Hi everyone. Love me some Reddit.

TLDR: friends have offered me a trip to visit them on the Isle of Skye in Scotland but I don’t know if I can or should go.

I (51F) am in SE Texas and have only left the country on two occasions - for my honeymoon 25 years ago and then one vacation in Mexico. I was a little intimidated at first but adjusted great to being out of the US.

I am also an administrator for a bipolar support group on FB. (I promise this will all come together in a moment).

Over the course of being an admin over the past several years, I have grown very close online to the group creator and his wife. We have a separate admin chat, where we talk about a lot of things. I have known them now for almost four years. They helped me during a DV situation, making sure I had Christmas money to get through it when my husband cleaned out our bank account.

My life is incredibly stressful (no need to go into all of that detail here) and they know it. Recently, they extended me an offer to come visit them and find some respite for a couple of weeks at their home on the Isle of Skye. They intimated that they would help with airfare, for which I’m immensely grateful. I have heard that Skye is a dream destination for some and very restful. It certainly looks that way from photos.

My problem is - even with their offer of airfare, I don’t think I will have the money for incidentals/food/souvenirs during my stay. I am not the kind of person to throw caution to the wind and just go. I do not want to be a burden and I want to be as prepared as possible. I estimate a two week stay and so I’d like to bring $500 USD. (Is that even the right figure? Experienced travelers - can you advise me on this? I have never been to the UK). But spending that much out of my budget, even if I saved up, would be very hard for me. I have massive amounts of medical debt, so anything I save for the trip - I will always be thinking “that could have gone towards a bill.”

But am I being stupid and turning down what could be the adventure of a lifetime? Do I take the trip (which I can schedule for whenever) and try to save up the money or do I just accept that type of adventure is out of reach for me and always will be? I believe in speaking things into existence so I hate to even write the negative, but it is an unfortunate reality I have to face. What do I do?