The closer our kids get to leaving the nest, the more we are prioritizing family travel and adventure together. Our oldest will graduate from high school in just two years, so we are eager to take some of the trips that have been on our short list for a long time.

If you read our March Family Budget Update, then you know that we made a recent decision to budget for a big trip together this summer in addition to the trip we already have planned for Spring Break 2025.

A friend recently gave me this financial advice for traveling: “Just come up with how much everything will cost, then double it. That should be about right.”

No way. Not me!

In any travel, cost is a real factor. For me, thinking through all the expenses and plans well in advance allows us to prepare financially for the trip so we can just enjoy ourselves when we get there, without that nagging feeling that maybe we shouldn’t be spending so much, or that surprise total at the end that leaves us scrambling to cover unplanned expenses.

In this article, I want to walk you through my process for planning and budgeting for a big trip like this. I am meticulously planning our itinerary and travel so that we know precisely how much money to save before we go.

An important reminder

I should start by saying that these trips require some sacrifice on our part. We didn’t just come into new money that allows us to take this trip.

Right now we are prioritizing family travel over many other things that we could be spending money. For example, we would really like to replace the flooring in our house. Our carpet is thrashed and hideous. Every time we have someone new over, I am embarrassed by how ugly and stained our carpet is. A few months ago we explored options for flooring and got our house measured for cost estimates.

Ultimately, we decided that making memories with our kids while they are still at home is more important to us than having nice things like beautiful floors, decent furniture, and more-than-basic cars.

Helping in that decision is the fact that we still have lots of little people who are especially hard on floors and furniture.

I think it’s important to remember about the trade-offs. When I am keenly aware of our awful old carpet every time someone comes over, I remind myself that I am choosing to spend money on travel right now instead of home improvement. When I remind myself about that tradeoff, I don’t feel bad for myself and I don’t regret my choice at all.

WHERE we’re going this summer and WHY

A few months after Mike and I were married, we spent 4 months living in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala for an internship with LDS Employment Services. We taught a career workshop and a self-employment workshop to (mostly) young adults who were getting started in the working world. We also traveled to different parts of the country to train local volunteers so they could continue teaching the workshops after we had returned home. We quickly came to love the country and the people.

That was 18 years ago!

For years we have planned to return and take our kids to Guatemala so they can meet our friends there and get to know this beautiful country. We have been pretty busy during these past 18 years, but we know that once the kids start leaving home, getting them all together for a family trip will be even more complicated.

I have looked at airfare several times in the past years, but was never ready to make the trip happen. A few weeks ago, I peeked again this summer and was pleasantly surprised. That got me excited and I started to look seriously into making this trip happen this summer.

When we were in Guatemala in 2006, we didn’t have much in the way of extra funds for travel. We took advantage of a few opportunities for additional touristy-type travel after finishing our internship, but we barely scratched the surface of what Guatemala has to offer.

We decided that taking all 6 of our kids (ages 4, 6, 9, 12, 14, 16) would be a little overwhelming for many reasons, so we decided to take only the oldest three.  The oldest three have each studied Spanish, so the trip will be more meaningful for them.

The three little ones aren’t missing out entirely. They will fly to their grandparents’ house for two weeks, so they aren’t too disappointed about missing out on Guatemala.

Dates and Flights

The first step for planning our trip was setting the dates and getting flights. When I had initially looked at flights (before we had even decided to take the trip), I found flights in the $300-$400 range. At first I was prioritizing the price of the flight, trying to plan the dates for the least expensive flight, but those dates didn’t work for my parents.

I didn’t want to give up the idea of going this summer, so I continued to look at alternate dates and found even better dates that would allow for a longer trip. I looked for a more convenient (but still well-priced) flight that would have a layover at my parents’ airport so we could personally hand off our three younger kids.

Knowing that we wanted to see some of the sites in northern Guatemala, I looked into flying into Belize to start out our trip. If we flew in and out of Guatemala City, we would have to take another round trip flight up to Tikal to see that area. By starting out in Belize we can cut out a leg of the in-country flight.

I made a spreadsheet to compare the options for two different sets of dates then showed Mike the options. He voted for the option that gave us a longer time in Guatemala. I also compared the cost for the lowest tier of service and the tier that allows you to change/refund your flights and choose your own seat assignment.

For our own peace of mind when investing this much money into a trip, we wanted our tickets to be changeable/refundable in case something came up. And, for the comfort of our littlest travelers, being able to choose seats together sounded like a good idea. We debated this additional cost and decided that for those two reasons, it was worth it to us to pay the extra $730.

Round Trip– From Home to Grandparents (x3) $805

One-Way– From Home to Belize (x5) $1,300

One-Way– From Guatemala to Home (x5) $1,455

Total cost: $3,560 (5 people to Guatemala and 3 people to Phoenix)

Looking at it on a per person basis, that breaks down to $268 round trip for the kids going to Grandma’s house and $551 round trip for each of us going to Guatemala.

Because we had already started saving for our Spring Break 2025 trip, we had money already set aside that we could immediately put toward our flights. Had we not already been saving for our 2025 trip, we probably wouldn’t be making this 2024 trip happen.

—-Budget for Flights: $3,560—

Activities for our Guatemala Itinerary

Once we knew the dates of our trip and had the flights secured, I got started planning where we would go and what we would do. This was the fun part! I listed all of the places we wanted to visit and things we wanted to do, then started fitting them into the schedule based on their location. Some things needed to be on certain days (like going to church in Quetzaltenango to see our friends where we used to live), so we put those things on the calendar first and worked more flexible activities around them.

If I were planning for activities in the United States I could easily look up the admission prices to the various parks, museums, and sites and then dig deeper to see how to get the best deal for each one, like I did planning our San Diego family adventure a couple of years ago.

In Guatemala, it is wise to pay for not just the admission but for a guide to take you around, especially when we’re talking about going into the jungle. While there will inevitably be many willing “guides” near the Mayan ruins and other sites, we’re planning to book tours ahead of time with reputable companies. There are tour guides available for every budget. Since we will also need transportation to the various sites, in many cases we have found tours that include travel.

Here are paid activities that we plan to do in Guatemala. I added a link to the Wikipedia article for each one if you are curious. The cost listed is the total for 5 of us.

Xunantunich Mayan ruins in Belize – $100– includes transportation, entrance fee, and tour

Cahal Pech Mayan ruins in Belize – $25– includes entrance fee only

Yaxha Mayan ruins in Guatemala – $163– includes transportation, entrance fee, and tour

Tikal Mayan ruins in Guatemala – $178– includes transportation, entrance fee, and tour

Fuentes Georginas volcanic hot springs- $100 includes transportation and entrance fee

2-day backpacking trip up Acatenango volcano to see Volcan de Fuego – $320 includes transportation, entrance fee, guide, camping equipment, and food

Semuc Champey turquoise pools and caves in Guatemala- $128 includes transportation, entrance fee, and tour.

In addition to these, we will be visiting people and places that don’t cost money like the Quetzaltenango Guatemala Temple and the Coban Guatemala Temple. I am also adding in $150 to the budget for anything else we might have time to squeeze in.

Total cost of Planned Activities: $1,014

Extra for unplanned activities: $150

—-Budget for Activities: $1,164—-

Accommodations

We will be traveling all over Guatemala (and a little of Belize, too), so we will be staying in many different hotels, hostels, and Airbnbs. Once I nailed down the flow of our itinerary, I started looking for where to stay.

In most parts of Guatemala, the price of accommodations can be significantly less than most places in the US. We could have booked really nice places for what a mediocre place would cost here, but I was careful not to get carried away. With two weeks of nights to book, even a “great deal” adds up, and we are mostly just going to be sleeping in these places.

