Last weekend, President Obama reflected about his meager boyhood vacations during campaign events in Virginia, reminding voters that they “didn’t have to be fancy.”
The president spoke about how his mother took him and his sister to Ohio, traveling on a Grayhound bus and stayed at Howard Johnson’s hotels. “If there was a pool somewhere, no matter — it could look like a puddle it could be so small — I was so excited,” he said.
“And the point was that your vacation didn’t have to be fancy,” he added. “It just gave you a sense of how you could spend time with each other, that was part of that American Dream.”
Contrast that narrative with the president’s 2011 vacation to Hawaii, which reportedly cost taxpayers nearly $4 million. The Obama family rented a multi-million dollar beach-side home featuring a lagoon style pool and spa.
