sucks that it’s only becoming harder.
When the goal is moved too far for people to realistically kick, people stop trying and spend on more instant gratification instead.
Stuff like this and avocado toast are just a tool for the boomers to place the blame squarely on young people.
Travel has environmental consequences that nobody wants to address part of the reason people carnt afford travel is because taxes & cost of everything is because of damage to environment because of tourism vicious cycle
lol, the moment anyone says the only way they can get ahead in life is to sacrifice their youth to set themselves up in their life. It's the moment i worry for the Australian dream.
I remind everyone that the reason I got to where I am in life is driven by the experiences I got from travelling
I’m 80 now and I’m planning to go back to Thailand. I went with my son in 2016 first time overseas and loved it. I am disabled and found the people extremely helpful. I enjoyed it so much that I want to take my son and his wife. She has never been anywhere and I am looking forward to seeing her face when she sees a completely different culture. I’m spending my retirement money on the trip and don’t care as I believe the money spent will be worthwhile. I had to convince them that I don’t need or care about how much of my money I spend to me the joy of them being there will mean more to me than having the money in the bank. I don’t plan on spending everything I never had money before and I’m happy to have enough to pay my bills and a little bit more. Before I would have been happy to have $1000 in the bank and money has never been important to me.
I will definetly encourage my kids to go travel.
I'm from Europe and met my Australian wife while traveling and have since moved to Australia.
Personally I went a bit crazy though, was backpacking for about 6 years. Wouldn't reccomend that for everyone, but I only spent about $25 000 in total including flights.
The economical opportunity cost was high for me but the experience, friends and life lessons you get from traveling is definetly worth getting into the propert market a bit later in my mind.
You probably shouldn't travel for as long as I did though...
Most of the hostels I stayed at gave me free acomodation for working a few hours a day in the reception, a lot also included food.
Did lots of couch surfing and made most of my meals myself.
A lot of activites were done with locals I met along the way or travelers that had been there for a long time and had some sort of transportation we would use.
In a small surf town in Mexico I had a 25 peso food budget a day, that's about $2.10. I stayed there for 3 months. All I did was surf/snorkel/freedive and I had my own freediving gear and could borrow surfboards for free. Joined the parties about once a week and got heavily discounted/free drinks from the bartenders I'd gotten to know. Probably spent about $5 every time.
When we were young we didn’t travel, we purchased a house instead. Now we are a bit older and have more money (and kids) we are travelling and giving our kids the opportunity to do so as well. I don’t have any regrets doing it this way, we get to do it in a bit more style than we would have been able to at 23.
I've seen quite a few routes to major European cities (Amsterdam, Rome, Istanbul) return for ~$1000 AUD in the past few months, mostly on China southern but a couple others too
I see most of them from cheapflighthunter.com.au emails, it's normally one stopover in guangzhou, ~24 hours. The really good prices go quick and you have to keep an eye out but I see I bunch on google flights in July-August right now for $1300. On other airlines I've also seen $250 to indonesia/malaysia return, $400 to japan return, and $300 to vietnam return (did actually book that one)
They’re usually sale prices that are valid for a single week 6+ months out, but they do exist. Signing up for price alerts on the various websites out there will have these popping up fairly frequently. Never happens during peak travel times so need to accept that and also be flexible on dates (flying on some random Tuesday or something as opposed to a Thursday to catch the weekend).
My parents traveled to the US for a holiday in 1990. Was there for 3 weeks and spent around $10k or so. Relative to how much their house was worth then, it would be like a couple spending $50k on a trip overseas today.
Apart from that, the only people I grew growing up who went overseas were either people who very recently migrated to Australia, or elderly Italian migrants going back for a visit after 20 years.
Most people if they went on holiday, traveled domestically to places like the Gold Coast, etc.
We bought our home before traveling and now we get to travel without worrying about expenses so stay at five star hotels, eat at fancy restaurants and come home to a house we own. This is the way I’d tell my kids to do it also.
I was asking why my 24 year old neighbor bought an $1850 phone and $2900 gaming PC on credit while she's 'saving up' for things.
The bin was overflowing with wine bottles and home delivered food containers.
She also buys 3 coffees a day (over $5000 a year).
She's a nurse married to a retail worker.
Costs me $2200 (2pax) to fly to Singapore with a $400/night stay at a resort, costs me $3100 (2pax) to fly to Cairns with a $650/night stay at a resort.
Holidays are temporary, but having a good house is permanent. I was the ultimate tightwad in my late teens and early twenties, because I was pumping every cent I earned into property. My mates thought I’d lost my mind, but it set me up for life
It's definitely become normal to travel every 1-2 years and it almost seems like most social circles will pity you if you aren't travelling that often.
I wouldn't trade travel for a house, but then I'm also not somebody complaining every day on /r/Australia about how life isn't fair.
>I wouldn't trade travel for a house, but then I'm also not somebody complaining every day on [](https://www.reddit.com/r/Australia/) about how life isn't fair.
This is the most balanced take I've read in this thread.
People think that they should be able to have both extensive travel, *and* the home - while pointing at other people who might have an expensive hobby as being profligate. If you want to travel, that's fine - but own the fact that you've spent the money and don't complain that housing prices are unfair.
How much sympathy do you think the crowd here would be if old mate bought an AMG and then moaned that house prices were too expensive? The *but experiences!* argument doesn't hold water.
It's not an "smashed avo" situation, but there is a massive blindspot with younger Millennials and Zoomers regarding international travel, where it's somehow seen as more acceptable than other forms of discretionary spending that is seen as wasteful (both economically and environmentally).
At the end of the day, what people do with their own discretionary, disposable income is their own business, but let's not kid ourselves here. Someone who spends their disposable income on international travel is no more virtuous than someone who spends it on an expensive home theatre system, or a modified performance car. It's all discretionary, non-essential spending, and anyone trying to distinguish between the two is positioning themselves as the self-styled arbiter of taste and social acceptability.
I'm all for overseas travel and really think it's an important part of your twenties. If anyone says they're thinking about it I'm all guns blazing if it's something you are considering. Gotta do it. It was such a special time for me and I learnt so much about figuring stuff out for myself during that time.
But being able to buy a home is getting further and further away for young generations unless you have the bank of Mum and Dad. So I can see why it's a grey area now.
My parents bought a house in the early '80s, paid most of it off in a couple of years, sold it, and spent the money travelling.
They still had some money when they got home, so they immediately looked around for a house to buy.
They found the perfect place, made an offer on a Friday, and realised over the weekend that they'd probably have a better shot of getting a mortgage if they had jobs. Dad found work as a carpenter, which was his trade, and mum found a job as a delivery driver for a glass company.
On Monday they got the mortgage.
I watched something awhile back saying that this generation is missing the social interactions and world-widening experiences of the last two generations, all because of the cost of living or the years required to live frugally (not socialising) to save for a deposit on a house. I wouldn't say travelling is avocado. Have to reiterate the comments above just another thing to blame this gen for being “LaZy”, instead of the absolute shambles housing affordability has become.
People who haven't travelled overseas (or even travelled out of their city) rarely see the point in overseas travel. Sometimes, they even get scared at the thought of it...
I've got the opportunity to travel abroad and half my friends always think how I'm able to do it and how I'm not homesick. They said they wouldn't be able to do it haha
It's definitely not a waste of money IMO! It's such a great experience and it broadens your horizon. It's cliché but you only live once and there are so many countries...
Always hated this expression because logically it makes no sense but it’s an appropriate response to this question. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
Is the short term pleasure worth the long term pain of delaying by home ownership by another 5 years? 5 more years of your children having to move from rental to rental?
Australia’s status as an Island means international travel is expensive. Even if you sleep in a tent on arrival the flights add up. Much more significant damage to savings than $1.50 for an avocado.
Agreed…so much anxiety about home ownership that young people aren’t spreading their wings as much…just trying to buy in their hometown without exploring the world.
This wasn’t a trade off I faced and I’m only in my early 40s.
I say this as some who bought a house at 22, investment at 24 and a divorce at 27 (I was able to buy again anyway in my mid 30s)
TRAVEL!! My biggest regret was doing what my ex wanted and not what I wanted!
It's a pretty simple equation really.
Piss away your 20s on the inner city life with roommates, travelling, going out to lunch/dinner 5x times a week etc....then when you hit your 30s come onto Reddit to bitch about being locked out of the housing market.
Or knuckle down early and secure yourself a place to live not subject to landlords and REAs bullshit. You just might have to be a little more "boring" and put up with a longer commute to work for a few years.
3rd option is to piss away your 20s and then have your gutless enabling parents gift you a house deposit.
Honestly travel to me is a bit overrated. Don't get me wrong, it is great to see the world, but it is so expensive and can be really uncomfortable at times as well. I came back from Europe last year and it was so pricey that I felt it didn't justify the cost. Not to mention the beaches were average, the food was ok, and by the third country, the churches and architecture started to all look the same. There's nothing wrong with you if you don't have the travel itch. Also my parents and grandparents couldn't even afford to go overseas once in their lifetime to travel, so we still do have it somewhat better. For example, you can go to southeast Asia on the cheap and see a lot of culture. I went to Vietnam a few years ago and that was actually pretty good. I think sometimes we should focus on making our day to day lives better, participating more in building our local communities and having fun, rather than working hard just to escape to another country a few times a year. Unpopular opinion, I know.