Location was a more important factor than price in choosing where we stayed. Since we will either need to walk or get a ride everywhere (we aren’t renting a car), it is important to us to be situated within walking distance of the bus terminal or wherever we are visiting.

I was careful to book places that were easy to cancel in case our plans change. Here are our planned stays:

San Ignacio, Belize (hostel)- 1 night – $85

Flores, Guatemala (hotel)- 2 nights –  $162

Guatemala City (apartment)- 1 night – $55

Quetzaltenango (Airbnb)- 3 nights- $240

Antigua (hostel)- 3 nights- $114

Lanquin (hostel)- 1 night- $56

Coban (Airbnb)- 1 night- $84

Guatemala City (Airbnb)- 1 night- $64

Estimating the budget for this portion of our trip was pretty easy since everything is booked in advance. I’m still adding in $100 of wiggle room to cover any changes depending on the exchange rate. Most of these places will be either paid in cash in Quetzales or charged to our credit card in foreign currency. While Google is handy for estimating the exchange rate for making our budget, credit cards usually use a less favorable exchange rate in reality.

Total for booked accommodations: $860

Wiggle room: $100

—-Budget for Accommodations: $960—-

Travel within Guatemala

We have absolutely no desire to rent a car and drive in Guatemala. That crazy driving is just too far out of our comfort zone, not to mention the dangerous roads and possible encounters with highway robbers.

Thankfully there are many other options for getting around. If you read about our family trip to Washington DC, you know we aren’t afraid of relying completely on public transportation to get around. Guatemala takes that spirit of adventure to another level!

To travel within Belize and Guatemala we will be using everything from taxis and Uber to “chicken buses” and microbuses. We will also take a one way flight from northern Guatemala (Tikal) to Guatemala City. We will mostly use various buses. The downside of taxis and Ubers is that with 5 of us traveling together, we would require two cars every time, which doubles the cost and means we have to split up.

I researched the various bus routes and making notes of prices, pick up locations, and schedules. Thankfully, there’s a lot more information availalbe online than there was 18 years ago! I won’t bore you with all of the details, just the totals. The totals below often represent several different modes of transportation. The cost listed is the total for all 5 of us.

Belize City Airport to San Ignacio $90 (Taxi – Charter bus)

San Ignacio to Flores $135 (Taxi – Chicken bus, includes $100 tax for leaving Belize)

Flores to Guatemala City- $225 (Flight – Uber)

Guatemala City to Quetzaltenango- $60 (Charter bus)

Quetzaltenango to Antigua – $70 (Charter bus – Chicken bus)

Antigua to Lanquin- $110 (Chicken bus- Charter bus – Chicken bus)

Lanquin to Coban- $25 (Chicken bus)

Coban to Guatemala City- $70 (Charter bus)

Guatemala City to Airport- $15 (Uber)

These are just the cost estimates for getting from city to city, but don’t include all the travel within each place (from door to door). We will surely do a lot of walking (sometimes that’s just easiest), but will also take other transportation as needed. I’m adding in $150 of wiggle room to our transportation budget to account for extra travel or difference in actual cost (vs what I found from my internet research of mostly blogs).

Total estimated major travel with country: $800

Additional wiggle room: $150

—-Budget for In-country Travel: $950—-

Food

If you have read about our other family travel adventures, you know that we don’t budget much (if anything!) for food. Eating out is expensive and with a big family, the cost adds up quickly! Since eating out isn’t a part of our normal lives, we don’t do it on vacation either and no one knows the difference. When we are traveling, we try to stick to our normal food budget. We love staying at Airbnbs where we can easily cook for ourselves to keep food costs down.

The food for our trip to Guatemala will be different than our normal family trips for several reasons:

• We won’t be staying places with kitchens for most of the trip. In fact, many of our stays will be for just one night.
• We will have a very full schedule that won’t leave much time for home cooking.
• From our previous experience, we know that finding ingredients we are familiar with can be really hard.
• We want our kids to experience authentic Guatemalan food.
• Prepared food is not prohibitively expensive there like it is in the US.

Now, does that mean we will be eating out for every meal? No. I expect we will buy prepared food once or twice a day on days other than Sunday. We can buy bread and produce from the market to eat for most breakfasts and lunches. We are pretty easy to please.

We will also have to buy all of our water since the tap water in Guatemala is not always safe to drink.

For our budget, I’m figuring 500 Quetzales per day (100Q per person per day). In American money that’s about $65 per day  which is $13 per person per day. I really think that will be plenty!

—-Budget for Food: $845—-

Gear

When I first started thinking about this trip, I envisioned packing light with each of us taking just a traditional carry-on and a backpack. It wasn’t long after I started planning that I realized that would be a terrible idea.

We will be staying in 8 different locations and riding on cramped buses to get between them (with travel of up to 10 hours at times) and walking across towns to get to bus stations. Sometimes we will be checking out of one place then going on tours all day before traveling to our next accommodations. We won’t have anywhere to stash even a small suitcase while we are galivanting around the country. We need to pack even lighter than that, which is fine, but requires some additional gear.

Our new plan is just backpacks. I did some research on the carry-on size maximum and found 40L size backpacks that will work. They are a few inches too tall, but slightly smaller in other dimensions, so they can be squashed if their size is challenged.

We will be in Guatemala during the rainy season, so it could be potentially raining everyday. While trash bags can work in a pinch, I wanted backpacks that had rain covers included.  We already have one backpack that should work. After reading reviews, I chose these backpacks for the other four.

Now that we are packing for two weeks in a carry-on backpack, we have to be careful about everything we’re bringing. For now I’ll just mention some of the main gear items we are budgeting for.

40L Backpacks – $40 x 4 = $160 (we chose 4 different colors of these affordable backpacks with excellent reviews)

Waterproof hiking boots – $65 x 5 = $325 (so far we have purchased these, these, these, and these)

Lightweight microfiber towels – $30 (After lots of comparing of sizes and prices, I got this set)

Lightweight hiking pants – $40 x 4 = $160 (so far we have 2 pairs of these for Mike and our oldest son)

Money belts – $7 x 3 = $21 (we bought 3 of these since we already have 2 from our first Guatemala trip)

Battery pack– $36 (We got this battery pack to be able to keep phones and headlamps charged)

Mosquito net head covers for adventuring in the jungle- $13 (We bought this 6-pack)

Total estimate for the above items: $745

I will add an extra $155 to cover additional clothing or toiletry needs that come up as we are packing.

—-Budget for Gear: $900—-

Spending/Giving

We really aren’t sure what sort of souvenirs we will buy, but we expect there will be some things. We will set aside $500 for spending.

We also want to set aside some money that we can use to give as we travel. I know we will want to give, so having money already planned for this will allow us to give without worrying that it will cause problems with our budget. We will budget $300.

—-Budget for Spending/Giving: $800—-

Total Trip Budget

To summarize, here are the current budgeted expenses for our summer 2024 Trip to Belize and Guatemala:

$3,560 — Airfare (includes $805 for 3 youngest to fly to Grandma’s house)

 $1,164 — Activities

   $960 — Accommodations

    $950 — Travel within country

    $845 — Food

   $900 — Gear

   $800  — Spending/Giving

TOTAL: $9,179

Right now we are looking at nearly $9,200 for 5 of us (including the 3 younger kids flying to Grandma’s house). I prefer to err on the side of slightly over-budgeting, so I am actually expecting to  stay below this budget.

After the trip, I will do a follow up post detailing our actual spending on our Guatemalan Adventure so that we can see how it compares with our informed budget plan.

