Hello all,
I just came back from a 4-day trip (from NYC area to Philadelphia) with my two tween kids. I spend a total of $653. I know I spend too much money on food while we were away, but otherwise it seems ok. I want to know what you think and how I can improve in the future.
The breakdown of costs:
Hotel: booked Days Inn through price line outside the city for $186 total for 3 nights. Hotel was fine, the town we stayed at was fine. But overall, it was a bit too far from Philadelphia. It was taking me on average almost an hour to go between hotel and the center of Philly. It was made worse that there didn’t seem to be a good way to get into the city and we were taking mostly local roads and streets. On the other hand, it was the cheapest hotel rate I could find.
Activities: $87 - includes two museum admission for three people (my older kid is charged adult admission price)
Parking: $28 - parked twice in garages in Philadelphia (one time was able to get early bird special rate). Did not see street parking that would be for more than couple hours at a time.
Gas/Tolls: Total of $112. This includes $40 charged to my credit card for EZ Pass refill (not sure how much I actually spend on tolls, probably around $50). And I came back with practically full tank of gas in the car (filled up in NJ just before entering NY to get cheaper gas prices - $2.95 in NJ vs $3.50 in NY).
Food, water, medicine, misc.: This came to $240. During the trip one of my kids wasn't feeling well and I ended up getting medicine at the drug store. Also bought a lot of bottled water at the drug store. The water at the hotel was not drinkable (it reeked of chlorine, I couldn't even brush my teeth with it). We all were getting dehydrated as the weather was a lot warmer this past weekend then we were used to in the last few weeks and we generally drink a lot of water, but at home it's not a problem, but on the trip we needed bottled. As for food, we had breakfast provided by the hotel. Usually had lunch out, and then had snacks etc. in the hotel room for dinner, except one expensive dinner out at our favorite place. This one dinner was $68 (tips included). I also bought kids some treats of a more expensive variety to try (like gourmet chocolate truffles and marzipan which they haven't had before).
This is it. I have to say, I'm not sure if the expensive dinner was worth it. We like the place, but their prices went a up a bit lately and overall, I am just not sure on the whole thing. I'm very much on the fence about this particular charge.
What do you think overall? What would you do different for a trip like this?
I am planning to do more long weekend trips with my kids within 3-6 hour drive from NYC and may be a trip to Canada (Niagara Falls, Quebec, etc) sometime in the spring or early summer.
Please note we are not campers and never will be. I have no interest to even try it, so please don’t go that route in your suggestions. However, I don’t mind cheap or very cheap accommodations in hotels/motels/etc. Not looking for luxury here, just not going to change who we are.