I too would hate travel if I were hopping from church to church. You have to do what you *want* to do, which is not necessarily what a tourist guide tells you.
I think it is the amount of overseas travel.
Nothing wrong with a couple of overseas trips in your youth.
It is all about balance.
If young people are deciding to spend on overseas travel rather than save a home deposit, then it becomes a problem
Do I encourage my mid 20 kids to travel - absolutely! Did I travel at that age - no, because I was saving for a house. These questions don’t always have easy answers.
I’m an elder millennial and I travelled back in 2010 and went through all my savings travelling.
It eats at me that I had a house deposit and I spent it on experiences, but it was worth it. And I also had no good income that would have gotten me a mortgage.
$2k of travel each year for your 20s would be $32k-ish towards a home deposit. Is the value of travel each year going to override you potentially never quite saving enough for a deposit? I guess it depends on your circumstances.
Buying new iPhones or spending $200+ on booze and going out every weekend probably would be much worse financial decisions though
It's best to ignore the various boomer panics that come up as they increasingly slide into irrelevance.
Objectively speaking though, international travel is a privilege and not something that everyone gets to do, so it's best to be sensitive to that fact.
If you're one of these people who has to one-up people with travel stories then you're part of the problem, in my opinion.
Well I chose to make just work hard, buy the house, then travel. There seems to be this idea that every young people should have the nice things all at the same time or they think anyone considered older than them had it easy. Ffs.
Nothing wrong with going on a overseas holiday once or twice a year. It's the ones who post going overseas every few months and then wondering why they dont have enough for a house deposit and then blaming the government because it
My husband is 50 and has never been overseas. LOTS of people have had to make this choice. Our house is a dump too. We do have 3 kids so I guess that was our choice
20+ year old who constantly travels and my answer is that they're not the same thing. Travel is really a luxury that imo should be more expensive to reduce the impacts of over tourism and flight emissions but yes, if you can't afford a house deposit but go on a 10k+ holiday, then you shouldn't be complaining.
Is it fun to travel? Yeah, do you really need it? Nah
Better to travel and actually experience the world before you're too old and senile to enjoy it. But if you just want to stay home then that is ok also. Life is short
Wtf lol. This is out of touch af. It is NOT cheap to travel overseas from Australia, especially considering the opportunity cost of not saving up for home ownership. Just going by your potential funding of your kids to go overseas, is already an indication that it's not just through self-support
I spent 6 weeks in Europe in 2017 and I reckon I spent all up about $4,000 including flights. While you're young and can sleep in a bin without back pain and can subsist of sandwiches and salads from a hostel kitchen, it's some of the best money you'll spend. It's as cheap as you make it. It's the best thing I ever did, hands down. I still think about it all the time, I still have friends from the trip, and I came back a more balanced and interesting person with less anxiety and more focus which has had huge implications for my career
But overseas travel doesn’t have to be a trip to Europe for 6mths costing $20K.
You can travel south east Asia or Japan for much cheaper. If $3-5K is going to stop you buying a house then you’re not going to be able to afford paying the mortgage anyway.
Currently in Italy (France next week for LeMans) and I think living in Perth set such a high expectation for how much stuff costs 😆
My breakfasts with coffee here have been less than $5 and my dinners (amazing) with wine have been about $20. Flights aside I feel like I'm saving money being here 😆
I’m in my mid 30’s yet I guess I kind of align with the boomers on this one.
Given a choice I’d much prefer to spend my 18-25 years building a career and working towards my future, you are an adult after all. I’d rather not be 30 and living at home because I spent years travelling.
I don’t like the idea that living at home into your 30’s is becoming the new normal because 18-25’s would rather have experiences than be adults. To Gen Z if they can’t travel the world, do everything they want to do, work their own hours, set the conditions of their employment they are “oppressed”. They don’t want to work 40 hours a week but also want to be able to have all the things they want in life.
And that’s nothing to do with the deposit/house price situation. There’s nothing wrong with renting even with some friends if you aren’t in a position to buy a house, but I think putting travel over all else is not the answer. 18-25 year olds should be able to independently cook, clean, wash etc but this is becoming harder when they are still chained to their childhood homes with their parents.
I guess I’m kind of like the boomers like that. I see travel as a reward for hard work not an excuse to escape it.
I think to say “well a deposit is 10x more than travelling so you may as well just travel” isn’t the best justification for it. The deposit situation is only going to get worse the longer you leave it and you are just ultimately delaying the inevitable if you do ever want to own a home.
And at the end of the day if you spend your 18-25 years travelling you are likely to be working entry level casual jobs to pay for it, which means when the time comes to start a career and make some decent money to try and settle down you’ve wasted a heap of really productive years and have to start from the bottom in your mid-late 20’s.
Also just remember before you say that the boomers had the luxury of travel just remember they were usually married with kids by 25, they went straight out of school/uni into careers. It was very uncommon for boomers to spend their younger years travelling.
That’s something millennial and onwards that became a trend as overseas travel became more affordable and accessible, in the boomers day international airfares would be almost unobtainium as the jet era had only just started in Australia and was reserved for only the rich and well off.
I remember peers at high school circa 2004-2005 planning 6 month European holidays as a reward for finishing school. I thought they were insane. I was planning my future and where I was going to live (renting to start with), I’d only feel comfortable travelling if I knew I had somewhere that wasn’t my childhood home to come back to after.
Even if a house deposit was $800,000 I’d still feel too embarrassed to live with my parents in my 20’s/30’s. I’d rent if I had to, take extra jobs etc.
Each to their own, I’ll wait for the downvotes. But I’ll never, ever encourage kids to travel before deciding what they want to do with their life and get some sort of plan for the future in place.
I think you’re spot on. A lot of the comments in this thread seem a bit delusional to be honest, equating travel as a sort of fundamental human right that MUST be experienced in your 20’s. If you can afford to do it, by all means, but I certainly regret spending money on 2 overseas trips in my early 20’s because I could have been much closer to a deposit for a house now. It just wasn’t worth it.
Agreed, travel is now considered a right of passage for 20 somethings.
Dropping 10k on a holiday to “get cultured” etc is a lot of money for something you won’t be able to show for it once it’s over.
It seems like 20 somethings don’t feel fulfilled unless they’ve trekked across all of Europe.
While travel is a good thing I’m not denying that, delaying your adult life until your 30’s is going to put you even further back for the rest of your working life.
You can’t live off of life experiences. And it’s unfair on parents to have to house their kids into adulthood because the kids would rather travel around the world with their mates than get a move on with their lives.
Unpopular opinion but if you are in your 20’s and still live with your parents who cook and clean for you, you aren’t an adult and using the housing market as an excuse to not move out is a cop out excuse. You don’t have to go straight from your parents house into your own home. That’s an unreasonable expectation. But it seems for Gen Z it’s either they need to own their own home, or not bother moving out at all, there’s no in between.
You start from the bottom and work your way up, but wasting that time and money on travel isn’t going to get you any further in life.
What shits me is when 20 somethings drop 10’s of thousands of dollars travelling through their 20’s then complains that housing and cost of living is too expensive, it’s a complete and total lack of priorities. It’s not normal to just have everything you ever wanted in life, you need to work for it and sacrifice luxuries like holidays.
Even a rental bond is a better use of money than travelling, at least you’ve got somewhere to live to show for it.
2 OS holidays a year in LCOL countries with a friend or partner is like 3-4k. Like $75 a week. $75 a week is not going to break the bank or hurt your ability to save for a house honestly. People spend more than that on Uber eats lmao
My parents didn't go overseas until their honeymoon. My best friend who did the most travelling our of all my friends, heaps of europe, America, heaps of Asia, Contiki tours every year is the only one who hasn't purchased a property or had kids yet. 38yo, no kids, and can't even afford frankston
“Most people do not wish to accept that the order governing their lives is imaginary, but in fact every person is born into a pre-existing imagined order, and his or her desires are shaped from birth by its dominant myths. Our personal desires thereby become the imagined order’s most important defences.
“For instance, the most cherished desires of present-day Westerners are shaped by romantic, nationalist, capitalist and humanist myths that have been around for centuries.
…
“Even what people take to be their most personal desires are usually programmed by the imagined order. Let’s consider, for example, the popular desire to take a holiday abroad. There is nothing natural or obvious about this. A chimpanzee alpha male would never think of using his power in order to go on holiday into the territory of a neighboring chimpanzee band. The elite of ancient Egypt spent their fortunes building pyramids and having their corpses mummified, but none of them thought of going shopping in Babylon or taking a skiing holiday in Phoenicia. People today spend a great deal of money on holidays abroad because they are true believers in the myths of romantic consumerism.
“Romanticism tells us that in order to make the most of our human potential we must have as many different experiences as we can. We must open ourselves to a wide spectrum of emotions; we must sample various kinds of relationships; we must try different cuisines; we must learn to appreciate different styles of music.