I love having such a detailed trip budget rather than just an arbitrary amount that we hope will cover our trip’s expenses. A thoroughly planned trip budget like this lets us know how much money we need to set aside between now and when we take our trip. When we are traveling we don’t have to stress about how the cost of things is adding up because we anticipated our costs ahead of time.

I hope it was helpful to get a sneak peek (okay, it was more than just a peek!) into what goes on in my brains (and many spreadsheets) when I plan a big trip.

I should also mention that I think this part of planning is FUN, not a chore. I like having all of my financial ducks in a row, so budgeting for a trip this way is my jam. I also know that future Stephanie will be able to relax and enjoy herself so much more without having money worries hanging over her.

How do YOU budget for trips?

When you budget for big family trips, do you budget meticulously or just save a certain total amount?

Have you been to Central America? What travel tips do you have?

The post How we budget for an epic international family trip appeared first on Six Figures Under.

You loved hearing about what we spent on our 3-week cross county road trip, our 10-day Washington DC trip, and our Yellowstone Family Trip so I know you’re going to love hearing the financial (and fun) details of our family’s San Diego trip.

For Christmas 2022, we did something we’ve never done before. Instead of our traditional Christmas morning of opening presents, we left on a fun trip that we had been secretly planning for months. We spent seven adventure-filled days in beautiful San Diego, California making memories as a family!

First, I’ll share the complete cost breakdown of our entire San Diego adventure. I’ll share my best secret for getting the sweetest deals on all of the attractions!

Then, I’ll move past the prices and give you the inside detail of the fun and unique adventures we had in San Diego.

Finally, I share the fun way we presented this amazing alternative to our traditional Christmas morning to our kids. The surprise and mystery really added to the fun!

By the end you’ll be ready to start planning for your own adventure. (I might be gearing up for another family adventure as I write this!)

San Diego Trip Cost Breakdown- $4,260

For those who are new here, we have a family of 8. At the time of the trip, our kids were ages 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, and 14. We love travel and adventure, but are always very conscious of how we spend our money. I actually enjoy the challenge of planning trips for our family while sticking to a budget.

Travel $424

When we were deciding where to go on our Christmas trip, we made sure it was somewhere that we could easily drive so we wouldn’t have to pay for airfare and rent a car. We wanted to save as much money as possible for the fun part of our trip. We live about 9 hours north of San Diego, which makes for an easy day of driving.

This includes gas, tolls, and parking. If you want to look at it on a per person basis, it comes out to $53 per person.

Accommodations $1,828

We knew that, aside from entertainment, the accommodations would be our most expensive part of the trip.

We stayed 2 nights in a hotel in Buena Park. With 8 in our family, we have to get two hotel rooms. Two rooms for two nights totaled $370.

We spent the last 5 nights of the trip at an Airbnb in Chula Vista which cost $1,458. One of my secrets for finding a good deal on an Airbnb is to book well in advance so you have time to keep an eye on the market. Save the places you are interested in. In a popular place like San Diego, it’s not unusual to find a new host who is offering a 20% off coupon to their first few guests. On or past several trips we’ve been able to do this and it has saved us a significant amount of money.

This averages out to $261 per night or about $33 per person per night.

Food $0

As with our 3-week cross country trip, our Washington DC trip, and our Yellowstone trip we didn’t want food to take up any of our trip budget. We did buy food to eat, but we used our normal monthly food budget for eating on our trip, so food cost no more than if we were at home. We got creative and brought lots of food and snacks from home. We didn’t eat out (besides grabbing pizza once) and we didn’t buy food in any of the parks. We brought water bottles and snacks with us everywhere that would allow it.

The hotel we stayed in for the first two nights had an awesome continental breakfast. We brought bread and sandwich makings and snacks for all of our outings. Dinners were also low-key and often eaten on-the-go. For the majority of the trip we stayed in an Airbnb, so we had a kitchen to cook dinner, eat breakfast, and prepare lunches to bring with us.

Not having to include any extra budget for eating out when we’re on a trip is a major money-saver. For some people eating out is a big part of being on vacation, but that’s not something our family is accustomed to, so we don’t feel like we’re missing out on anything. Saving money on food really brings down the total cost of the trip.

Entertainment $2,008

I spent lots of time researching all of the entertainment options in San Diego. The city and the surrounding area has so much to offer. Any one of the cool places we went would have been an awesome trip that everyone would have enjoyed, but since we were driving a long-ish way, we wanted to make the most of our time and see as much as possible while we were in San Diego

I started researching prices of some of the places I thought we might go and looked at how to get the best deals. I made a spreadsheet to compare the various programs, passes, and discounts.

The deal that stood out as the best, was Go City. With Go City’s all-inclusive pass, you can choose how many days you want your pass to last, then all of the attractions are covered for those consecutive days.

Right now, a 5-day All-Inclusive Go City pass for San Diego is $319 for adults and $299 for children and includes more than 50 activities. Of course it would be impossible to do everything, but you will easily get your money’s worth and then some (as I’ll show you in a minute).

The Go City pass is super convenient and easy to use since it is on an app on your phone. My husband and I had access to all of our kids’ passes on our phones, so we could easily swipe through as they are scanning at the gate. The app also has a map so you can see what attractions are near each other.

Go City has passes for 30 different cities all over the world, so if you’re headed to another popular world destination, you’ll want to check out Go City.

The San Diego Go City pass includes some big attractions that are a bit of a distance from San Diego, so we hit some of those on our way down.

Here’s where we went (and the standard admission price per person that we if we didn’t have the Go City pass):

DAY 1:

• • Knott’s Berry Farm ($99)

DAY 2:

• • Newport Beach Whale/Dolphin Watching Cruise ($56)
  • San Diego Zoo Safari Park ($72)

DAY 3:

• • Sesame Place ($100)*
  • Speed Circuit ($59)*

*Not currently included on the San Diego Go City pass as of January 2024.

DAY 4

• • San Diego Pier Fishing ($75)
  • USS Midway aircraft carrier ($31)
  • San Diego Zoo ($72)

DAY 5

• • SeaWorld ($109)
  • Fleet Science Center with IMAX ($24)
  • Belmont Park Ride and Play ($54)

In 5 days we went to 11 different attractions. The total regular admission price for those attractions would have been around $750 per person or $6,000 for all 8 of us. Of course I would never have paid regular price, but it gives you an idea of how big of a savings the Go City pass was for us.

Instead, we paid $2,008 for Go City passes for all 8 of us, which comes out to $251 per person. At the time I purchased our passes there was a special sale on kid’s passes.

In order to make the most of our passes, I planned out our days very strategically, so we weren’t wasting time driving around. I made a table with the opening and closing times of the different attractions, addresses, and costs for parking. For attractions that are open late, you must use your pass to get in by 5:30, then you can stay as late as you want. I prioritized the activities that our kids would be most interested in and had back-up plans in case we had extra time.

Some of the activities required reservations ahead of time (whale watching tour and pier fishing). It didn’t cost any extra and didn’t require a down payment of any kind, just your Go City pass number.

You don’t have to lock in your trip dates when you purchase your Go City passes. Your pass will activate when you scan it at an attraction for the first time. If you don’t use your pass within 90 days it will be automatically refunded. Easy peasy! You can start planning your next trip with Go City now!

San Diego Trip Attractions

Here’s a short summary of our experience at the 11 attractions we went to with our San Diego Go City passes. Some of them are in a larger radius around San Diego and some of them are close together in the heart of San Diego.

Knotts Berry Farm

Knotts Berry Farm is about an hour and half north of San Diego, but it is included on the San Diego Go City pass. Since we were coming from the north, we decided to start our trip here. Of the 11 attractions, this is the only one we had been to before. We have all enjoyed the rides and shows at this theme park in the past and we knew our way around, so we were excited to go straight to our favorites. Unfortunately, the day after Christmas is apparently one of the busiest day of the entire year. In the past, we haven’t had to wait very long in lines, so we were disappointed to spend much of the day waiting, which made this our least favorite experience of all the places we went on our trip.

