State parks camping. They usually have some cabins also you can rent.
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Try the Frankfort area or the homes in Crystal Mountain resort. Frankfort is a darling town and the walk to the beach and restaurants is short. The second half of the summer is humid in town, so I recommend a place with window air conditioners at least.
A great inexpensive stay is the Hocking Hills area of Ohio. The Ohio state parks cabins are modern, comfortable, and have a full kitchen, about $200 per night for a two bedroom. The trails vary in length and difficulty. Dining is limited. There are a few establishments attempting to resort-ify the rural area.
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Not sure what site you’re using. Costco is always the cheapest, in my experience, and a week in SFO with the absolute smallest, cheapest car is $500. On other sites it’s even higher, including aggregators. But anywhere else I search it’s $800-1200 for a week. Of course it matters where you go, but I was just making the point that nationwide car rentals are far higher than they usually are and that should be a factor when considering the expensive of a trip right now.
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Please check Kayak. I did a random week in mid to late June. The prices I’m getting are nowhere close to your prices.
And I guess my point is that if you search wide and long, you’ll find good deals.
Keep checking Costco. I recently reserved a car on Oahu at $590 per week one month prior to our arrival. I kept checking, and a few days before our arrival the price dropped to $325.
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Totally agree. There are plenty of reasonable deals to be found for cars and hotels. Just keep looking.
Can’t necessarily say the same for airfare.
I think I have a different idea of what an “inexpensive vacation” is than certain other posters. My inexpensive vacations would have costs measured in hundreds rather than thousands. An example of an inexpensive vacation I especially enjoyed involved the following:
- Spontaneous Vegas trip as 3rd or 4th date
- Drove, no flight or car rental
- Stayed at Excalibur for ~3 nights. Total cost for 3 nights was $100-$200.
- Spent a lot of the time exploring the amazing sights on the strip… mostly free, but also played some games at Circus Circus, went on a roller coaster, etc.
- Saw a Cirque de Solei show for ~$100
- Ate basic meals
- Only placed a single gambling bet, which won more than the expenses above, so overall net financial gain
My most recent trip with a vacation rental rather than traditional hotel/motel involved the following:
- Trip to Sequoia National Forest area
- Drove, no flight or car rental
- Mostly stayed at a rental in Kernville. Total cost for 4 nights was ~$200. Rental was basic, but met my needs – ~50 feet from river (river view) and bordering nice park, short walk to town businesses, small yard to relax in and let my dog explore, had refrigerator + microwave, etc.
- Spent the bulk of my days hiking (Unal, Packsaddle Cave, Camp Nelson, 100 Giants, Needles Lookout…)
- Also spent a good amount of time exploring town, checking out the museum, etc.
- Ate basic meals and groceries from supermarket
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I appreciate the original post here-last summer, I rented the same beach house I’ve rented several times in the past in Litchfield Beach, SC and it was about 1/3 more expensive than previous years and just not worth it. We haven’t traveled too much during covid but our experiences have been expensive and I am enough of a miser that I enjoy things less when I can’t stop thinking about how much I spent to be there…I have a sweet spot that I find reasonable - am sure that amount differs for everyone, depending on their family size and income! Anyway-this fall we inherited a house in Bradenton, FL. It’s cute! It’s on a lagoon and it has a pool and it’s dated but immaculate. Flights from NJ to Bradenton are reasonable. It’s 20 minutes to a beautiful beach. Downtown Sarasota is really nice. The carrying costs of the house are not much, so we are going to keep it for at least the next few years and use it for vacations. You can’t stay at my house-but I do see lots of reasonable air bnb’s in the area.
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We did a very inexpensive trip to lv once. Husband had voucher from SW about to expire. Got a rental car for a week for @130. Found place with a kitchen a block off strip for 2-300 for the week. Hiked a lot, went to Hoover dam, walked the strip, etc.
we did see O which was somewhat expensive and decided to drive to Zion and spend the night bc week’s lodging was so cheap.
Another time we stayed in San Diego on the cheap, including walking and biking a lot/not renting a car.
If we did that vacation differently it could have cost a bundle.
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I agree, @Sweetgum - I love the southern NC beaches! I grew up in western NC, and as a child we went to Myrtle Beach every summer. But my heart belongs to the Emerald Isle area. Beautiful beach, decent restaurants, and not too crowded.
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Just back from Waikiki Beach vacation, 7 nights. My husband had no interest in driving even for one day rental (which can be logistic challenge…. 8am pickup, 3pm drop off … rumors of very long lines). At our hotel the “deal” for guests was $46/night parking fee. We opted to spend money instead on tours and uber. We probably did not save money, but we had the kind of car-free vacation we craved.
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We took an Oct 2020 road trip to Moab, Utah. To reduce Covid risk, we opted for an older motel with outside door (no indoor hallways.). I think it was $104 a night. It was great. Older place, so it had a large room with 2 big beds and table/chairs. Also microwave and fridge, great since we did some meals in the room (others were restaurants with outdoor dining).
Ya gotta smile at a place that provides a pile of older small towels with a sign that says, “please only use these on your mountain bike, not the good towels”.
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Moab is a great place to visit. We found the funky town really fun when we stayed there last winter to visit Canyonlands and Dead Horse State Park. If you have a lifetime National Parks Pass it can definitely be an inexpensive vacation.
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I think we stayed at the same motel back in 2004. It sounds the same, but I don’t recall the name. I remember it being a terrific value for us, esp since the area was too hot for us to camp in and a nice private shower is welcome once in a while with camping.
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Got what I considered a good deal pre-Covid taking the family to Ireland. We went for April vacation and it was definitely less than it would have been to go to Florida. I believe it was about $5k all-in for 4 people for 9 days including flights/hotel/food/car rental/excursions etc. My husband even played a couple of rounds of golf. A great trip. I’ll add that we usually rent a place on the outer cape for a week each summer with my sister and dad but it has gotten so crazy expensive that we aren’t doing it this year. Not spending $6k on a house that is nothing special and not near the beach.
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Wow! That’s a crazy good deal!
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Yes, it really was. And we stayed in nice places (not luxurious, of course). I always plan our European trips myself and manage pretty good deals. I have traveled a lot, though, and feel comfortable doing it.
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H always plans our trips to Europe and finds great hotels for reasonable prices. When we went to Ireland 4 years ago in March there was a huge snowstorm that delayed us by a couple of days, but we ended up having an amazing time especially driving the Wild Atlantic Way on the west coast. H lived in the UK for a long time and is comfortable driving so we rented a car and spent time in wonderful small towns and got to see all of the sights with barely any people there.
Another way to save money when vacationing is not to travel in the summer. We don’t like to travel in the summer when so many are traveling because of kids school schedules. H and I much prefer going in the off season to visit places.
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Until I had kids I never travelled to Europe (or anywhere out of the country) in the summer. I much prefer May or September/October. With our kids we’ve done 2 trips to Europe off season (April & Thanksgiving week - where I took them out of school for a few days) but the rest have been in the summer. As they’ve gotten older it has been more difficult to take them out of school for a trip so we’ve been limited to school vacations & summer time. Once they are out of the house we will go back to traveling at non-peak times which are so much better from every perspective (fewer crowds, better weather etc)
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Going to Emerald Isle this summer for a family reunion. Beachfront, pool, 7bedrooms, 13 family members. Grandpa (my dad) footing the bill. Thankful for generous parents.
All of our vacations, since our kids were born involve visiting family or parent funded Atlantic coast beach trips. With a rising HS senior we are looking for last minute inexpensive long weekend ideas this summer.
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