How high gas prices might affect your summer vacation plans

Last week a friend of mine who’s lucky enough to own a cottage north of Toronto was complaining about how much it costs to get there every weekend. High gas prices mean she shells out nearly $200 in gas costs alone just to get her family of five to and from the cottage every weekend –that’s before food and entertainment (and of course the costs of actually maintaining a cottage!).

The high cost of gas has been affecting Canadians all year – even Tim Hortons reported lower earnings in the last quarter in part because rising fuel costs mean customers aren’t hopping in the  car to line up to get their Tim’s fix.

Gas prices are set to rise even higher this summer according to some – and that means anyone planning to travel for their holiday is going to pay a lot more to get there (unless of course you’re walking/running/biking).

It means a good number of Canadians could be sticking close to home, making plans to take time off and take advantage of local ways to have fun. For us, we’re still planning to travel. We’ve made ambitious plans to take the family to Europe (a big splurge we’ve been planning for) and we still plan to make regular trips to visit my sister and her family who live about two hours away by car.

We’re going to swallow the high price of the gas but we will have to make cuts elsewhere in our budget. The kids will do fewer summer activities and we’ll probably take public transit more when we’re in the city.

Right now, lots of Canadians are facing the same kind of choices as they think about their summer plans.

What about you? Are higher gas prices going to change your summer plans? Or will you bite the bullet and cut your budget in other areas?