Newport Beach Whale/Dolphin Watching Cruise

This 2.5 hour cruise was a big hit with our family! The cruise came with a free beverage ticket (we all got hot chocolate with whipped cream) and free binocular rental. We weren’t there at the right season to see whales, but we got to see lots of dolphins chasing and playing around the boat. The double decker ship has plenty of seating perfect for watching marine wildlife. The crew shared their knowledge about ocean animals as we went. Our kids still talk about how cool it was to see dolphins in the wild.

San Diego Zoo Safari Park

The Zoo Safari Park is about 40 minutes away from the San Diego Zoo. The Safari Park encompasses 1,800 acres of land, which allows the animals to thrive in a natural-like habitat. Our favorite part was a 30-minute tram ride through the park (included with admission) where a guide taught us about African animals and the challenges they face. We saw giraffes, rhinos, ostriches, zebras, gazelle, antelope, and more.  We explored the rest of the park which included areas featuring lions, tigers, elephants, gorillas, and Australian animals.

Sesame Place

As a big fan of Sesame Street personally, I made sure that even my big kids had fun at this amusement park that is geared toward younger kids. We rode all the rides which had essentially no lines at all. Since it was December, all of the water slides and pools were closed, but we all agreed that they looked like fun. We watched a character show and attended the parade. I checked back while writing and found that, as of January 2024, Sesame Place is not included in the Go City Pass.

Speed Circuit

Speed Circuit ended up being even more fun than I expected. While we waited for our turn on the go-karts, we played in the trampoline zone which included inflatable human hamster balls, aerial silks, a foam pit, zip line, ropes course, and a trampoline knockout game. Everyone had a blast! The idea of the human hamster balls had me feeling claustrophobic, so I held off trying it for a long time, but when the kids finally convinced me to do it, I had fun. The kids loved the gas-powered go-kart racing, though it made me a little nervous to have my children racing around and crashing at high speeds and I think I got whiplash. Speed Circuit was recently acquired by another company and is currently closed for remodeling.

San Diego Pier Fishing

We have some kids who are very interested in fishing (and some who are decidedly not), so we split up on this one. Mike took 4 of the kids pier fishing, while I took the other two on a walk. Mike and the kids had a two-hour guided fishing experience. The guide brought all of the fishing poles, tackle, and bait, so we just had to show up!

USS Midway

The USS Midway is a retired aircraft carrier that has been turned into a museum. Admission includes an audio tour headset so you can learn about the exhibits at your own speed in whatever order you choose. We couldn’t get over how enormous the Midway was! On the flight deck we got to climb in planes and helicopters. We toured the main control center and captains quarters. I was amazed by the lower decks that housed and fed the 5,000 sailors on board this “city at sea” while it was in service from 1945 to 1992.

San Diego Zoo

The San Diego Zoo has so much to see! We were grateful for the trams and gondola (Skyfari aerial tram) that helped us get around. We saw kangaroos, koalas, hippos, elephants, exotic birds, and so much more. As the sun went down, we somehow gravitated to a super fun playground with lots of water features. It may have been December, but we left with all six kids soaked head to toe. They were freezing in drenched jeans, but we stayed until closing time because they were having so much fun.

Sea World

We started the day at Sea World by hitting all of the rides and coasters while the lines were short. Mike and I took turns with the big kids and little kids, since our younger ones weren’t tall enough for many of the fast rides. Thankfully there were lots of fun rides for the younger ones too. We went to the animal shows and exhibits too. When we got to the killer whale show, the only seats left were front and center in the soak zone. In the summer they would have been the best seats in the house, but not in December. Knowing that our kids didn’t mind getting soaked (see San Diego Zoo experience), they were perfect seats.

Fleet Science Center IMAX

We didn’t spend much time exploring the science center, we just went for the IMAX movie about Antarctica. It was a great way to relax after doing lots of running around.

Belmont Park Ride and Play

Since Belmont Park is open late, we just planned to arrive by 5:30 so we could get in with our Go City Passes and stay for the evening. Belmont Park is a beachfront amusement park. The Go City Passes got us wristbands that allowed us to enjoy everything, including laser tag, mini golf, climbing wall, ropes course, historic wooden roller coaster, carousel, bumper cars, zip line, and other fun rides. Everyone had a blast and didn’t want to leave. The location was clean and outdoors, but it felt like it was indoor because everything was so close and convenient.

Here are a few of the other attractions available on the Go City pass that were high on our list that we didn’t fit into our final itinerary or wouldn’t have worked well with our range of ages:

• La Jolla: Full Day Snorkel Rental/Bike Rental/Surf Board Rental
• Legoland California
• Plunge San Diego- pool with floating obstacle course
• Asylum Outdoor Bouldering
• UTC Ice Sports Center

The range of great things to do with the San Diego Go City Pass is really incredible. Check out all of the attractions available with the All-Inclusive Go City Pass.

The Surprise

Instead of spending Christmas Eve wrapping presents, I wrote a poem to explain our plan. To make it stand out I printed each stanza on a separate sheet of paper then taped them on a giant white board covered in wrapping paper. Because there weren’t the normal presents under the tree, no one missed the poem.

Where are the presents? They’re not in the sleigh.
You won’t open them in the usual way

Instead there are clues so you can find out
What this Christmas surprise is all about.

Don’t cry and feel glum. No need to feel sad.
But get your bag packed. There’s fun to be had!

To know what to bring, in each stocking’s a list.
Please check it twice so no items are missed.

The Littles need help, all their things to find
The schedule is tight so we can’t get behind.

When bags are all packed get your Sunday clothes on,
Then after church, the next clue’s on the lawn.

After some initial confusion (who gets up early on Christmas to pack a suitcase?), everyone got excited and packed their bags to get ready for our trip. Once everyone was packed and ready for church we opened the presents that the kids had given each other and us.

After church the kids found the next clue (which we had sneakily hid). They still weren’t sure where we were going, which was part of the fun of it.

We’ve got lots of things, a house full of stuff
But one thing there surely just isn’t enough

Is time spend together– You’re growing up fast!
Let’s make some new memories, good ones that will last!

We can’t say too much, but we won’t got by plane,
Mostly the car, by foot, boat, and train.

We drove for about 7 hours. I wrapped up some special treats for the car ride. Every hour we would open a package along with another clue about our trip. Most treats were things that we could eat in the car, but we also gave our family a nice portable bluetooth boombox speaker so that we could better listen to audiobooks and music on our trip.

With each clue, the kids had different guesses about where we were going. We had fun making each part of the trip a surprise.

I packed umbrellas and ponchos because the forecast said we would have rain for most of our days, but the only rain came perfectly timed, right as we were driving out of the city to head home!

Our 2022 Christmas Trip to San Diego will go down in the books as one of our most memorable family adventures! It’s safe to say that no one was disappointed to not have presents under the tree.

This is a completely unsponsored post. We paid 100% of the cost of our Go City passes ourselves. I was so impressed with our experience and with how much money we saved that I looked into becoming an affiliate partner with Go City. If you decide purchase Go City passes through my link, I will get a small affiliate commission (at no extra cost to you). It’s pretty much the most fun way that you can support this site. You can trust that I only share things I love and actually spend my own hard-earned money on.

The post Cost Breakdown for Our Epic San Diego Trip appeared first on Six Figures Under.

