Utilitarian Consequences

I generally consider myself a preferential utilitarian in the mould of Peter Singer. That is, I believe that the right thing to do is to satisfy the majority of people's human rights and then preferences.

For example, this means that if I have $100 and only need $50, and Bob has none and needs $50, I should give $50 to Bob.

At the moment, I'm considering travelling overseas for the first time. This is not cheap to do - it will cost $5000 AUD at a minimum, and take about 3 to 4 weeks of my time. The preferential utilitarian consequences of this are that, so long as there are people starving in many parts of the world, that I shouldn't spend this $5000 on myself since it is something I want but not something I need to survive.

An exception to this might be that, in the long run, I may be able to do more good as a result of having gone to Europe than I could have by giving this $5000 to charity. Unfortunately for me (and for any potential travel broker), I don't think that this is possible.

If I make this choice, I'm not sure that I would even regret it. I feel that this is the right thing to do. The larger question is whether I have this moral code because it excuses a martyrdom/victim complex, but I *think* I can safely deny this; I've developed this code progressively since reader various Singer texts and as a reaction to seeing many world problems that could be easily solved.