Why buy vacation home/cabin instead of travel (Minneapolis, Duluth: transplants, sale)

[manbylake]

Originally Posted by chessgeek

It is ironic that in Minnesota's traditional culture gay people can legally get married. Try that in Las Vegas or Miami...oops! It is still illegal in Florida and Nevada. Cosmopolitan indeed. LOL!

I disagree. Florida as a whole may not be progressive, but there are pockets of gay meccas like Fort Lauderdale, Miami, and Key West. There is nothing like that here. Las Vegas is a fun-loving international metropolis. Yes, gays can get married in Minnesota. Nonetheless, that's not everything in LGBTQ life. People are not expressive here. Like another post says, there is little "be merry" attitude here.

Those gay meccas provide amenities for gays and a visible and festive gay population. Again, the issue here is not conservative vs. liberal, but Minnesota vs. fun.

[yakimono]

Originally Posted by manbylake

...What's your opinions?

My opinion - sorry, I have only one to spare for you - is that you mostly wanted to give your opinion and feel superior. As evidenced by your not really showing any curiosity to understand the phenomenon but instead criticizing it.

[golfgal]

Originally Posted by manbylake

To golfgal,
Buying a vacation home costs a lot of money today, not to mention property tax, management, etc. Unless you use it a lot, it seems more hassle to buy something far away. And how do you know so early where you would like to retire to? If purely for economic reasons, there are better ways to invest.

$45,000 was a lot of money back then but they saw the potential. If they don't actually retire to those homes, who cares, they typically are easy to sell and they have added to their retirement portfolio by doing so. There may or may not be better ways to invest. It's all about having a balanced portfolio and real estate has traditionally been a very safe, yet profitable, part of anyone's portfolio, especially since you can wait out a low market typically and there is no minimum distribution or other regulations for capitalizing on your investment. It's also an economical wealth transfer tool.

Why do you care?

[StilltheSame]

Cabins/Vacation homes are not for everyone. I think much has to do with how you were raised and your family traditions. Also, as another poster noted, MN is a tough place to get a quick weekend getaway to any of your traditional vacation cities (Vegas, NY, Miami, even Chicago is a pain to get to IMO).

I think a balance of both is nice - my friends that are from here are now of a generation that they are either inheriting or using their family cabins - they are not able to afford their own. But it seems nice to have a quick getaway, so I can understand it.

[AbqTeacher]

Originally Posted by chessgeek

The vacation cabin is mainly a weekend getaway in the summer for the most part and has nothing to do with a superiority complex. It may just be a practicality complex. How on earth are you going to travel abroad on just the weekend. The parents have to work on Monday (or Tuesday if it is a holiday weekend like Memorial Day), so they get away on weekends to a cabin on summer weekends that is often not much more than 100 miles away (my parents had one just 60 miles away when I grew up there). I would guess the percentage of Minnesotans with a second lake home is small, but maybe higher than some other states.

Minnesota ranks 12th for passport ownership and that is when they use their vacation time for longer trips to another country. How do you explain the high rate of passport ownership among such provincial people? Facts trump exaggeration again.

Hmmm, it might have something to do with the fact that there's a long international border that makes up one entire side of the state. Just going out on a limb there. Minnesota also has more ties to its "home countries" (i.e. Scandinavian countries) than most places I've been. Going back to visit family in those countries requires a passport.

Also, it's not impossible to get to different weekend getaways. Draw a 150-mile circle around your home location and find somewhere new. It's fun!

[golfgal]

Originally Posted by AbqTeacher

Hmmm, it might have something to do with the fact that there's a long international border that makes up one entire side of the state. Just going out on a limb there. Minnesota also has more ties to its "home countries" (i.e. Scandinavian countries) than most places I've been. Going back to visit family in those countries requires a passport.

Also, it's not impossible to get to different weekend getaways. Draw a 150-mile circle around your home location and find somewhere new. It's fun!

Most of the MN population is in the Twin Cities--6+ hours away from Canada. Most people I know travel to places other than Canada (that need a passport) and very few of them are traveling to visit "family". They are going places a lot farther than 150 miles from home to find somewhere new. 150 miles is a day trip for a lot of people...

[Glenfield]

Originally Posted by manbylake

A vacation home/cabin seems dull and un-creative. Minnesotans seem very backward and provincial.

What's your opinions?

I love the irony of someone calling us backward and provincial while using incorrect grammar.

I guess that shows he are worldly.

[MN-Born-n-Raised]

We had a home in the "Cities", another "up north", and another warm-up spot that we owned year round (initially in Mazatlan and currently in the Phoenix area). For us, we rented out our spots when they were not in use. My lake home fetched $45-$57K a year (4000 sq feet on 10 acres) and my condo on the beach (2600 sq foot, 3 bedroom) made 40K-$45K. The PHX spot rented for around $20K but was a lot less expensive. We rented by the week at VRBO.com and for about 12-20 weeks each spot.

We also traveled to Europe, Alaska, Canada, other MX destinations, etc. We didn't have loans so we made money. But we didn't feel obligated to use them because they were very desirable properties and they rented very easily during the peak season.

Others do it differently. They would refuse to rent out their vacation homes. Some "up north" owners have family vacation homes that they inherited. Others are simply wealthy and they have the extra several hundred grand in play money. While another subset are in debt up to their eyeballs.

But the attraction to return to the same spot in NOT to live out of a suitcase and to make friends and create traditions.

Those who are like the OP who get board easily, need not apply. I take on the approach that I like to hang out for several months in one spot and launch from that location to check out other areas. We just got back from Cancun and are hoping to go to another warmer tropical spot in March. We hope to go to China next summer.

[QuietBlue]

Most of the people I know who "go to the cabin" don't own their cabins per se; it's someone else in their family or group of friends that does. The ones that own them mostly either had them passed down through a family member or (if they're older than me) bought them some time ago when they were less expensive. I do know someone in his mid-30's (like me) who bought either a foreclosed or short sale cabin, not sure which, and it is fairly basic as cabins go. He's the exception, though; I don't know anyone else in their 30's who's bought their own cabin. It will be interesting to see how Minnesota's cabin culture changes in the coming years.

I'm with the OP as far as not wanting to stay in one place all the time; I can see the appeal of going up north to a cabin, but it's the kind of thing I'd want to do 2-3 times a year at most (plus, I used to do a lot of camping, so it's sort of "been there, done that" to me). For me, seeing new places and doing new things is what getting away is all about, but I know others like the familiar.

[BorderGirl]

For me and my family, it's just easier to go up north as that is where we are from and we can congregate pretty easily. It's kind of a trade off. The kids visit the parents up north and spend time on the lakes and in the cabins while the adults come and visit us kids in the cities for a more culturally diverse experience. However, each member in my family takes at least one trip a year to some destination outside of Minnesota.