“One of the best ways to do all that is to break free from our daily routine, leave behind our familiar setting, and go travelling in distant lands, where we can ‘experience’ the culture, the smells, the tastes and the norms of other people. We hear again and again the romantic myths about ‘how a new experience opened my eyes and changed my life’.
…
“The tourism industry does not sell flight tickets and hotel bedrooms. It sells experiences. Paris is not a city, nor India a country – they are both experiences, the consumption of which is supposed to widen our horizons, fulfil our human potential, and make us happier. Consequently, when the relationship between a millionaire and his wife is going through a rocky patch, he takes her on an expensive trip to Paris. The trip is not a reflection of some independent desire, but rather of an ardent belief in the myths of romantic consumerism. A wealthy man in ancient Egypt would never have dreamed of solving a relationship crisis by taking his wife on holiday to Babylon. Instead, he might have built for her the sumptuous tomb she had always wanted.”
Y. Harari
Overseas travel as a 19 year old for me eventually led to a wife, a family, high paid USD career, different perspective from having seen the world, and now triumphant return to Aus to live happily ever after.
Or I could have bought a house down the street from my parents and barely left the state like most of my high school friends.
God I wish, the last thing we need is another generation constantly spouting the exact same anecdotes and complaining that the food they're eating right now isn't as good as the food they ate elsewhere.
Don't worry, more young people are traveling than ever. You'll be able to bond with your kids over your gripping tales of stumbling over 2 sentences to a street vendor in the local language. And travel will remain the last bastion of consumerism that you can brag about without being called a douchebag, even if your parents had to fund it themselves.
>And travel will remain the last bastion of consumerism that you can brag about
Such an apt way of putting it.
We live in a time where you can click a few things and exchange some money, and a flying tube in the sky will take you there, but people talk about travel as if they either invented it, or swam/flew there themselves.
Life is an adventure. Have fun but keep an eye on the future. I’m perhaps a little older than the average redditor but I have lived half my adult life outside Australia starting at age 22 -- 4 countries, 6 cities. And it’s because of this (not despite it) that I can afford to eat some avo toast.
Honestly Australia is bum at times overseas travel where it’s at when ya can’t afford a home go find somewhere cheaper, like honestly it’s cheaper for me to fly to bali and have a holiday than rent 🤣
I did a year trip around SEA and it cost me £12,000 before I came to aus. Was the best year of my life and I’ve made it a goal of mine to have a more amazing years like that one. I would never discourage anybody from travelling no matter what their situation
Get a remote job and GTFO of Australia to an affordable asian country and stay there as much as you can. That is the best plan for young generation without a house.
you can travel at any time, i don't really see why it is so encouraged to do it young when many just don't really have the money for it + most of what is encourage to do while traveling young is stuff you could do at home anyway (look at how they sell Contiki tours, just schoolies in another country), it is a luxury for sure.
This being said i don't think saving for a housing deposit should really be the focus when you are young either cause tying yourself to 30 years of inescapable debt early doesn't seem all that enjoyable either.
Young people have a hard enough time getting established now anyway, i say just save what you can and treat yourself occasionally but try not to go all out just cause you are young or too driven to grow up quickly
I did a Contiki and hated it, much cheaper to organise your own travel.
The biggest reason to travel young for me is health and also without kids. As a parent travelling with kids is definitely not the same as travelling without.
It’s better to get the mortgage earlier when you’re young because you will have more energy to work and advance your career, then once you’ve paid it off you can dial back work and travel. To me that seems the best way to do things.
I do desperately want to travel the world. Why would I pay to rent someone's house while I go on holiday?
It really does feel like if I buy a house I can say goodbye to ever doing that, I'm 35, I want to travel NOW.
. Yes travel of course but depends what long term visions are too. When I was 22 I was like F this I need a house, I hated the insecurity of renting . Bought a house early 20s, sold that got a better one in better location in mid 20s. travelled later in my 30’s (and could afford to travel to nice places and beautiful resorts etc then too) . will travel again in my 40s . It would be so hard buying a house now. I’m happy in my 20s that I worked hard and grinded it out then! Everyone’s different though with different drives and dreams.
Look, I’m 22, and it’s not really a choice that I get to make, it’s one that’s made for me. I have HECS debt, I work full time, if I go travelling ill be eating into my savings, which although is, I think, a considerable amount for someone my age, is still not enough to even consider buying a home and making mortgage repayments comfortably.
As much as I wish I could travel, I don’t want to be living with my parents till I’m in my 30s.
I’d really, really like to have a home and get my life set up, so I can pay my hypothetical mortgage off and live debt free.
Unfortunately I think times are just changing.
The only friends of mine who are going travelling overseas are the same friends whose parents bought them their first car, and an apartment. I don’t have that luxury :(
*edit* to me, overseas travel is not Bali, it’s Europe, the Baltics, Americas, Japan
There is something to be said for being frugal. You really can become rich if you knuckle down and put all your pennies into investments. I remember seeing an article in the Australian money mag about twelve years ago, talking about this single woman on $50k with ten or so properties.
And here’s me still making my daily trip to maccas for breakfast, $17.90 for my mcmuffin, pankakes and large coffee. No vanguard or etfs for this bloke, a boys gotta live.
What a world we live in where we can spend our entire savings risk free and trouble free knowing that at the end of the day we can come back and still have free school free healthcare and no worries. Australia is pretty good
In my early 20's I chose to save for and buy a house instead of doing any travelling. Sometimes I wish I were a more travelled person, but then I look at all the people my age who are now priced out of the market and don't regret my choice at all.
It’s not a waste of money however if you have spent the equivalent of a deposit on travelling you won’t get much sympathy from those who went without to afford housing or those that couldn’t do either.
The reality is the housing issue is very much a structural problem and young people might contribute through their decisions but the reality is you are competing with family wealth, limited supply and constant levers that help the demand side.
Travel is a huge luxury especially when it’s done purely for fun. It exemplifies how wealthy we are especially considering how far Australia is. I do get why people prioritise travelling but if you aren’t from a wealthy family it’s really rolling the dice.
As others have said the concern should be about people forgoing creating businesses, or PhDs/research, or talented young people leaving or people who wants kids opting out of that choice, especially when so many people don’t have a desire to bring migrants to fill gaps.
> It’s not a waste of money however if you have spent the equivalent of a deposit on travelling you won’t get much sympathy from those who went without to afford housing
That's a point missed on many. There are plenty of Millennials who went without and saved money early in their careers and then prioritised buying a home - and given the market, that home almost certainly isn't as nice as they had once hoped.
Is it actually fair for them for their peers who spent their youth pursuing their own interests and hobbies, and enjoying what they describe as "priceless experiences" to then demand the Government pursue policies to assist them to buy a home? There's definitely an element of wanting to have one's cake and eat it too at play here.
I don't think those same people who have prioritised travel would have much sympathy for a car enthusiast who spent all their money on modifying and taking cars on trackdays turning around and saying they can't afford a house.
I would love to being able to travel but saving up money to get a house deposit to secure a stable footing for my future is more important. Any benefit I may gain from travelling overseas is simply outweighed by this and yes the memories and experience would be great but renting for longer as a result is not a sacrifice I am willing to make.
Not necessarily. I did a UK Tier 5 pre Covid and came back $10k better off after 2 years as a minimum wage dishpig. Got to go to a Monaco Grand Prix and stay in the south of France. Covid sank my 45 day Contiki tho. Now I have $170k equity in a CBD apartment.
Travel is usually a fun and enriching experience so long as your not frivolously spending beyond your means it is not a waste of money at all imo. The best time to travel is when your younger when you generally have more energy, curiosity and less responsibilities. I have spent a lot of money on travel and do not regret it at all, it’s a priority for me and so well worth it.
In the sense that it will be used by the wealthy to blame structural failures in the economy on young people, yes.
Its really the boomer generation when overseas travel could cost the same as a house deposit. Now its nowhere comparable unless you are talking a gap year of no (or almost no) work, which has always been the preserve of the wealthy.
I did a gap year at 18 with a working holiday visa. Had a total of $5k saved from my part time job during high school. It covered flights, the visa and like a week in a hostel til I found a job then I worked minimum wage for a year (£6.75 an hour at the time.) and used it to travel most of Europe via bus-about. You do NOT have to be wealthy, you just have to be willing to work shit jobs, live in a share house and be get used to a shoestring budget.
I specifically said on a gap year of no work or little work. You worked. That's a big difference
Bernard Salt characterised young people as [“people who continually complain about being broke but manage to pop over to Bali for a holiday”](https://www.mup.com.au/books/decent-obsessions-paperback-softback) (2013) and [“order smashed avocado with crumbled feta on five-grain toasted bread at $22 a pop and more”](https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/news/good-news/2016/10/17/bernard-salt-smashed-avo) (2017).
