Should You Cancel Your Vacation?
Vacations require a lot of planning. You have to go online and look up plane tickets and hotel rooms. If you don’t want to do that, you have to hire a travel agent to do it for you. If you’re going with a family that has children, there are even more considerations, like, for instance, finding a hotel that lets kids stay free, or making sure the theme park you’re visiting has food that won’t aggravate your daughter’s allergies. You have to save up money and clip coupons and, in some cases, plan everything down to the minute. You’re going full steam ahead until something unexpected and unpleasant happens, and then you have another tough choice to make: do you go ahead with the vacation, or you do you cancel it?
Family Emergencies
Death and illness don’t operate on a fixed schedule, and they never have. More than one person has been on his or her way to the airport for a long-awaited Hawaiian vacation only to get a phone call: Someone’s in the hospital, and he or she probably doesn’t have long to live. Your flight leaves in two hours. You’ve got to make a choice, and you’ve got to do it fast.
A lot will depend on your relationship with the family member who has just fallen ill. If it’s a parent or sibling, most people will drop everything and head to the hospital. That’s even truer if there’s been something like a car accident or heart attack. No one can ever fully prepare for the death of a loved one, but the ones that seem to come out of nowhere can be especially tough. The death of a relative whom you didn’t really know that well can be a harder call. In cases like that, you probably won’t be the party that’s most touched by the death. That’s not to say it won’t matter because it definitely will. But if your maternal grandfather is dying, you should think about the support you can provide for your mom during this time. These situations are heavily dependent on family dynamics, so what’s right in one case will be completely wrong in another. The difficulty of rescheduling your trip may also play a part. If you and your spouse are heading to a place that required you to obtain temporary travel visas, and if your family members tell you that there’s not much you can do right now, then go ahead and get on the plane. Try to have fun despite the unfortunate circumstances.
Financial Emergencies
Financial emergencies are better in the sense that no one is dead or dying. So there’s that, at least. But you probably aren’t going to be thinking about that when a portion of your house’s roof caves in three days before you’re supposed to leave for Florida. You’re calling roofing companies and trying to figure out if your home insurance will cover the cost of repairs. Oh, and don’t forget that deductible, either. It may seem irresponsible to head to the beach when your house is in disrepair and your bank account is dwindling fast. Talk to your family members and try to figure out a plan. If the plane tickets are nonrefundable, then you’re going to be left with airline credit at best, and there may not much credit left after the airline charges you change fees. It stinks, but not going may cost you more money than staying home and dealing with the crisis at hand. There’s no right answer here, but once you make a decision, stick with it. You’ve got enough on your plate without adding regret into the mix.
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