The title of the post isn’t a misprint. I spent $1,500 on a 15 day trip that I took with a friend out west including flights.
No, we didn’t sleep in the car, eat peanut butter sandwiches for every meal, or not do anything fun the whole trip. Personally, I am not a sleep in the car kind of guy. The peanut butter sandwiches are a differnt story.
We did a number of things that helped us save money on the trip. For example, we used credit card points and miles to save quite a bit on the trip. I share approximately how much we saved towards the end so make sure to keep reading.
A Little Background First
I love to travel. So, when my good friend, Bob Earle, came to me and asked if I would like to go on a trip with him to celebrate his retirement I jumped at the chance. Of course, that was after asking my wife if it was okay. Whew!
One of the things that we both wanted to do was keep our expenses in check on the trip. In this blog post, I want to share various categories and what I spent in each one of them.
Trip Route
Bob and I talked about a number of different routes to take and how long the trip would be. We eventually decided on a 15 day trip that would be through the western part of the U.S.
The following route is what we decided that we would do. We flew into Denver from Cleveland, and then drove to Moab, UT, Salt Lake City, Jackson, WY, McCallister, MT, Bozeman, MT, Sheridan, WY, Rapid City, SD and back to Denver to fly home.
Cost Breakdown
Most trips that people take have certain categories that they are going to spend money on. The following are the 6 major categories that we had on this trip: flights, hotels, rental car, gas, activities, and miscellaneous.
Here is a cost breakdown of each one of the categories.
Flights
It is no mystery if you are flying to get somewhere that can be one of the major expenses for the trip. I don’t know anyone that doesn’t like to save on flights. Fortunately, for us we were able to do just that.
I have the Southwest Companion Pass. What the pass allows you to do is bring along a companion with you on any flight, as long as there is a seat available, only paying taxes and fees.
I have a post about how the Southwest Companion Pass works and how you can earn it.
For these flights, I made Bob my companion. I then used points to book my flight. You still have to pay taxes and fees when using points. Taxes and fees came to $5.60 one way. My total for the round trip ticket from Cleveland to Denver and back home was $11.20.
If you are interested in saving on flights, I have a couple of other posts about how to find cheap flights and how to use Google Flights that you may find helpful.
Hotels
Another major line item when traveling is lodging. Fortunately for us, this wasn’t a major expense at all.
Bob had a bunch of Hilton points that he had accumulated over the years while he was working. He was able to book 11 nights at different Hilton hotels on our route.
We were also able to stay at a friend of Bobs for 3 nights. Between the points and the friend’s stay, we had $0 out of pocket cost for our lodging. See, no sleeping in cars involved.
You may or may not have a big stash of hotel points or any friends (I mean on the route of your trip). I have two posts that can help you. The first one deals with ways to save on hotel stays and the other one addresses when you can buy hotel points to save money.
Rental Car
If you have rented a car since the pandemic, you know how much rental cars can be. This was our first major expense on this trip.
There are a number of things that I like to do to find a good to great deal on a rental car. I use many of the tips in my post about how to find the best car rental deals.
I personally like SUVs when traveling. The best deal on a SUV that I could find was through Costco Rental Cars. I have two other posts about rental cars that can help you save some money.
The first is about Costco Rental Cars and the other is how to use the website Autoslash.
The total cost of the rental car was $858.90. My share was $429.45.
Food (Restaurants – Snacks – Groceries)
Everyone needs to eat but the nice thing when it comes to food is that there are ways that you can cut down on the cost.
One of the ways that we saved on restaurants was that Bob booked hotels that had free breakfast. That helped cut out one meal in a restaurant every day.
I ended up spending $376.98 on meals, snacks and groceries.
Gas
Unfortunately, neither of us owned any gas stations along the route to save on gas. Bob and I took turns filling up the car. My total for gas was $273.92.
Activities
Who doesn’t want to do something when you go on a trip? Again, the nice thing about activities is that you can control the cost because you get to choose what you want to do.
We ended up going to one state park, 6 national parks, one national monument, and one national memorial. There was no cost getting into the state park.
The way that we saved money on getting into the national parks and national monument was by having a National Park Pass. A National Park Pass is $80 and is good for a full year.
The national monument and national parks woud have cost us $220 if we bought a pass at the gate of each one. The National Park Pass saved us $140.
The most expensive thing that we did was going ziplining in Moab, Utah. It was worth the money that we spent. It was $214.50 per per person including tip. You can read about the zipline experience by clicking here.
While in Salt Lake City, we went to a Salt Lake City Bees minor league baseball game. The game cost $53.75 per person. We ended the trip by going to Mount Rushmore which cost $10.
We also went to various other places, like the little league field from the movie “Sand Lot,” along the way and did some other smaller things.
The total cost for activities was $330.75.
Miscellaneous Items
The rest of the costs of the trip I am putting into the miscellaneous category. This would include things like sunscreen, band aids, souvenirs etc. Who forgets sunscreen? That would be me.
The total for this category was $96.81.
Total Cost of the Trip
If you total up all of the different expenses for the trip, it comes to a total of $1,507.91. The cost of the hotels that we stayed in without points would have been $1,525 per person. The flights would have been $300 per person. So, we were able to save $1,825 per person.
Trip Itinerary
If you are interested in seeing where we stayed, what we did, places we ate at and some tips and recommendations, I have a 15 day travel itinerary that I will be posting soon.
Travel Credit Cards
As you can see, points and miles can help you to save on flights and hotels. One of the best ways to earn and get points and miles is by opening up travel credit cards.
Many people are nervous about opening up numerous credit cards. They think that it is going to trash their credit and if the card has an annual fee it isn’t going to be worth the money. I had the same concerns but they aren’t true if you have just a little knowledge.
I first opened up some credit cards to help with travel about 6 years ago. At the time, I didn’t really know what I was doing. All I knew was that we were going on a 10 day California trip and I wanted to save some money.
I opened up 3 different credit cards and I was able to book 8 nights in hotels. We stayed with family for the other couple of days. We didn’t have any out of pocket expense with hotels which was my goal.
If you want to learn a little more about how to earn and use credit card points and miles, I have a post that can help you.
Final Thoughts
The trip that Bob and I took was a blast. We made some great memories along the way. It was also nice that we were able to save money by using miles and points and sharing the cost on a few other items along the way.
No matter if you are an individual, couple, or family, there are things that you can do to cut down on your cost of a trip and still have a great time.
Make sure to go to my blog Travelwidstom. You will find helpful posts about saving money on travel, credit card points and miles, destinations, travel itineraries and more.
If you have any questions or want to leave a comment, you can do so in the comment box.