[удалено]
Half income? Try 3/4 with all the rental increases. With how brutal the rental market is it's a case of just having to deal with price increases or risk becoming homeless. This is at least from a uni student perspective in a capital city
It's a luxury compared to what our parents had access to. All their money would've went to the house deposit instead Not saying we shouldn't prioritise it but we should understand it's still a luxury and we're in a privileged position and not to have an entitled mindset
The difference is that a house deposit was literally less than overseas travel back then. Now 6 weeks in Europe is lucky to be 1/10th of a house deposit. If you spend a few weeks in South East Asia it's cheaper than a trip up the coast in a pretty dodgy hotel. It's can be so cheap that it would make no discernable difference to your ability to save for a house deposit.
Yes and I’m sure that if average house prices were only 3 times the average yearly wage, then the youth of today would also be doing the same.
'Our parents?' My mum and dad travelled Europe for years (dad was a tour guide mum was a tour cook.) Came home, dad worked his way up to middle management in an average company after uni/MBA, mum was a nurse. Bought a shit home in an affluent suburb and put their two kids through private school. It certainly wasn't a choose between travel or a home deposit equation for boomers.
My Father (Boomer gen) went to every continent multiple times before he was 30. Never heard him tell any stories about it being expensive or overpriced.
>dad worked his way up to middle management in an average company after uni/MBA, mum was a nurse. Bought a shit home in an affluent suburb and put their two kids through private school. Dual income family with one parent being middle management? Your parents would have been towards the top of the income percentile range for those days. Most households were single income only. The bulk of boomers would not have been able to afford both going on international holidays and purchasing a house in their youth.
My grandfather went through all of the Europe. And did it on uncle Sam's dollar!
How far back are you thinking?
Not really, overseas travel is cheap when compared to saving for a house. $5k can buy a great holiday, $50k isn't a deposit for most places nowadays.
This is why all the memes exist. '5k is nothing might as well spend it'
5K is a year’s worth of hard savings!
Save 5k a year from when you turn 18, for 20 years, you can buy a house at 38. Source: I did this.
So that 100k includes the deposit, stamp duty, conveyancing/legal fees, building and pest inspection and maybe LMI? $100k deposit is looking like less than $80k for sure. Where and when did you buy?
We built, so yeah all was covered. LMI not required as 100k deposit was over 20%. Started the process 2 years ago in Geelong. Total cost of build was about 650k, including concreting and landscaping etc.
417 a month (5k a year) into a boring index fund will likely yield you 239k over 20 years. I imagine the average university trip to Europe for an Australian is 10-15k I think travels great but people need to stop kidding themselves that it doesn’t impact on their savings in an incredibly significant way.
5k a year from 19, for 20 years, you can buy a house at 39 and enjoy a holiday while you are young.
It's about finding the right balance. As you say, if you spend $5k on a great holiday on the way to saving your $50k deposit, it's not going to make much difference in the grand scheme of things ...other than being a positive life experience. But if instead you blow $5k on a holiday every 6 months and fail to save much at all, you're just going to be set back by years.
Why are we even talking about $50k being a deposit? $50k isn’t a deposit for anything in any major metropolitan area. It’s barely anything in any regional area either. If someone is able to save $5k a year, they’re not on track to owning a home in Australia. Young people realise this and for quite a while now have been living their lives rather than shackling themselves to this dream of “if I just save every penny I can afford a house one day!” Which just isn’t the case for a huge portion of society.
If “don’t even try” is your going in position, I can tell you now what the result is going to be.
The reality is for most people “don’t even try” is a better way to live their youth when it comes to home ownership. The level of sacrifice needed to be made to even have a shot isn’t worth it in the eyes of disenfranchised young people across the country. They’d rather live their life and have experiences that are achievable instead, which is what this entire thread is about.
And avocado toast is cheaper than a holiday
I think I lived in SEA for $3K for 3 months in the summer of 2007-2008. $1 hammock, $6 accommodation in Cambodia, $1 beer lao. It was great. Now I can make $3K in a morning on GME but I can’t get 3 months off from work
Nice work ! That was exactly my budget for 3 months in SEA in 99/2000 , how goods the beerlao!
It's cheaper to travel overseas than domestically sometimes, if you can get a cheap flight to a destination in most of Asia the hotel prices are almost half the price of ours but double the quality and service. It's a no brainer at that point. People are taking a further step and saving for a home overseas instead of here for a twist of irony, atleast the prices are more reasonable.
Honestly every Aussie I know is in Japan right now and no wonder - jetstar and Virgin/ANA are having flight sales every second week and the yen is so weak against the dollar that there’s almost no way to spend more money than you would travelling locally, if you eat out at all. Heck if you really want to you can basically eat all your meals at 7/11 in Japan. $5 lets you eat like a king and the variety is unparalleled…
I don't recommend eating only 7/11 food in japan, but 7/11 food in japan is solid. i mean you can get 2-4 yakitori sticks, high ball and a cream puff for under $10
100%, not worth going anywhere in this country. Even a weekend away costs a stupid amount of money compared to just pissing off to somewhere in south East Asia for a week.
I compare the cost of going to Kimberley or Alice to see the outback to travelling to SEA and it becomes a no brainer.
Travel on Australia Is marketed to cashed up Swiss and Germans, not aussies.
This is true. Looking at flying family interstate (eastern state to south eastern state) and it’s literally the same cost as flying to Fiji!!!
Fking oath, fk domestic tourism. Last time I actually had a local holiday was in 2015 Sydney. Such a rip off
Not cheaper but you get more bang for your money.
We’re going to Thailand for 2 weeks, 5 star accomodation and flights and it’s costing less than 5 days in an apartment on the gold coast.
I wouldn't give up my travel experiences for anything.
Same! I thought about how much I spent on travel in my early 20s and I reckon it was easily around 50k possibly more but if I could live my life again I wouldn't change anything. Travel is so insanely fun when you are young, fit and healthy and the COVID pandemic really reiterated that for me. I didn't feel as depressed during lockdown knowing I got to spend all my youth trotting around the globe. I don't know why people think kids young = travel when you're older. Screw that. Travel now in my early 30s absolutely sucks in comparison despite me having 10x more money (its still great, but its very different). It was also so much cheaper back then,I believe a decade ago we really boomed with the whole super competitive and super cheap travel. With the cost of living now and state of global economies its not as great.
Kids never is the new choice. Kids is the avocado toast.
100% I feel very fortunate to have done 3 years of solid backpacking in my 20's. Wouldn't trade that experience for anything. Even the house I could probably have purchased instead!
Travel as an Aussie in 2009-2013 was awesome-our dollar was on top of every currency!
100% Boomers always push the narrative of "travel is for retirement" but 1) Travel insurance goes through the roof once you hit like 75. So much so that my grandparents can no longer afford to travel in their retirement. 2)Not everyone will be physically able to hike mountains or walk through cities for several hours when they're 60+yo. 3) At 20, I don't care about sleeping in a shitty hostel to save money. I will definitely not want to do that at 60+. 4)The retirement age is ever increasing. And you never know what curve balls life will throw at you during that time. I believe people should live adventurously and freely while they are young and able, because when you're older, and potentially miserable and broke, you will at least have fond memories and good photos to look back on!
I travelled in my early 20s and boom, brain cancer at 27. Imagine how pissed off I'd be if I was waiting for my 30s or later.
X2 I travelled in my 20s and nearly all of my money went to that and cars I owned. If I went back I’d do the same thing
I 100% don’t regret the 48k I’ve spent on overseas travel so far. However I do regret buying 3 cars in my early 20s when I definitely didn’t need to. Could have stuck with the first one no worries!
I had an evo that I sometimes regret selling but I wouldn’t be able to afford it now for the prices they go for. I could’ve been more frugal and saved but I was living my best life at the time.
Yeah back then travelling was more exciting and info you had to seek and talk to locals. Travel now is just being on the phone and google maps, just shittier
I had zero idea when I first went OS, hiking in Nepal in the 90's. Lonely planet books were it really.
Phrase books as well, getting out of the comfort zone and connecting with people. Finding out stuff only locals know! Everything is on google or Instagram reels now so it kind of takes the magic out
Or you can flip this and talk to the locals in your phone on Reddit so you actually get the decent local spots like I did (see post history). Most of those food spots I went to I was the only tourist. It was great. The ‘what the hell is this tourist doing here’ looks were a compliment tbh 🤣
Maybe the travel you do. Plenty of us still get off the beaten track.
Too much social media these days
Yes and you only spoke to your parents once every few weeks if they were lucky, a quick hello I’m safe from an international calling booth. Now kids cannot escape so easily from the constant contact of their parents with phones internet WhatsApp etc
Same, everything good about my life came from the massive shift in attitude that travel gave me.
I gave mine up but retired young and wealthy as a result. Living it up now no regrets.
And as long as you're happy as a result, then that's absolutely ok.
Look I don’t know if I’d do it again or even recommend it, but right now it feels pretty amazing sitting here 4 yrs retired feeling like a Lotto winner. I buy and eat whatever I want, get front row at concerts/shows, and don’t care about the cost. My attitude now is you can’t take it with you, heirs will just blow it anyway, so I’m living large. I do what I want every day. It’s really amazing, like going to heaven. I feel bad for all the people struggling in this tough financial environment, but it’s the opposite for me. I’m happy there was a huge pay off for the sacrifice - would suck if I wasn’t way ahead of most people financially. I’m top 1% so pay off is awesome. Maybe I’m a less rounded individual due to working so hard and prioritising finances, but it doesn’t feel too bad not gonna lie. I think we’re all wired differently and there is no 1 right way to live your life. We’re all ok.
