Yanky, your point is a good one. BUT – no one, myself included, has the right to decide how someone who has the money, should spend it – provided that they ARE also giving tzedaka. Yes, in an ideal world, people would forego certain luxuries and give to the poor so that they would also have a nice and equitable life. But wait – is that not SOCIALISM? Not everyone has money, and many people who are poor ARE getting outside financial help. But we cannot decide for someone else where he should put his money.
People who go away, do so in order to avoid the stress and work of Pesach preparations. I personally do not find it stressful, and I enjoy it. Pesach is bar none, my favorite yom tov (no bees buzzing around me while I eat lunch).
When I was first married, and for at least 12 years thereafter, I spent every single yom tov by my parents (in-laws were not frum, so that was out). I was not on vacation, though, because I cooked alongside of my mom O”H, and my husband and I turned their house over every Pesach, and kashered the stove and oven. I was never a “guest,” nor did I expect to be treated as such. After I felt it was too much for my parents to have us come to them, (and way too hard packing up a family of seven), I invited my parents to move in with me for the week, each year. They spent most of yom tov with us, and the last days usually by one of my siblings. It was the notion of spending yom tov with my parents, cooking with my mom as always, sitting together before yom tov making the geilte fish, charoses and the maror, bensching licht with her, that made my Pesach. Those memories resonate with me in ways that going away to a hotel could not possibly do so, no matter what anyone else who GOES away might feel. And my kids have the memories of helping me bake for yom tov, of doing the same things with me that I did with my mom, and it just isn’t the same when you are not home. OK, now I need a Kleenex.