The Case for Buying Less on Vacation

The answer up front: decide before you leave what your one good purchase will be, budget for it, and treat everything else on the trip as looking, not buying. You will spend less, bring home a lighter bag, and end up with something you actually use instead of a drawer of objects that only make sense in the country you bought them in. This is not a lecture about minimalism. It is arithmetic. A souvenir you never wear has an infinite cost per wear, and a holiday is a poor environment for careful spending: you are tired, the currency feels like Monopoly money, and every market stall has a pitch ready. Our approach here is a criteria-based one, not a tale from a suitcase. The shopping desk covers what to buy and where; this piece covers the harder question of when to buy nothing at all. Why travel spending goes wrong so easily Vacation shopping fails for structural reasons, not because you lack willpower.

This excerpt comes from the named source. Read the original for the full reporting.