Memory-making family adventures don’t need to be expensive to be unforgettable, but sometimes it can be tricky to figure out how to keep the costs down. After sharing our cost breakdown for our 10-day Washington DC trip for our family of 8, I’ve had a lot of requests to share the numbers for other recent trips. I’ll start with the trip we took in April 2022 when we went drove out from California to Ohio and upstate New York.

The main purpose of the trip to Ohio was to help my parents clean out the house that I grew up in to get it ready to sell. That’s a long way to travel to just do some dirty work, so we decided to make it into a fun family adventure and add in lots of fun along the way. We visited some awesome historical sites along the way from California to Ohio, then headed up to Niagara Falls afterward.

Before our trip we put together a vacation budget. I will share both our budgeted amount and our actual spending on gas, lodging, food, and entertainment. While your family might have a different budget and priorities when it comes to family trips, I hope this article will give you some ideas for making family adventures more affordable.

Gas- $1,248

We drove our 2007 Honda Odyssey which seats all 8 of us, albeit tightly.

My estimate for gas spending was $1,500 based on the calculation below:

~6,000 miles / 18 mpg  x $4.50/gal

I try to err on the high side so I am pleasantly surprised when we come in under budget. We probably get closer to 20 miles per gallon and  the average price per gallon was less than my estimated average (but coming from California where the current gas prices were well above $5/gallon, an average of $4.50/gallon sounded too good to be true). I would much rather budget too much for a trip and have extra to put toward our next adventure than come in over budget and have to skimp on other budget areas to make it all work.

Divided by eight people, that’s $156/per person. Not bad for a cross country trip!

We came in $252 below budget on gas.

Lodging- $1,207

My budget estimate for accommodations was $1,575.

Our trip included 20 nights. Of those nights, 2 nights were at my brother’s house in Utah (one on each end of the trip), 6 nights were at my parents’ house in Ohio, 1 night was with friends in Columbus, Ohio, and 2 nights with friends in Champaign, Illinois.

That’s half of the nights that we didn’t have to pay for. We are pretty low maintenance guests who don’t mind crashing on the floor. The best part isn’t saving money, it’s that we can stay up late and catch up with friends and family without having to hurry back to a hotel to put kids to bed. It’s a great chance for kids to bond with cousins and family friends.

We did pay for 9 nights of lodging on the road and at our destinations. I booked some of the accommodations ahead of time, so I had some real prices to figure into my total estimate. The others I use the fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants method, which I actually find fun. I’ll explain more on that below.

In Nauvoo, Illinois we stayed at an Airbnb for 3 nights for $447. We were there in the off-season (summer is the big tourist season there), so we found very affordable, wonderful, close accommodations! Airbnbs have a lot going for them for a family like mine because we can all be together in one place (versus a motel where we have to get more than one room). Plus, having a kitchen means we can have home-cooked meals!

The other booking that I made in advance was for Buffalo, New York. We stayed 2 nights in 2 adjoining rooms for a total of $327. This was by far the nicest of the hotel/motel stays of the trip. The place included a nice pool/hot tub and a hot breakfast buffet.

For the nights we were on the road or just stayed one night in a spot, I estimated a cost of $200/night total for 2 rooms. Like with fuel, I like to estimate on the high side of what I would like to spend.

We don’t require a lot when it comes to a place where we’ll be doing nothing but sleeping for a few hours. When we are driving cross country, we usually arrive late, carry in a few sleeping kids and all fall asleep quickly. We shower and leave in the morning and that is all. As long as it seems to be in a safe area, I am not picky. I use google or a travel search engine to find whatever place has the cheapest nightly rate. Since we are getting two rooms, the savings is doubled! I also look at Airbnbs that can accommodate 8, which is sometimes cheaper than two rooms in a motel.

I love the flexibility of not having reservations so if we aren’t tired we can keep going or if something comes up and we need to stop earlier, we don’t need to stress. I also enjoy the “thrill of the chase” if you will. It’s fun to find the best deal by comparing upcoming towns on our route and make reservations just before we arrive.

Lincoln, Nebraska (1 night x 2 rooms) = $117

Richfield, Ohio (1 night x 2 rooms) = $93

Sidney, Nebraska (1 night x 2 rooms) = $111

Ogden, Utah (Airbnb, 1 night) = $113

All of those one night accommodations came in well under the $200 estimate, as I had hoped. All of them were just fine, except the place outside of Cleveland, which ended up being a dump. In the website pictures it showed a lovely pool. In actuality the pool was empty and covered in caution tape. The advertised continental breakfast didn’t exist. One of our rooms smelled terribly of smoke. We were glad it was just for one short night. Other than that our accommodations were either awesome or sufficient.

We came in $368 below budget on lodging.

Food- $405

When I was planning the budget for our trip, I decided that we would just try to stick to our normal food budget. We were gone for 3 weeks in April, so that was the majority of the month anyway.

We definitely “ate out” more than we do at home, but our idea of eating out isn’t very extravagant. We got pizza a couple of times and got sandwiches at a couple of sandwich shops. We also can’t resist the $.75 ice cream cones at Little America, so we stop there on every trip through Wyoming. All that eating out added up to $152

When we stayed with family and friends we usually ate with them. We also ate with some family and friends we visited even though we weren’t staying the night.

Other than that, we brought snacks with us or bought food at grocery stores along the way. Before we left, I prepared snack bags for the kids for each day of the trip that we spent in the car. Each child gets a gallon ziplock bag full of snacks, some fruit, some sweet, some salty, that they can eat throughout the day whenever they want. I usually buy snacks in bulk and divvy them up myself (or have the kids do it) rather than buy all prepackaged foods. That alone saves lots of money!

For meals in the car, we have sandwiches, rolls, or bagels, string cheese, carrot sticks, apples or oranges, and whatever else we have in our snack bags. For meals at Airbnbs, we’ll make spaghetti and salad, taco soup and cornbread, or another easy dinner.

I know for some people the idea of sticking to your normal food budget while on vacation sounds miserable, but for us it really isn’t. We very rarely eat out in our normal life, so none of our kids know any different. With 8 people in our family, the cost of eating out, even just fast food, adds up quickly. For us, the expense is just not worth it.

In the month of April, we spent $629 total on food with $405 of that being the three weeks of our trip. That was right on budget.

Activities- $188

Like I mentioned in the beginning, the main purpose of the trip was to help my parents in Ohio. We figured that while we were driving across the country was a great chance to see some historical sites. Most of the sites we visited were completely free.

Winter Quarters, Nebraska– $0 After attending church, we visited the Mormon Trail Center museum and toured the pioneer cemetery and temple grounds. We drove into downtown Omaha to explore the amazing statues of Pioneer Courage Park.

Nauvoo/Carthage, Illinois– $0 There is so much to see in Nauvoo and it’s all free. We learned about life in the mid-1800s by touring a blacksmith shop, cobbler, print shop, gunsmith shop, bakery, tinsmith, and more. We learned about making barrels, rope, quilts, and carding wool. We took a carriage ride, wagon ride, and ox cart ride. We could have spent a week here, but we packed as much as we could into three days.

Kirtland/Hiram, Ohio– $0 I grew up not far from these historic towns, so I have been there many times. They have restored and added many buildings since I was a kid. It happened to be Easter afternoon when we toured Kirtland (hence the matching Easter outfits in the picture).

Niagara Falls, New York– $73  After finishing all of the hard work at my parents’ house, we headed up to the American side of Niagara Falls. We hiked around to all of the various views of the different falls on the American side. We stopped by a thrift store to get jackets/coats for some of us. We paid $10 for parking and $63 for the Cave of the Winds tour which included a museum, video, elevator ride and walk to where you are splashed by the water and mist. We had hoped to take the Maid of the Mist boat tour but found that the boat hadn’t started running yet; we were just a couple of days too early in the season.

