A quick 7 day trip to Maui in February a couple years ago with one of my teenage daughters, who happened to be free the same week I had off. Work was grinding me down and I needed a break.

My wife and the rest of the family couldn't go, they were working or in school. The tickets were expensive, $850 each for bare-bones economy narrow rock hard seats, it was a 12 hour flight that was packed to the brim - I was getting bedsores by the time we arrived.

We rented snorkeling gear and a car, and spent every day from dawn to dusk snorkeling, sitting on the beaches and hiking in the mountains; we did the Hana road, the Seven Sacred Pools and the Haleakalā volcano national park at sunset, and took tons of photos. We ate spam musubi for breakfast, poke and somen noodles for lunch and loco moko for supper. Slept like babies with the windows open wide in the cool nighttime breezes.

The best way to blow $5,000 EVER. So much what I needed at that point in my life.