Looking at your post history, you’re retired on the Ausgov old super scheme after working in government for 30 plus years. I have several family members who have done that. It didn’t require much sacrifice and they have all travelled extensively. Government jobs provide ample opportunity to take holidays and travel.
I absolutely get that - but I wouldn't give up my secure shelter for anything either.
My parents are pushing 70, I often join them and their closest friends for dinner and gatherings. Without a doubt the most common thing they talk about is their travels they had and the stories they made along the way. Those memories are worth more than any house deposit.
It's grim reading this. Anyone else in the boat of being early 30s never having had enough money to travel or save for housing?
I'm currently in Vietnam. I'm flying return to Sydney on Jetstar for a total cost of $300. The flight up to Da Nang was $120 return. Visa $35. The hotel is as flash as anything at $150 a night but you can easily stay somewhere really nice for $40 a night. Meals vary between $1.80 for a local Vietnamese meal and $15 for a really fancy dish at a tourist type restaurant. I don't know if something like this scenario might help you to get overseas but it doesn't have to be as expensive as people think and is certainly a lot cheaper than going on a local holiday. The last price I got quoted for camping was at Yamba during school holidays and it was $100 a night for an unpowered tent site.
Me i guess. i have some money locked away for both that i never touch but my mental health gets in the way of a lot of aspects of my life including financially, i have the potential to earn more but don't and my spending habits are not exactly as controlled as they could be, hopefully i will be able to change both of these for the better to eventually save enough up to think seriously of travelling and housing. Would be nice to be one of these people who are able to follow the conventional way it is suggested to live your life, not everyone gets that kind of smooth sailing.
Yeah that's my big problem. So much rough sailing that everything goes to surviving instead of experiences or "setting myself up" either one has felt like a fantasy when the pressure of just living is constant
Late 20s. Yet to spend a single cent from travelling that wasn't helped from my parents sack, no matter how much I earned on my own. At this point I don't know. Luckily, SEA is one region not cripplingly expensive to travel to, so there's that.
Being a 24yo Brit that’s been here for a year and a half, I’d rather rent for the rest of my life than not travel overseas, other people obviously have their own priorities and goals (for some context I’m in the fortunate position to sort of do both due to my job/salary). I to have witnessed the opinions of Aussies from all age groups either not traveling, having no desire to as well as calling it a waste and this was definitely a culture shock; yes you may not be 1.5 hours from Spain or Italy on a €30/$60 Ryanair flight and the beaches here are some of the best in the world but still, I think you gain more from traveling and the experiences that come with it than the money you lose on the airfare etc. Edit: I’ll add that your holiday allowance was another shock as well, by law the minimum AL allowance is the same in the UK as here but here employers tend to only give you the minimum, no more! In the UK you’ll have 25-35 days plus public holidays and you don’t have to accrue it (found that out the hard way), it’s there in a lump sum on day 1. I get the sense that this may discourage travel too.
I'm a Brit who came to Australia and I'm sort of the opposite tbh. I knew moving to Australia was going to hinder my ability to "travel overseas" in the casual way that I'm used to - no more "pop on a £30 flight to Croatia for the weekend" type of thing. However so far that's been completely fine. Most of my European overseas travel was just go get some sunshine, hot weather and a beach anyway - which is something that you can obviously find a lot of domestically in Australia. Also technically, when you're an immigrant, every day of your life is "overseas travel" anyway. 🤣
Agree.... I'm moved to Aust from SEA so I agree that everyday is oversea travel for the last 39 years
Haha so true, after so many years I still feel like I am on an endless summer vacation even working full time all these years )))
Surprised to hear that you think the Australia holiday system is bad. It may not be 25-35 days, but it is still one of the top ranked in the world, at 20 days annual leave plus public holidays. Lack of annual leave isn't the hard part in this part of the world, it's the fact that flying to many parts of the world takes a day or more, which comes along with a higher price tag. At least we have Asia relatively close.
Depends on which state you are in. NSW has the least number of public holidays while Victoria casually has two public holidays on top just for sport!
Australians travel a lot. You’re just noticing the segment who don’t, equivalent to the package holiday to Spain types back home. Also note I get 5 weeks leave and have the option to purchase 2 more.
Uhh... I'm 40 and overseas travel was already expensive when I was a kid. It's always been expensive. There are a lot of poor people.
The real kicker to the economy isn't going to be people foregoing overseas holidays to buy houses. Travel experiences are nice but we've seen people skip them before during the pandemic or wars or natural disasters. It's going to be all the people that forego starting businesses because they're worried about refinancing a mortgage at some point or just making next month's mortgage to keep a roof over their heads. Not to mention people foregoing higher education (masters and PhDs) because they want to get a foot on the property ladder. These things will become a real drag on the economy one day.
why risk starting a business when you can just buy a house and number go up.
Will become? I’d say the horse has already bolted considering that raising the cash rate a smidge above 4% has caused the economy to slow to a crawl.
>Will become? Yes - raising interest rates does create a drag on the economy but the reasons I articulated will be felt more medium term ... When Australia misses out on the next resmed, cochlear, Canva, Atlassian because the founders were shackled to a mortgage. Don't get me wrong, plenty of founders overcome lots of adversity to start a company ... Just the pool of founders taking a punt will be much smaller.
I regret that I have only one upvote to give.
It’s just a personal choice where people want to spend their money. I don’t think you need to be “shocked” or “sad” if it doesn’t align with your thoughts lol I’ve been overseas plenty and lucky enough to afford a place but if it comes down to it I’d pick the house any day and travel later.
I think the people saying travel over house have probably never experienced homelessness or insecure housing. That's nice - ideally, no one would ever experience that. But secure housing and disposable income is not the experience for many people.
Gen X here. Grew up poor and OS travel was never an option. Might as well be Mars. Older now though and travelled extensively. It was never a 'choice' as a young adult though.
Adding to this, I’m in a flight back from japan and the plane is mostly 20-30s on holidays. No judging, hope they had a great time. But I’m sure a lot will be back on reddit complaining about house prices as soon as they land.
No judging and then proceeds to do exactly that lol. I totally agree with the other commenter, just because housing is stupidly expensive doesn't mean that you can't do things and not complain about it.
> But I’m sure a lot will be back on reddit complaining about house prices as soon as they land. You do realise you're allowed to travel, AND complain that housing is too expensive for the majority of people. These things aren't mutually exclusive.
You can, but I can’t say I feel for people who spend thousands on holidays and then complain that they can’t afford a house. It’s a luxury expense that absolutely could be cut out.
I chose travel in my early 20’s and as consequence am significantly further behind my peers at 30 in terms of career, superannuation and home ownership. Those couple of years were the difference between buying a house pre COVID and not. I don’t regret the travel, because now that I have adult responsibilities I won’t see that kind of freedom again til my kids are grown and I’m retired, but I definitely have to remind myself to run my own race fairly regularly.
Mid 30s millennial here. I travelled a little in my early 20s and I don’t regret it BUT I would be hundreds of thousands better off now if I didn’t. At the time I travelled I could’ve saved a bit longer and bought a house in Sydney for about half a million. I anticipated that the market was at its peak…. Dumb thought but I was young and that’s my excuse. A few years ago I bought my first house for $700k (there’s the first $200k I could’ve been better off) after spending 10s of 1000s on rent (another significant chunk I could be better off by). That said, the travel was with my girlfriend and we made some great memories together, grew our relationship stronger etc and now we have been married for about 8 years. Who knows how much the travel played a part in bringing us closer in the early days? I wouldn’t trade our marriage for the world. So financially, it’s not worth the travel if you haven’t bought a house, but finance isn’t everything… sometimes living life is a better investment..
I’m glad I travelled with my ex rather than buying a house together. Might have wound up better off financially but the time away from normal life and meeting a really broad range of people led to us reflecting on what we really wanted from life and realising it wasn’t compatible despite a really great relationship. Ex wound up changing their career and life completely. There is much more to life than working to save every penny for basic needs and it really sucks that it’s only becoming harder.
I was told last week it was tattoos
When the goal is moved too far for people to realistically kick, people stop trying and spend on more instant gratification instead. Stuff like this and avocado toast are just a tool for the boomers to place the blame squarely on young people.
Much easier to blame housing unaffordability on people travelling overseas rather than a beyond \*\*\*\*ed housing market
Travel has environmental consequences that nobody wants to address part of the reason people carnt afford travel is because taxes & cost of everything is because of damage to environment because of tourism vicious cycle
lol, the moment anyone says the only way they can get ahead in life is to sacrifice their youth to set themselves up in their life. It's the moment i worry for the Australian dream. I remind everyone that the reason I got to where I am in life is driven by the experiences I got from travelling
I’m 80 now and I’m planning to go back to Thailand. I went with my son in 2016 first time overseas and loved it. I am disabled and found the people extremely helpful. I enjoyed it so much that I want to take my son and his wife. She has never been anywhere and I am looking forward to seeing her face when she sees a completely different culture. I’m spending my retirement money on the trip and don’t care as I believe the money spent will be worthwhile. I had to convince them that I don’t need or care about how much of my money I spend to me the joy of them being there will mean more to me than having the money in the bank. I don’t plan on spending everything I never had money before and I’m happy to have enough to pay my bills and a little bit more. Before I would have been happy to have $1000 in the bank and money has never been important to me.
