Would appreciate the MMM community's input on how to financially prepare for a wedding trip now, which is scheduled to occur in October 2019.
Spouse's youngest brother is newly engaged & is planning his wedding in mid October 2019. He's planning on moving & having the wedding in Pensacola, Florida.
Spouse and I plan on driving from our house in Lincoln, Nebraska to Pensacola, Florida. Drive time is approximately 2 days, with stops in St Louis going there & Nashville driving back.
We have a 3.5 year old son who will 4 years & 9 months old at the time of the wedding.
Brother in law & his fiancee want everyone to stay in the same hotel block, although they haven't selected it or even moved to the area yet. They will do so in February 2019.
For the drive down, we plan on driving to St Louis after work & school (3 pm) & we'll stay with a cousin of mine in St Louis for the night. We will drive down to Pensacola Florida the next day. For the drive home, we'll swing through Nashville & stay with another cousin of mine, then spend the next day driving back to Lincoln, Nebraska.
We are planning 3 days of driving, total: half of a day down to St Louis, a full day down to Pensacola, a bit more than half of a day to Nashville, then a full day home to Nebraska. The plan in staying with cousins is to visit relatives whom I really like & haven't seen in awhile & also, to minimize lodging costs. Costs might be $75 in treating cousins and their families to dinner & gas down (2006 Toyota Camry that gets 25 mpg combined with city & highway driving). Gas usage will be 93 gallons according to the calculator, so I'll round up to 100 gallons.
Travel: 100 gallons of gas at whatever the rate is in Oct 2019 + $75 in meal costs for cousins in St Louis & Nashville
Lodging at the wedding: I'm inclined to go Airbnb once the engaged couple determine where they want to have their wedding. My reason for this is that we plan to stay for 6 nights, making it a longer vacation and leaving enough time for son to enjoy the ocean (this will be his first trip). However, we may need to do the hotel room block for at least 2 of the 6 nights, just to make things easier for the engaged couple. Son & husband are in the wedding party.
Questions:
What would you suggest as a way to reduce lodging costs for 6 nights? We don't have a travel rewards credit card, because we don't like to fly & we mostly tent camp or stay with family members on vacation.
Suggestions for an estimated cost for a 12 day total vacation (driving 3 days, 8 work days & 4 weekend days)? It's spouse and I, along with our son, who'll be 4.75 years old at the time. We love nature & hiking. We'd prefer to cook for ourselves instead of going out to eat whenever possible.
Travel costs are projected to be somewhere between $400-$500.
Thanks in advance for your help!