American Dream Ledger: Lifetime Cost of Vacations

## What this measures

Average annual household spending on out-of-town trips (lodging, food and drink on trips, airline, intercity bus, train and ship fares, entertainment, parking and tolls on trips) from the BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey, × a 60-year adult lifetime. Dollars, monthly.

## Why it matters

Travel is the discretionary part of the dream and the first thing cut when budgets tighten, which makes it a read on household confidence as well as cost.

## How to read it

Higher means vacations cost more. 2020 dips because households travelled less, not because travel got cheaper.

## What it does not say

It is average spending across all households, including those who did not travel. Gasoline and car rental on trips are counted in the cars component.

## How it is priced

Each month is priced in that month's dollars. Annual public figures (a BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey year, an NCES academic year, a CMS health-spending year) are the average for their own period: a month inside the period is the figure × the matching CPI-U index for the month ÷ its average over the period, and months after the newest published period carry that figure forward by the same index until the next edition replaces it. Nothing is projected forward and nothing is discounted: it is the price tag at today's prices. A month is written once its CPI and a full month of mortgage rates exist. October 2025 has no reading because BLS published no CPI for it.

## Assumptions

Assumptions used across the American Dream Ledger: an adult lifetime of 60 years (18 to 78, about the remaining period life expectancy at 18 in SSA's life tables); a working lifetime of 40 years (25 to 64); two adults and two children; a 30-year fixed mortgage with 20% down; four years of public in-state college per child; retirement of 20 years from 65 (about SSA's period life expectancy at 65, men and women averaged) at 70% of median household income. Weddings are left out: no public-domain source measures what a wedding costs.

## Source

Palanor calculation (src/lib/standards/american-dream.ts), recomputed daily by /api/cron/american-dream. Inputs: BLS Consumer Expenditure Survey items 210210, 190903, 190904, 200900, 530110, 530210, 530510, 530901, 620122, 620212, 620222, 520532, 520542 (all consumer units, public domain); carried by CPI-U lodging away from home, food away from home, airline fares, public transportation and all items.