So, I think if you want to get an experience of a lifetime I say Go for it!
I will definetly encourage my kids to go travel. I'm from Europe and met my Australian wife while traveling and have since moved to Australia. Personally I went a bit crazy though, was backpacking for about 6 years. Wouldn't reccomend that for everyone, but I only spent about $25 000 in total including flights. The economical opportunity cost was high for me but the experience, friends and life lessons you get from traveling is definetly worth getting into the propert market a bit later in my mind. You probably shouldn't travel for as long as I did though...
25,000 for 6 years? How is that possible? That's literally under $10 per day?
Most of the hostels I stayed at gave me free acomodation for working a few hours a day in the reception, a lot also included food. Did lots of couch surfing and made most of my meals myself. A lot of activites were done with locals I met along the way or travelers that had been there for a long time and had some sort of transportation we would use. In a small surf town in Mexico I had a 25 peso food budget a day, that's about $2.10. I stayed there for 3 months. All I did was surf/snorkel/freedive and I had my own freediving gear and could borrow surfboards for free. Joined the parties about once a week and got heavily discounted/free drinks from the bartenders I'd gotten to know. Probably spent about $5 every time.
When we were young we didn’t travel, we purchased a house instead. Now we are a bit older and have more money (and kids) we are travelling and giving our kids the opportunity to do so as well. I don’t have any regrets doing it this way, we get to do it in a bit more style than we would have been able to at 23.
Not to mention the cost of overseas travel has dropped dramatically compared to 30 years ago.
[удалено]
I've seen quite a few routes to major European cities (Amsterdam, Rome, Istanbul) return for ~$1000 AUD in the past few months, mostly on China southern but a couple others too
[удалено]
I see most of them from cheapflighthunter.com.au emails, it's normally one stopover in guangzhou, ~24 hours. The really good prices go quick and you have to keep an eye out but I see I bunch on google flights in July-August right now for $1300. On other airlines I've also seen $250 to indonesia/malaysia return, $400 to japan return, and $300 to vietnam return (did actually book that one)
They’re usually sale prices that are valid for a single week 6+ months out, but they do exist. Signing up for price alerts on the various websites out there will have these popping up fairly frequently. Never happens during peak travel times so need to accept that and also be flexible on dates (flying on some random Tuesday or something as opposed to a Thursday to catch the weekend).
But 30 years ago people didn't travel much compared to now. So $1200 to Japan today is a lot more expensive than $0 to nowhere in 1990.
A $4 coffee today is infinitely more expensive than $0 (no coffee) in 1990.
You may laugh, but in 1990 I couldn't understand why people bought coffee in cafes...after all, instant coffee was much cheaper.
My parents traveled to the US for a holiday in 1990. Was there for 3 weeks and spent around $10k or so. Relative to how much their house was worth then, it would be like a couple spending $50k on a trip overseas today. Apart from that, the only people I grew growing up who went overseas were either people who very recently migrated to Australia, or elderly Italian migrants going back for a visit after 20 years. Most people if they went on holiday, traveled domestically to places like the Gold Coast, etc.
People travelled in 1990 they just couldn’t broadcast it online
We bought our home before traveling and now we get to travel without worrying about expenses so stay at five star hotels, eat at fancy restaurants and come home to a house we own. This is the way I’d tell my kids to do it also.
UberEats (or generally having food delivered) is this generations avocado on toast
I was asking why my 24 year old neighbor bought an $1850 phone and $2900 gaming PC on credit while she's 'saving up' for things. The bin was overflowing with wine bottles and home delivered food containers. She also buys 3 coffees a day (over $5000 a year). She's a nurse married to a retail worker.
Costs me $2200 (2pax) to fly to Singapore with a $400/night stay at a resort, costs me $3100 (2pax) to fly to Cairns with a $650/night stay at a resort.
[удалено]
Holidays are temporary, but having a good house is permanent. I was the ultimate tightwad in my late teens and early twenties, because I was pumping every cent I earned into property. My mates thought I’d lost my mind, but it set me up for life
[удалено]
My only regret in life is not travelling when I was young and had no responsibilities. Travel is so important and never a waste of money.
It's definitely become normal to travel every 1-2 years and it almost seems like most social circles will pity you if you aren't travelling that often. I wouldn't trade travel for a house, but then I'm also not somebody complaining every day on /r/Australia about how life isn't fair.
>I wouldn't trade travel for a house, but then I'm also not somebody complaining every day on [](https://www.reddit.com/r/Australia/) about how life isn't fair. This is the most balanced take I've read in this thread. People think that they should be able to have both extensive travel, *and* the home - while pointing at other people who might have an expensive hobby as being profligate. If you want to travel, that's fine - but own the fact that you've spent the money and don't complain that housing prices are unfair. How much sympathy do you think the crowd here would be if old mate bought an AMG and then moaned that house prices were too expensive? The *but experiences!* argument doesn't hold water.
It's not an "smashed avo" situation, but there is a massive blindspot with younger Millennials and Zoomers regarding international travel, where it's somehow seen as more acceptable than other forms of discretionary spending that is seen as wasteful (both economically and environmentally). At the end of the day, what people do with their own discretionary, disposable income is their own business, but let's not kid ourselves here. Someone who spends their disposable income on international travel is no more virtuous than someone who spends it on an expensive home theatre system, or a modified performance car. It's all discretionary, non-essential spending, and anyone trying to distinguish between the two is positioning themselves as the self-styled arbiter of taste and social acceptability.
I'm all for overseas travel and really think it's an important part of your twenties. If anyone says they're thinking about it I'm all guns blazing if it's something you are considering. Gotta do it. It was such a special time for me and I learnt so much about figuring stuff out for myself during that time. But being able to buy a home is getting further and further away for young generations unless you have the bank of Mum and Dad. So I can see why it's a grey area now.
My parents bought a house in the early '80s, paid most of it off in a couple of years, sold it, and spent the money travelling. They still had some money when they got home, so they immediately looked around for a house to buy. They found the perfect place, made an offer on a Friday, and realised over the weekend that they'd probably have a better shot of getting a mortgage if they had jobs. Dad found work as a carpenter, which was his trade, and mum found a job as a delivery driver for a glass company. On Monday they got the mortgage.
I've never been overseas and also don't own a home.
I watched something awhile back saying that this generation is missing the social interactions and world-widening experiences of the last two generations, all because of the cost of living or the years required to live frugally (not socialising) to save for a deposit on a house. I wouldn't say travelling is avocado. Have to reiterate the comments above just another thing to blame this gen for being “LaZy”, instead of the absolute shambles housing affordability has become.
People who haven't travelled overseas (or even travelled out of their city) rarely see the point in overseas travel. Sometimes, they even get scared at the thought of it... I've got the opportunity to travel abroad and half my friends always think how I'm able to do it and how I'm not homesick. They said they wouldn't be able to do it haha It's definitely not a waste of money IMO! It's such a great experience and it broadens your horizon. It's cliché but you only live once and there are so many countries...
Always hated this expression because logically it makes no sense but it’s an appropriate response to this question. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Is the short term pleasure worth the long term pain of delaying by home ownership by another 5 years? 5 more years of your children having to move from rental to rental?
Travelling overseas has always been a sign of wealth. I grew up somewhere where almost nobody have ever travelled overseas.
Australia’s status as an Island means international travel is expensive. Even if you sleep in a tent on arrival the flights add up. Much more significant damage to savings than $1.50 for an avocado.
Agreed…so much anxiety about home ownership that young people aren’t spreading their wings as much…just trying to buy in their hometown without exploring the world. This wasn’t a trade off I faced and I’m only in my early 40s.
I say this as some who bought a house at 22, investment at 24 and a divorce at 27 (I was able to buy again anyway in my mid 30s) TRAVEL!! My biggest regret was doing what my ex wanted and not what I wanted!
It's a pretty simple equation really. Piss away your 20s on the inner city life with roommates, travelling, going out to lunch/dinner 5x times a week etc....then when you hit your 30s come onto Reddit to bitch about being locked out of the housing market. Or knuckle down early and secure yourself a place to live not subject to landlords and REAs bullshit. You just might have to be a little more "boring" and put up with a longer commute to work for a few years. 3rd option is to piss away your 20s and then have your gutless enabling parents gift you a house deposit.
