A family member of mine passed in 2013 and left me a decent chunk of money. There was a condition attached to it though. I had to spend it on a "whimsical experience" rather than something material.
I enlisted a friend of mine, we deferred our enrollment at Brockport, and we took off for two months. We spent the first month doing a big lap around the lower 48 in my Jeep, spent three days at home, then hopped on a plane to Costa Rica for another month,sightseeing, living out of our backpacks and staying in hostels. It helped that my traveling companion was fluent in Spanish, I don't think I could have pulled that part of the trip off without her.
The American portion of our trip cost about $6500, and Costa Rica came in at just over four thousand.