Palmyra, New York– $0 While we were in upstate New York, we saw a few Palmyra historical sites including tours of homes, museums, a printing press, farm, and a nature walk.

COSI Science Museum– $115 I remember going to Columbus’s Center of Science and Industry as a child and I was eager to take my kids there. In order to get the best deal on tickets, I bought a $75 family pass to a (much smaller) science museum here in California that is part of the reciprocal entry program. That pass gave us free entry for 2 adults and 4 children at COSI, so we only had to pay for two additional kids ($40) at the door. Normal COSI entry would have cost our family $180. By buying the reciprocal pass in California, we saved $65, plus we got access to the science museum here in California for a year.

Amish Country of Ohio– $0 Whenever we would have visitors come to Ohio when I was a kid, we would take them to Amish Country. Everyone loves seeing the horses and buggies. I wanted to go into all the quilt shops, too, but no one else really did. We checked out the cheese factory too, but they weren’t working that day. We had lunch at the Weaver farm and furniture store deli. (The cost of lunch was part of our food budget.)

We knew that most of our activities would be free and we had researched the other ones, so we knew exactly how much to budget. We ended up being $146 under budget because the Maid of the Mist wasn’t running yet.

Other Trip Spending $224

I won’t include these random other expenses in our trip total, but I figured I would at least mention them since they are expenses that happened on our trip.

Uhaul $159

As we were helping my parents, we came up with lots and lots of things to donate. My mom had planned on taking car loads to the thrift store, but Mike quickly recognized that with the quantity we would be donating, it would take too much time and manpower to drive back and forth to the thrift store all day. He rented a U-haul for a couple of days so we could be more efficient. We packed it full twice with thrift store donations!

Thrift Store $13

Speaking of the thrift store, we had to buy a few warmer things for Niagara Falls. Our oldest also lost one of her dress shoes (it must have fallen out of the car at one of our stops), so we grabbed her a new pair of shoes for church.

Cabela’s $52

This spending wasn’t related to our trip at all, but we stopped by Cabela’s when we went through Nebraska. It’s always a fun place to walk around. We got some new flashlights, some socks, and a bag.

That covers it!

We spent just over $3,048 in gas, lodging, food, and entertainment for 8 people for 20 days. Per person, that comes out to $381 per person! Of course, staying with family and friends for half of the nights definitely helped keep the cost low.

There are challenges too, with squeezing 8 people into an 8-seater when your crew includes tall teenagers. Sometimes Mike and I take turns sitting in the squashed seats in the back. But if you can manage the tight quarters, a road trip is a great way to have a very affordable family vacation where you can visit lots of different places.

Does your family take road trips? What are some of your favorite places that you have gone?

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The post Our family of 8 spent $3,048 on a 3-week cross country road trip. Here’s the cost breakdown appeared first on Six Figures Under.

In July we took our first trip to Yellowstone National Park. We met Mike’s siblings and their families there for a family reunion. It was an amazing trip! The park is huge and there is so much to see. We packed our schedule full while we were there and we have a list of what we want to see next time.

After I shared the complete cost breakdown for our Washington DC trip last year, many of you told me how helpful it was and asked that I do the same for other trips. So here goes!

Travel– $560

We drove. We spent roughly $550 on gas. Yellowstone is just under 1,000 miles away, plus there is a lot of driving in the park. Coming from California, gas everywhere on the road (even IN the park) was way cheaper than what we pay at home.

Yellowstone National Park is roughly 15 hours from us. While we could drive that in a day, we couldn’t leave until Saturday afternoon because of a morning swim meet on the day we were leaving, so we had to stop somewhere to sleep. We had planned to just find some national forest or BLM land to camp on since we had our camping things with us.

It was well after midnight when we decided we had better stop. We were near Twin Falls, Idaho, and Google told us that we were a few minutes from Murtaugh Lake Park, a county park with tent camping for $5 a night. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a campsite that cheap in my life! It was closer to our path than places where we could camp for free and it included bathrooms, so it was an easy yes. We didn’t even set up a tent. The kids were asleep in the car so we just laid out a tarp, got out the sleeping bags, and transferred sleeping kids into sleeping bags.

We ended up staying at the same place on the way home, which worked out beautifully since we knew where it was and what to expect. We spent a total of $10 for lodging on the drive.

Entertainment– $80

We paid $80 for a National Parks Annual Pass.

We have six kids, but none of them happen to be a fourth grader this year. In past years we have definitely taken advantage of the Every Kid Outdoors free National Parks Pass for 4th graders and their families. We could have just paid $35 for a 7-day entrance, but we knew we would be driving through Grand Teton National Park on the way home and be visiting other National Parks and Monuments later in the year.

Accommodations– $132

We reserved a campsite about a year in advance. My sister-in-law set the family reunion up. The park was very accommodating and put us in camp sites near one another. We were in Bridge Bay Campground (in Loop F, if I remember right). We stayed 5 nights so the total was $132 for camping in the park.

Side note: One of the coolest things about camping in the park was seeing the wildlife up close. We had huge elk walk right through our campsite the first day we were there, then next day bison walked right through. We didn’t approach them, but they weren’t shy about making themselves at home.

Awkward picture of me, but check out the rack on that elk!

Food– $0

We divided up food responsibilities for breakfast and dinner between families. Each family was responsible for cooking one breakfast and one dinner for the group (about 35 people).

When it was our turn for dinner we had a burrito bar. We brought beans, taco meat, salsa chicken, tomatoes, lettuce, cheese, sour cream, cilantro, salsa, and flour tortillas and let everyone make their own burritos. To make storing the meat super simple, I asked my mother-in-law if she could freeze dry the cooked taco meat and salsa chicken at home in her freeze dryer to that it wouldn’t require any refrigeration. We just rehydrated it and warmed it up on the camp stove.

Our turn for breakfast fell on our last morning there when we were all busy breaking down camp, so we wanted it to be super simple and not require much hands-on work that morning. We baked 12 loaves of quick breads (banana bread, zucchini bread, pumpkin bread, etc) at home before we left. We also brought peaches and apples slices.

Each family handled their own lunches and snacks. We brought the makings for peanut butter and jam sandwiches, lots of apples to slice, granola bars, yogurt, nuts, dried fruit, carrots, crackers, hummus, bagels, and other easy foods. We stopped for pizza on our way home.

I am not including the cost of food, as we used our regular food budget instead of money from our trip fund. If you look at our July budget update you will see that we spent $638 on food for the month of July. It definitely takes some planning to work a trip’s food into the normal monthly budget, but keeping a stocked pantry and food storage makes it much easier than starting from square one.

Equipment– $342

We purchased a few things specifically for this trip. While we bought them for this trip, we look at them as investments in future trips as well.

$76 Bear Spray- While most of us thought it would be pretty cool to see a bear, we hoped we wouldn’t need to use bear spray. Still, we thought it was a smart idea to have a couple of cans anyway. It’s definitely pricey, but we will keep having opportunities to carry (but hopefully not use it) in the future. I think of it like insurance.

$150 Propane Stove– As we discussed the gear we could share for making our meals together, none of us had a propane stove that was big enough to cook for our group, so we decided we would make the investment. Mike has been wanting to upgrade our own camping equipment. Most of our outdoor cooking gear is for backpacking (read: small and light), so with a family our size who loves the outdoors, this Camp Chef two-burner stove was a good investment for us.

$60 Griddle attachment– Having the griddle makes the stove even more versatile. We used it to warm up tortillas (and even make quesadillas for some of the little ones). It will also be great for pancakes, eggs, and french toast in the future.