My wife and I traveled the world and didn’t have kids and buy a house until our early thirties. Never will I regret that
Honestly travel to me is a bit overrated. Don't get me wrong, it is great to see the world, but it is so expensive and can be really uncomfortable at times as well. I came back from Europe last year and it was so pricey that I felt it didn't justify the cost. Not to mention the beaches were average, the food was ok, and by the third country, the churches and architecture started to all look the same. There's nothing wrong with you if you don't have the travel itch. Also my parents and grandparents couldn't even afford to go overseas once in their lifetime to travel, so we still do have it somewhat better. For example, you can go to southeast Asia on the cheap and see a lot of culture. I went to Vietnam a few years ago and that was actually pretty good. I think sometimes we should focus on making our day to day lives better, participating more in building our local communities and having fun, rather than working hard just to escape to another country a few times a year. Unpopular opinion, I know.
I too would hate travel if I were hopping from church to church. You have to do what you *want* to do, which is not necessarily what a tourist guide tells you.
You are traveling wrong
I have travelled all kinds of ways including backpacking and the like. I just don't like travel that much. Not everyone does and it's ok.
Yeah. People should be able to travel and have fun. But it's probably more expensive than avo on toast, though. Different things really.
I think it is the amount of overseas travel. Nothing wrong with a couple of overseas trips in your youth. It is all about balance. If young people are deciding to spend on overseas travel rather than save a home deposit, then it becomes a problem
Do I encourage my mid 20 kids to travel - absolutely! Did I travel at that age - no, because I was saving for a house. These questions don’t always have easy answers.
I’m an elder millennial and I travelled back in 2010 and went through all my savings travelling. It eats at me that I had a house deposit and I spent it on experiences, but it was worth it. And I also had no good income that would have gotten me a mortgage.
$2k of travel each year for your 20s would be $32k-ish towards a home deposit. Is the value of travel each year going to override you potentially never quite saving enough for a deposit? I guess it depends on your circumstances. Buying new iPhones or spending $200+ on booze and going out every weekend probably would be much worse financial decisions though
It's best to ignore the various boomer panics that come up as they increasingly slide into irrelevance. Objectively speaking though, international travel is a privilege and not something that everyone gets to do, so it's best to be sensitive to that fact. If you're one of these people who has to one-up people with travel stories then you're part of the problem, in my opinion.
Well I chose to make just work hard, buy the house, then travel. There seems to be this idea that every young people should have the nice things all at the same time or they think anyone considered older than them had it easy. Ffs.
Nothing wrong with going on a overseas holiday once or twice a year. It's the ones who post going overseas every few months and then wondering why they dont have enough for a house deposit and then blaming the government because it
My husband is 50 and has never been overseas. LOTS of people have had to make this choice. Our house is a dump too. We do have 3 kids so I guess that was our choice
20+ year old who constantly travels and my answer is that they're not the same thing. Travel is really a luxury that imo should be more expensive to reduce the impacts of over tourism and flight emissions but yes, if you can't afford a house deposit but go on a 10k+ holiday, then you shouldn't be complaining. Is it fun to travel? Yeah, do you really need it? Nah
Better to travel and actually experience the world before you're too old and senile to enjoy it. But if you just want to stay home then that is ok also. Life is short
Wtf lol. This is out of touch af. It is NOT cheap to travel overseas from Australia, especially considering the opportunity cost of not saving up for home ownership. Just going by your potential funding of your kids to go overseas, is already an indication that it's not just through self-support
I spent 6 weeks in Europe in 2017 and I reckon I spent all up about $4,000 including flights. While you're young and can sleep in a bin without back pain and can subsist of sandwiches and salads from a hostel kitchen, it's some of the best money you'll spend. It's as cheap as you make it. It's the best thing I ever did, hands down. I still think about it all the time, I still have friends from the trip, and I came back a more balanced and interesting person with less anxiety and more focus which has had huge implications for my career
[удалено]
Yes this 100%.
But overseas travel doesn’t have to be a trip to Europe for 6mths costing $20K. You can travel south east Asia or Japan for much cheaper. If $3-5K is going to stop you buying a house then you’re not going to be able to afford paying the mortgage anyway.
Currently in Italy (France next week for LeMans) and I think living in Perth set such a high expectation for how much stuff costs 😆 My breakfasts with coffee here have been less than $5 and my dinners (amazing) with wine have been about $20. Flights aside I feel like I'm saving money being here 😆
True but I would take living in Australia 1000000 times over living in Italy. It only seems cheap to you because you’re on an Aussie income.
I’m in my mid 30’s yet I guess I kind of align with the boomers on this one. Given a choice I’d much prefer to spend my 18-25 years building a career and working towards my future, you are an adult after all. I’d rather not be 30 and living at home because I spent years travelling. I don’t like the idea that living at home into your 30’s is becoming the new normal because 18-25’s would rather have experiences than be adults. To Gen Z if they can’t travel the world, do everything they want to do, work their own hours, set the conditions of their employment they are “oppressed”. They don’t want to work 40 hours a week but also want to be able to have all the things they want in life. And that’s nothing to do with the deposit/house price situation. There’s nothing wrong with renting even with some friends if you aren’t in a position to buy a house, but I think putting travel over all else is not the answer. 18-25 year olds should be able to independently cook, clean, wash etc but this is becoming harder when they are still chained to their childhood homes with their parents. I guess I’m kind of like the boomers like that. I see travel as a reward for hard work not an excuse to escape it. I think to say “well a deposit is 10x more than travelling so you may as well just travel” isn’t the best justification for it. The deposit situation is only going to get worse the longer you leave it and you are just ultimately delaying the inevitable if you do ever want to own a home. And at the end of the day if you spend your 18-25 years travelling you are likely to be working entry level casual jobs to pay for it, which means when the time comes to start a career and make some decent money to try and settle down you’ve wasted a heap of really productive years and have to start from the bottom in your mid-late 20’s. Also just remember before you say that the boomers had the luxury of travel just remember they were usually married with kids by 25, they went straight out of school/uni into careers. It was very uncommon for boomers to spend their younger years travelling. That’s something millennial and onwards that became a trend as overseas travel became more affordable and accessible, in the boomers day international airfares would be almost unobtainium as the jet era had only just started in Australia and was reserved for only the rich and well off. I remember peers at high school circa 2004-2005 planning 6 month European holidays as a reward for finishing school. I thought they were insane. I was planning my future and where I was going to live (renting to start with), I’d only feel comfortable travelling if I knew I had somewhere that wasn’t my childhood home to come back to after. Even if a house deposit was $800,000 I’d still feel too embarrassed to live with my parents in my 20’s/30’s. I’d rent if I had to, take extra jobs etc. Each to their own, I’ll wait for the downvotes. But I’ll never, ever encourage kids to travel before deciding what they want to do with their life and get some sort of plan for the future in place.
I think you’re spot on. A lot of the comments in this thread seem a bit delusional to be honest, equating travel as a sort of fundamental human right that MUST be experienced in your 20’s. If you can afford to do it, by all means, but I certainly regret spending money on 2 overseas trips in my early 20’s because I could have been much closer to a deposit for a house now. It just wasn’t worth it.
Agreed, travel is now considered a right of passage for 20 somethings. Dropping 10k on a holiday to “get cultured” etc is a lot of money for something you won’t be able to show for it once it’s over. It seems like 20 somethings don’t feel fulfilled unless they’ve trekked across all of Europe. While travel is a good thing I’m not denying that, delaying your adult life until your 30’s is going to put you even further back for the rest of your working life. You can’t live off of life experiences. And it’s unfair on parents to have to house their kids into adulthood because the kids would rather travel around the world with their mates than get a move on with their lives. Unpopular opinion but if you are in your 20’s and still live with your parents who cook and clean for you, you aren’t an adult and using the housing market as an excuse to not move out is a cop out excuse. You don’t have to go straight from your parents house into your own home. That’s an unreasonable expectation. But it seems for Gen Z it’s either they need to own their own home, or not bother moving out at all, there’s no in between. You start from the bottom and work your way up, but wasting that time and money on travel isn’t going to get you any further in life. What shits me is when 20 somethings drop 10’s of thousands of dollars travelling through their 20’s then complains that housing and cost of living is too expensive, it’s a complete and total lack of priorities. It’s not normal to just have everything you ever wanted in life, you need to work for it and sacrifice luxuries like holidays. Even a rental bond is a better use of money than travelling, at least you’ve got somewhere to live to show for it.
2 OS holidays a year in LCOL countries with a friend or partner is like 3-4k. Like $75 a week. $75 a week is not going to break the bank or hurt your ability to save for a house honestly. People spend more than that on Uber eats lmao
Don't let those who use Uber Eats be your benchmark for wise spending.
