The rocking chair hypothesis

There is a very good reason why a lot of New Zealanders never travel further than Australia, it cost's to dam much. Flying to the other side of the world for 6 weeks is more expensive than I thought it would be initially.
Putting the cost into perspective, I could have bought a brand new Ford Fiesta.
Six week holiday or new car?

Think about this scenario, when you are sitting in your rocking chair talking to your grandkids do you want to tell them "Yes when I was young I bought a new TV, a new car and I had an iPad 2!" or do you want to be able to say "I traveled. I saw the Colosseum in Rome, I rode a Donkey in the Greek islands, I herded goats in the Swiss alps, Layee odl, layee odl layee-oo"
In most cases you would probably will not be able to afford to have both, so sacrifices sometimes have to be made.You might just have to put up with a car that was produced in Britney Spear's heyday, and not have all the latest gadgets, the iPad, the iPhone, the iWant iWant iWant....

Sacrifice is never easy, and sometimes it does feel like you are pouring money into an every increasing black hole of very expensive bits of paper that you wont see the results of for many months. It might well be easier to buy that new pair of boots you wanted, but isn't forgoing some luxuries to save that little bit extra so you can visit the Sun King Palace in Versailles, or spend the day visiting the island of Capri worth it?

A lot of people say "one day I want to go to Paris", but never make the effort to, because quite frankly its to dam hard and expensive. They can't face giving up their daily lattes to pay for a trip to Europe. We are not as lucky as people in England or America, where these fabulous exotic places are that much closer, we do have to spend that much more to travel.

Those little old people in rocking chairs, which one do you want to be?