$52 Propane– We bought a 20lb Amerigas propane canister outside of a Walmart in Idaho. The initial cost was $52. We had plenty of gas left at the end of the week.  When we need to refill, we’ll exchange the empty canister for a full one for just the cost of the gas itself (something like $22, I think).

$4- Ice– We bought a small bag of ice from one of the gas stations in the park. While it’s way more expensive than what you would pay at the grocery store, it’s cheaper at the gas station in the park than in the convenience store/gift shop.

Total cost for 5-day Yellowstone Trip

Vacations can be expensive, especially with a big family. One of the great things about a trip like this, where we drive and then camp, is that an increase in the number of people doesn’t affect the total very much. When we stay indoors, we have to get at least two hotel rooms or a very large Airbnb for the family. When we fly, tickets for eight gets very expensive quickly. For us, driving and camping saves a lot, and is just as much fun!

In all we spent $1,114. Some of that, like the propane stove, is gear we’ll use again and again for years.

If you haven’t visited Yellowstone before, I definitely recommend planning a trip there. It’s a pretty incredible place. We had a great family trip!

The post Yellowstone Family Trip Cost Breakdown– Family of 8 appeared first on Six Figures Under.

In November our family of 8 took an amazing 10-day trip to Washington DC.  It was our first family trip flying instead of driving!

Mike and I had visited Washington DC (just the two of us) two years ago, but felt like we barely scratched the surface. We knew it was something the whole family would enjoy, especially since we have been studying American History this year in our homeschool. Since we were familiar with the city’s attractions and had experience navigating the city via public transportation, we felt comfortable bringing the whole crew. We even invited our parents to join us and had one (my mom) take us up on the offer.

As you’ll see below, Washington DC is a super affordable destination for a family vacation because most of the attractions are free. You could spend weeks scouring all of the museums and still not see everything. We packed our ten days full and had a wonderful time, but there was still so, so much more to see.

When all was said and done, we spent $5,335 on our 10-day trip for our family I’m excited to show you the cost breakdown of exactly what we spent.

$2,198 Airfare for 7 (our youngest was barely under 2, so he flew free)

We flew from Sacramento to DC (Reagan). We flew with Southwest Airlines for several reasons.

First, leg room. The last time Mike and I flew was to Washington DC two years ago. The long cross country flight in the ultra budget seats of another airline nearly killed him (he’s 6’7″), so I researched which airlines have the most leg room.

Second, bags are free. We knew we were going to check luggage and that really adds up with other airlines. Although they may appear to have cheaper tickets, once you take the baggage into account they really aren’t less expensive.

Third, if we needed to change plans we could. You can change your plans without losing money on Southwest as long as you cancel your flight within 10 minutes of departure. We saw how a trip can quickly get ruined back in July, so we wanted to be cautious and not lose money.

My mom got her own plane ticket. I found her a Southwest flight arriving nearly at the same time as us. And when we left DC we even flew out on the same flight!

$0 Rental Car

As you’ll see below, we were very intentional about planning our trip so that we wouldn’t need a rental car. Renting cars is especially expensive now. At the start of the pandemic rental car companies sold off much of their fleet because of low demand, then replacement auto prices went up with supply chain issues. Getting a rental car (or two) for a big group like ours would have been especially expensive. Plus, driving and parking in a big city is not my idea of a good time, so we just used public transportation.

$2,403 Airbnb for 10 nights

Originally I looked at getting a hotel near the National Mall so we would be within walking distance of all the museums and monuments, but that poses some complications for a big family. Since there are 8 of us we would need at least two rooms. That means we would have to split up, which isn’t much fun for parents. Plus, (obviously) is double the cost of one room. Also, hotel rooms are also pretty small for ten days with six energetic kids. One of the biggest reasons we chose an Airbnb over a hotel, though, was to have a real kitchen. And that really paid off.

Airbnbs are harder to find in DC than in other places because the laws are more restrictive, but we managed to find a gem about two miles north of the Capitol. There was room for one more person, and we were delighted to have my mom join us.

$301 Metro Passes

We didn’t want to rent a car in DC because then we would have to drive and park.  Plus, we would have to get a huge van to fit all of us. When deciding between a hotel where we would be close to everything and an Airbnb where we would need to take public transportation, I factored in the cost of Metro passes. I didn’t want to have to “budget” the cost of each individual ride, so I opted for unlimited passes. I ordered the Metro cards online and they sent them to our home in California so we could have them in hand when we arrived. Lucky for us, when I ordered them they were having a sale on Metro passes in hopes of recovering some of the ridership lost during Covid.

Kids under 5 don’t need to pay on the Metro, so that covered two of the people in our group. We bought passes for the other six of us, plus my mom.

Each pass ended up costing $43. That breaks down like this:

$2– Initial cost of the empty card

$14– 3-day unlimited pass (regularly $28)

$19– 7-day short trip pass (regularly $38)

$8— additional cash credit per card (see below)

The unlimited Metro passes took us everywhere we needed to go around DC at any time of day.  We used the cash credit when we took the Fairfax Connector bus to and from Mount Vernon ($2 each way) and to the Air and Space Udvar-Hazy Smithsonian Center in Virginia ($2 each way).

$49 MARC Train

On Sunday we took a train to Maryland to visit Mike’s sister’s family. Even when we’re on vacation, we try to treat Sunday as a special day. We don’t shop, play sports, or do the entertainment sorts of things we do on other days. So we went to church with their family and got to meet our niece’s brand new baby. Our kids enjoyed playing games with cousins that they don’t know very well.  They have a large van so they brought us back to our Airbnb that night. That allowed us to stay later to enjoy dinner together and let the kids play into the night.

$201 Attractions

Washington DC is a very unique travel destination because nearly everything is free!  There are 16 Smithsonian museums and galleries to visit, plus dozens of monuments, beautiful parks and historical sites. Most are open 7 days a week and are completely free.  Some of the most popular attractions require a reservation (a covid accommodation) which sometimes requires a $1-2 fee.

Here’s a list of all of the places we visited and the cost if there was one (if no cost is listed it was free).

• National Zoo– You need a reservation, but there is not a fee make one.
• Capitol Grounds Tour–  We contacted our state representative and one of his staff gave us a nice tour.

• Library of Congress– We gave ourselves a tour of the Library of Congress and enjoyed the special exhibits there.
• National Postal Museum– The Postal Museum was one of our favorites! There were lots of hands-on, kid-friendly exhibits.
• American Art Museum– This was the kids’ first time in an art museum. I was a little nervous but they actually did really well!
• National Portrait Gallery– This museum shares a building with the American Art Museum. We especially enjoyed seeing the presidents portraits.  They’re more interesting than they sound.
• Museum of the American Indian– Mike and I explored this museum extensively on our last trip and we knew our kids would enjoy it.

• National Air and Space Museum– We visited during a time when the hands-on kids’ area was open. We also loved seeing the Wright brothers exhibit and the history of space exploration exhibits.
• Hirshhorn Museum of Modern Art– None of us are big into modern art, so it was fun to learn about something new.  The installations were definitely interesting!

• Museum of American History– There are so many cool exhibits throughout the American History museum.
• National Archives– Reservations are required but don’t cost anything. You get to see the actual Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill or Rights.
• Museum of Natural History– The rock and gem collection in the Natural History Museum had our kids wanting to go back again. We also loved the animal, bug, DNA, fossil, and virus exhibits.

