The Struggles of Planning a Budget Trip in America's most expensive city.
… and how I pulled it off!
One of the best tips I use to plan vacations is a very simple one: Don’t travel when it’s most expensive to travel! My Second best tip: Don’t travel to super expensive cities, try the ones off the beaten path.
Well, sometimes timing and location are just not negotiable. I get that! AND, I experienced that this month.
I booked a trip to San Francisco the week of memorial day. Yep, San Fran-Take-My-Money-Cisco ! I will admit that New York and San Fran are probably neck and neck for being the most expensive city in the country, so my title may be slightly inaccurate, but you get the idea. Its a pricey place at a very pricey time of year to travel.
My idea for this trip had little to do with San Francisco itself and more based around the scenic areas of northern California. I wanted to sip wine in Napa and take pictures of bridges in Monterey. I also felt for the blog’s sake that I needed to get a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge. That has to be some sort of travel blogger right of passage. Anyway, here are all of the things I tried in order to save money and then I will share my final savings.
Airports
I researched almost every major airport in Cali: SFO, OAK, San Jose, LAX, Sacramento etc. Oakland had some cheaper direct flights from Nashville on Southwest so I started planning the trip from Oakland instead of SFO (San Francisco). I then noticed the car rental was more expensive out of OAK so I had to compare prices as an overall cost of flight+car. Thankfully I kept checking flight prices daily because the flight from BNA to SFO went down to $119 and I JUMPED on it. I do prefer Southwest for their no change fee policy, because if I had booked early, I could’ve changed my reservation to this flight for no charge. My tip: Check flights daily and always include Southwest in your domestic searches.
Lodging
I did HOURS of research for this one… I looked at hot rate hotels on Hotwire first, and found some that were under $150, but I really wanted it to be under $100 per night so that I could spring for a convertible ( I’m a sucker for a good photo op). I checked Airbnb and VRBO for rentals but unless I wanted to share a room, the options were limited and well over $150 a night. There were options in my price range that were 30-45 minutes away but I knew I’d be wine tasting and wanted to stay somewhere that would be a reasonable uber ride away from downtown Napa. The Solution? Well, I talked to a local! I happened to make small talk with a stranger who was from SF and asked him his thoughts. He told me, skip Napa and stay in Sonoma instead. It has all of the charm and wine of Napa but has a more local instead of tourist feeling to it. We would also be a short drive to downtown Napa if we really wanted to see it. As much as I’m a sucker for photo ops, I’m also a sucker for the local vibe and skipping the tourist city center. So I found an Airbnb in Sonoma for $100 a night exactly. Boom!
Car
Yikes, this one was rough. I overpaid for the car. I’ll admit it, and as a budget traveler I’m not proud of it, but I overpaid. I wanted a convertible for Monterey. I debated every possible way I could save money. I tried Turo, which is like Airbnb for cars but it wasn’t cheaper. I was looking at a $300 car rental. Yikes. I even thought of dropping the car off the day before flying out and using Uber to get around San Francisco and to the airport the last day. I calculated it would be cheaper that way, plus they have public transportation to and from the airport to downtown. I looked at several budget car sites and checked my inbox daily for coupons and promo codes. I didn’t have much luck so I gave up on the idea of a convertible. Well, since I took so long to decide, the prices went up and it was even $250 for an economy car. If I’m paying that much, then I want my convertible. The solution? Sixt Car Rental offered a 25% discount through a facebook ad. Plus another 20% to book in advance. It ended up costing me $250 for a convertible, but I had to “settle” for a mini cooper instead of a mustang (fine with me!) and I did not have the luxury of free cancellation.
Overall I found an Airbnb in Sonoma for $100, a VRBO cutesy motel for $80/night in Monterrey right by the water, a convertible for $250 and one night in San Francisco for $105. The flight from BNA to SFO: $330 round trip (I used my Southwest companion pass for my boyfriend’s flight). That’s not as cheap as LAX would’ve been but now I can skip the 5 hour drive north. $940 is Not bad for 5 days in NoCal for two people!
Of course, if you are willing to share a room in a home on Airbnb and get an economy rental car, then this trip could be even cheaper.
Happy Travels
Stephanie