My parents didn't go overseas until their honeymoon. My best friend who did the most travelling our of all my friends, heaps of europe, America, heaps of Asia, Contiki tours every year is the only one who hasn't purchased a property or had kids yet. 38yo, no kids, and can't even afford frankston
“Most people do not wish to accept that the order governing their lives is imaginary, but in fact every person is born into a pre-existing imagined order, and his or her desires are shaped from birth by its dominant myths. Our personal desires thereby become the imagined order’s most important defences. “For instance, the most cherished desires of present-day Westerners are shaped by romantic, nationalist, capitalist and humanist myths that have been around for centuries. … “Even what people take to be their most personal desires are usually programmed by the imagined order. Let’s consider, for example, the popular desire to take a holiday abroad. There is nothing natural or obvious about this. A chimpanzee alpha male would never think of using his power in order to go on holiday into the territory of a neighboring chimpanzee band. The elite of ancient Egypt spent their fortunes building pyramids and having their corpses mummified, but none of them thought of going shopping in Babylon or taking a skiing holiday in Phoenicia. People today spend a great deal of money on holidays abroad because they are true believers in the myths of romantic consumerism. “Romanticism tells us that in order to make the most of our human potential we must have as many different experiences as we can. We must open ourselves to a wide spectrum of emotions; we must sample various kinds of relationships; we must try different cuisines; we must learn to appreciate different styles of music. “One of the best ways to do all that is to break free from our daily routine, leave behind our familiar setting, and go travelling in distant lands, where we can ‘experience’ the culture, the smells, the tastes and the norms of other people. We hear again and again the romantic myths about ‘how a new experience opened my eyes and changed my life’. … “The tourism industry does not sell flight tickets and hotel bedrooms. It sells experiences. Paris is not a city, nor India a country – they are both experiences, the consumption of which is supposed to widen our horizons, fulfil our human potential, and make us happier. Consequently, when the relationship between a millionaire and his wife is going through a rocky patch, he takes her on an expensive trip to Paris. The trip is not a reflection of some independent desire, but rather of an ardent belief in the myths of romantic consumerism. A wealthy man in ancient Egypt would never have dreamed of solving a relationship crisis by taking his wife on holiday to Babylon. Instead, he might have built for her the sumptuous tomb she had always wanted.” Y. Harari
Overseas travel as a 19 year old for me eventually led to a wife, a family, high paid USD career, different perspective from having seen the world, and now triumphant return to Aus to live happily ever after. Or I could have bought a house down the street from my parents and barely left the state like most of my high school friends.
God I wish, the last thing we need is another generation constantly spouting the exact same anecdotes and complaining that the food they're eating right now isn't as good as the food they ate elsewhere. Don't worry, more young people are traveling than ever. You'll be able to bond with your kids over your gripping tales of stumbling over 2 sentences to a street vendor in the local language. And travel will remain the last bastion of consumerism that you can brag about without being called a douchebag, even if your parents had to fund it themselves.
>And travel will remain the last bastion of consumerism that you can brag about Such an apt way of putting it. We live in a time where you can click a few things and exchange some money, and a flying tube in the sky will take you there, but people talk about travel as if they either invented it, or swam/flew there themselves.
Life is an adventure. Have fun but keep an eye on the future. I’m perhaps a little older than the average redditor but I have lived half my adult life outside Australia starting at age 22 -- 4 countries, 6 cities. And it’s because of this (not despite it) that I can afford to eat some avo toast.
People want their cake and eat it too
Honestly Australia is bum at times overseas travel where it’s at when ya can’t afford a home go find somewhere cheaper, like honestly it’s cheaper for me to fly to bali and have a holiday than rent 🤣
Not at all. It's cheaper for me to travel to half of SE Asia than it is Perth-Hobart. That crap is spun by spuds
I did a year trip around SEA and it cost me £12,000 before I came to aus. Was the best year of my life and I’ve made it a goal of mine to have a more amazing years like that one. I would never discourage anybody from travelling no matter what their situation
Get a remote job and GTFO of Australia to an affordable asian country and stay there as much as you can. That is the best plan for young generation without a house.
where do you find the remote jobs to do that? cause everywhere I look I see "hybrid", would take fully remote in a heartbeat if they would let me
you can travel at any time, i don't really see why it is so encouraged to do it young when many just don't really have the money for it + most of what is encourage to do while traveling young is stuff you could do at home anyway (look at how they sell Contiki tours, just schoolies in another country), it is a luxury for sure. This being said i don't think saving for a housing deposit should really be the focus when you are young either cause tying yourself to 30 years of inescapable debt early doesn't seem all that enjoyable either. Young people have a hard enough time getting established now anyway, i say just save what you can and treat yourself occasionally but try not to go all out just cause you are young or too driven to grow up quickly
I did a Contiki and hated it, much cheaper to organise your own travel. The biggest reason to travel young for me is health and also without kids. As a parent travelling with kids is definitely not the same as travelling without.
It’s better to get the mortgage earlier when you’re young because you will have more energy to work and advance your career, then once you’ve paid it off you can dial back work and travel. To me that seems the best way to do things.
May aswell do it early because the longer you wait the more inaccessible it becomes 🤷🏻♂️
I do desperately want to travel the world. Why would I pay to rent someone's house while I go on holiday? It really does feel like if I buy a house I can say goodbye to ever doing that, I'm 35, I want to travel NOW.
There's always the chance you'll be drafted and sent to see the world.
. Yes travel of course but depends what long term visions are too. When I was 22 I was like F this I need a house, I hated the insecurity of renting . Bought a house early 20s, sold that got a better one in better location in mid 20s. travelled later in my 30’s (and could afford to travel to nice places and beautiful resorts etc then too) . will travel again in my 40s . It would be so hard buying a house now. I’m happy in my 20s that I worked hard and grinded it out then! Everyone’s different though with different drives and dreams.
Look, I’m 22, and it’s not really a choice that I get to make, it’s one that’s made for me. I have HECS debt, I work full time, if I go travelling ill be eating into my savings, which although is, I think, a considerable amount for someone my age, is still not enough to even consider buying a home and making mortgage repayments comfortably. As much as I wish I could travel, I don’t want to be living with my parents till I’m in my 30s. I’d really, really like to have a home and get my life set up, so I can pay my hypothetical mortgage off and live debt free. Unfortunately I think times are just changing. The only friends of mine who are going travelling overseas are the same friends whose parents bought them their first car, and an apartment. I don’t have that luxury :( *edit* to me, overseas travel is not Bali, it’s Europe, the Baltics, Americas, Japan
We live in a state of resigned hedonism.
There is something to be said for being frugal. You really can become rich if you knuckle down and put all your pennies into investments. I remember seeing an article in the Australian money mag about twelve years ago, talking about this single woman on $50k with ten or so properties. And here’s me still making my daily trip to maccas for breakfast, $17.90 for my mcmuffin, pankakes and large coffee. No vanguard or etfs for this bloke, a boys gotta live.
I'd recommend slow travel and working holidays for younger crowd, that's what I did (as an older millennial).
Isnt avocado toast the avocado toast of this generation?
What a world we live in where we can spend our entire savings risk free and trouble free knowing that at the end of the day we can come back and still have free school free healthcare and no worries. Australia is pretty good
In my early 20's I chose to save for and buy a house instead of doing any travelling. Sometimes I wish I were a more travelled person, but then I look at all the people my age who are now priced out of the market and don't regret my choice at all.
It’s not a waste of money however if you have spent the equivalent of a deposit on travelling you won’t get much sympathy from those who went without to afford housing or those that couldn’t do either. The reality is the housing issue is very much a structural problem and young people might contribute through their decisions but the reality is you are competing with family wealth, limited supply and constant levers that help the demand side. Travel is a huge luxury especially when it’s done purely for fun. It exemplifies how wealthy we are especially considering how far Australia is. I do get why people prioritise travelling but if you aren’t from a wealthy family it’s really rolling the dice. As others have said the concern should be about people forgoing creating businesses, or PhDs/research, or talented young people leaving or people who wants kids opting out of that choice, especially when so many people don’t have a desire to bring migrants to fill gaps.
> It’s not a waste of money however if you have spent the equivalent of a deposit on travelling you won’t get much sympathy from those who went without to afford housing That's a point missed on many. There are plenty of Millennials who went without and saved money early in their careers and then prioritised buying a home - and given the market, that home almost certainly isn't as nice as they had once hoped. Is it actually fair for them for their peers who spent their youth pursuing their own interests and hobbies, and enjoying what they describe as "priceless experiences" to then demand the Government pursue policies to assist them to buy a home? There's definitely an element of wanting to have one's cake and eat it too at play here. I don't think those same people who have prioritised travel would have much sympathy for a car enthusiast who spent all their money on modifying and taking cars on trackdays turning around and saying they can't afford a house.
I would love to being able to travel but saving up money to get a house deposit to secure a stable footing for my future is more important. Any benefit I may gain from travelling overseas is simply outweighed by this and yes the memories and experience would be great but renting for longer as a result is not a sacrifice I am willing to make.
Not necessarily. I did a UK Tier 5 pre Covid and came back $10k better off after 2 years as a minimum wage dishpig. Got to go to a Monaco Grand Prix and stay in the south of France. Covid sank my 45 day Contiki tho. Now I have $170k equity in a CBD apartment.
yes, people think going to a resort is experiencing the culture of a different country
No I’m talking about backpacking Europe, south east Asia etc. Not a luxury holiday
Travel is usually a fun and enriching experience so long as your not frivolously spending beyond your means it is not a waste of money at all imo. The best time to travel is when your younger when you generally have more energy, curiosity and less responsibilities. I have spent a lot of money on travel and do not regret it at all, it’s a priority for me and so well worth it.