• Museum of African American History and Culture $9 There is so much to see in the African American museum. We enjoyed learning about both history and culture there.
• Ford’s Theater– You can reserve tickets online for $3 each, but there are free tickets available at the box office as well. We went on a Monday that we figured would not be busy and were able to get tickets of all 9 of us for free. We got to go through the museum and then walk through the theater to see where Lincoln was shot. There are some additional exhibits, but they were closed due to covid.
• Holocaust Museum $9– Mike and I were very impacted by the Holocaust Museum on our last trip, so we wanted to bring the kids. After the first floor, we realized it was too heavy for our 10-year-old, so Mike took him and the three little ones outside while the rest of us went through the whole museum.
• Mount Vernon $174– Definitely our priciest excursion, we thought George Washington’s plantation, Mount Vernon, was worth the cost. The plantation is set up like it was in Washington’s day. There was lots to do and see. We wish we had more time for the museum which we saved for the end.  It was very well done with lots of interactive exhibits.

• Air and Space Museum Udvar-Hazy Center– This huge hangar is filled with hundreds of aircraft and spacecraft, including the space shuttle Discovery.

• Lincoln Memorial– We visited this iconic memorial at night.
• Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall– Seeing all of the individual names on the wall is sobering.
• Jefferson Memorial– The walk along the Tidal Basin out to the Jefferson Memorial is beautiful.
• Roosevelt Memorial– The FDR memorial was one of our favorite memorials, a beautiful and extensive tribute to a great president.
• George Mason Memorial– We enjoyed learning about this founding father whose memory is often neglected.
• Martin Luther King Memorial– I love reading the powerful quotes carved throughout this memorial.
• Washington Monument $9– We took the elevator up 500 feet to the top so we could look out the windows at the amazing view. Tickets become available each morning for tours taking place the following day. You can only order 6 tickets at a time (and they sell out within minutes), so part of our group went one day and the rest went the next day.

Things we didn’t do, but wanted to:

• Arlington National Cemetery— We had it in our plans for the last day, but felt like it would be too much uphill walking for our exhausted crew, plus they wanted to go back to the Museum of Natural History again before we left.
• White House— There were no tours due to covid.
• Supreme Court— There was no access due to covid.
• National Bureau of Engraving and Printing– Mike and I enjoyed this tour on our last trip and know the kids would be fascinated, but it was closed due to covid.
• International Spy Museum $26– With all of the amazing free museums on the National Mall, we didn’t look seriously into any paid ones. It’s probably cool, but it didn’t make the cut for this trip.

$0 Food

Okay technically we spent $43 on groceries while we were in DC, but that just came from our regular grocery budget (which is about $500 per month).  The rest of our food we brought with us.

Yep, we packed several suitcases of just food. Another reason why flying Southwest with free baggage was important.

I’m sure that sounds outrageous (and maybe even ridiculous!) to some of you, but hear me out. This was a move that made our trip so much more affordable and laid back than it could have been.

Even fast food for a family of 8 adds up fast, so we just don’t eat out. Like ever. Well, we get pizza sometimes, but other than that we eat home-cooked meals every single day. That wasn’t going to change, even on vacation.

We could have done the grocery shopping in DC, but knowing that we would be getting around via the Metro buses and trains, it didn’t sound like much fun to do a 10-day grocery haul on vacation. Plus, I knew I could get better prices on groceries at home. It’s not that California is cheaper (it’s not). It’s that I know where and how to shop at home. Shopping in DC I would not be nearly the savvy shopper I am at home.  Give me some time and I would figure it out, but as fun as it is to compare unit prices and find deals, it wasn’t what I went on vacation to do!

With our plane tickets we could have checked up to 14 bags for free. We ended up checking 11 bags total, nearly all of them carry-on size since we have a lot of smaller travelers. About 4 of them were full of food because on the way home we consolidated down to only 7 checked bags.

One thing that really helped was that Mike’s mom offered to freeze dry some things for us to bring. She has a freeze dryer that she uses to preserve her garden produce and other foods. I should really do a whole post on freeze drying because it’s pretty amazing. The start-up costs are expensive, but it is a great way to preserve food without losing any of the nutrition. And nutritionally it’s much better than canning or dehydrating.

We brought freeze-dried apples, peaches, blueberries, and strawberries for snacks and to put in oatmeal. It was a great way to bring fruit without the weight or risk of bruising. Freeze dried food has all the moisture removed, so it weighs next to nothing (that’s why backpackers love it). We freeze dried cooked ground sausage, grilled chicken, grilled pork loin, and cheese. We just soaked the meat in water to rehydrate and you would never know it wasn’t freshly cooked. We freeze dried tomatoes and zucchini from our garden and brought it to make spaghetti sauce. She even freeze dried ice cream sandwiches for us as a fun treat when we visited the Air and Space Museum.

What food did we bring? What did we eat?

Here’s a rough idea of our menu (sadly I didn’t take any meal pictures on the trip!):

Breakfast

• • Zucchini bread/Pumpkin bread – I baked and froze about 10 loaves to bring on the trip for breakfast and snacks.
  • Oatmeal – We brought individual packets, as well as regular oats, raisins, and brown sugar to make a big pot of oats.
  • Cold cereal – We did buy milk at a nearby grocery store in DC.
  • Toast with peanut butter

Lunch

• • Peanut butter and jelly/honey sandwiches or bagels and cream cheese – I brought about 10 loaves of sandwich bread with us as well as peanut butter, honey, bagels, and cream cheese. We bought jam in DC since I didn’t want to fly with glass jars.
  • Snacks (see list below)

When you forget to bring a knife with lunch, you improvise and spread cream cheese with part of a bagel.

• Snacks

  • Apple slices
  • Carrot sticks
  • String cheese
  • Granola bars
  • Crackers
  • Cookies
  • Nuts
  • Trail mix
  • Freeze-dried fruit
  • Yogurt

Dinner

• • Lasagna – We brought a frozen lasagna with us.
  • Creamy Taco casserole – We brought all of the ingredients on the plane except milk.
  • Spaghetti – I brought all the freeze dried ingredients to make homemade spaghetti sauce (all of which came from our garden except the sausage)
  • Grilled chicken with mashed potatoes – We brought instant mashed potatoes and freeze dried grilled chicken.
  • Pork with mac and cheese – This was a quick one which was a big hit with the kids.
  • Leftovers – We made some of these meals more than once and also had some leftovers.

$60 Stroller

I bought a double stroller on Facebook Marketplace specifically for this trip. With young kids on a long trip that included lots of walking and lots of museums, I knew we needed a good stroller.  I looked for one that would collapse easily for getting on and off the bus, was skinny enough to fit through normal doorways, and had lots of cargo space for jackets, umbrellas, and our food for the day. When I knew what strollers would be good possibilities I watched Facebook Marketplace for a good deal. I wanted one that was in good enough condition that I could easily sell back afterwards (though we haven’t done that yet). This is the side-by-side double stroller we got and LOVED. It has so much cargo space, is super easy to push and maneuver, each side reclines individually, and it folds up small and fast!

$13 Bike rental

On the day were we did lots of walking around the National Mall to see all of the monuments, we rented a bike from Capitol Bike Share for my mom. The kids would have liked to get bikes or scooters too just for fun, but the app rules say that you need to be 16 to use the bikes or scooters.

$110 Airport parking in Sacramento

We parked our van in the economy long-term parking at the airport for 11 days.

That covers it!

Our total including airfare, accommodations, entertainment, everything else for a 10-day trip to Washington DC for our family of 8 was $5,335. We had a fabulous time!

Is there anything we forgot? Do you have any questions for us?

As we landed in Sacramento, the captain announced our arrival and invited us to fly again with them soon.  The kids heard that and exclaimed, “Yes!! We should do that!”

Where should we go next?  What’s a great place for a fun and affordable family vacation?

Do you go on vacation without eating out?

The post Cost Breakdown for Our 10-Day Washington DC Trip – Family of 8 appeared first on Six Figures Under.