NRI's frequency of visiting India

I was booking travel the other day when the agent asked me, "How frequently do you visit India ?" Amazingly, I had trouble recounting the number even though quite a lot of planning and anticipation goes on around these occasions. Anyway I counted later and here are the number of round trip tickets we bought for our family over the last 5 years :

2004 - 3 RoundTrips
2005 - 2.5 RTs
2006 - 2 RTs
2007 - none
2008 - 3 RTs
2009 - 2 RTs.

Grand Total of 13 round trips at US$1500 a pop = US$19,500 on airfare alone. Just for comparison's sake that would be equal to about 7 Las Vegas vacations if we were to stick to the same spending habits in Sin City !

Cost of a vacation in Las Vegas ?

The final cost : US$ 2,750 for 4 nights stay on the Strip. We watched several shows and also visited the Grand Canyon. Here is the complete breakdown.



As novices we naturally made several mistakes along the way. For example, renting a car for the whole duration instead of only the days we needed it. Cabs are easily available on the Strip so car rentals are unneccessary unless you'd like to drive around. We spent a lot of time on the Strip so the car was sitting idle in the garage gathering dust most of the time. Another one: ordering $15 water from room service. Wonder how this compares with the average vacation in Vegas. With the wisdom of hindsight we'd definitely be shaving off expenses next time around.

Random

A friend sent me the following posters of the swiss people's party. Not quite sure what they all mean !