In 2024, my husband and I went on a month long trip to Mexico with our 3 children. In 2025 we went on a month long trip to Japan with our 4 children. And this may seem crazy and it totally is, but it has been so good for our family. But how has it been on our wallet? Here’s how we can afford to go on big trips.
Related:9 items to remember to bring to Japan with kids
Flights
Living in Alaska makes flying somewhere very expensive. In fact the most expensive part of travel for us is flights- especially with 4 kiddos. So we use miles as much as we can, and companion fares where we pay for one flight and a companion gets to fly with for $100 once a year. We also travel on flights that are cheapest as much as we can. Which means some of our flights are sometimes not with Alaska airlines- our preferred airline.
Housing
We stay at Airbnb’s because hotel costs are astronomical! For a large family, an Airbnb is much more affordable than a hotel. Most hotels only allow 4 people to a room, so having 6 people would require booking 2 rooms (even if 4 of those people are little). Since we go on longer trips, there are also sometimes discounts for staying for a full month in an Airbnb.
Food
Another reason we get an Airbnb is so we can cook and eat some meals at the Airbnb. On our trip to Japan, we ate 7/11 food for some meals, and cooked many dinners in the Airbnb, and lots of food in Japan is cheap anyways. On other trips, our goal is to travel to places that are cost effective.
Activities
For our Japan trip, kids under 12 are free for a ton of activities. We went to Tokyo Disney which is expensive, but half the cost of Disney in the U.S. On other trips we try to limit our activities that cost a lot. We can afford to go on trips by choosing to go to parks, beaches, free museums, or just walking around the area.
Transportation
For Japan, we didn’t rent a car because public transportation is amazing in Japan, so we didn’t need to bring car seats. For other trips we may need to rent a car and bring car seats, we will need a minivan with 4 kids, so that does increase the cost, but by choosing places that tend to be cheaper for food, activities, and accommodations, it makes it so we can have a slightly more expensive car.
Off season
For our Japan trip, we traveled during the busy season, because we wanted to see the cherry blossoms, but on most of our trips we plan to travel during off seasons, when everything is cheaper.
How to make extra money
We Airbnb out our house so hopefully we make some money here while we’re on our trips. This does take some extra coordination, planning, and work before we go on our trip and also when we return, but I think it’s worth it.
