Mini-vacations are great: How much did we spend?

After my post/rant about how Americans don’t get enough vacation and the fact that I hadn’t done anything memorable since January, I just returned from a two day “mini-vacation”, which unfortunately seems to be the most popular way for people to take a break these days, especially on those sacred three day weekends. Well, I already missed President’s Day weekend, so I skipped out of work a couple hours early on Friday and we just set off to a nice, nearby coastal town for a couple nights.

I tried to get the most bang for the buck that I could. I had a couple of free hotel nights coming to me from my Marriott Rewards membership, primarily from signing up for their credit card. Right now, they are offering 15,000 Marriot Points, which will get you a free hotel room in itself, but when I signed up they were offering a free bonus night in addition the points. Pretty sweet deal considering one night is worth at least $100 in itself.

We stayed at a Residence Inn, which are great. Their suites are huge, with a separate living room with sofa-bed, full kitchen, and bedroom with spacious bathroom. I mean, it’s bigger than most studio apartments! You get free high speed internet (which my wife banned me from using, ergo the lack of recent posts), and a hot breakfast buffet complete with waffles, eggs, biscuits, gravy, yogurt, etc. Very homey. Lots of families on spring break there, I can see how families would really appreciate such amenities.

With hotel covered other than a $15 parking charge (shrug), our major expenses were food and shopping. We enjoyed some great seafood and local sugary treats. Definitely took our minds off of work for a bit. It was nice to walk pretty much everywhere and we took advantage of the hotel courtesy shuttle. After tallying things up:

Hotel/Parking: $15
Food: $120
Souvenirs, etc: $20
Gas: $20
——————
Total: ~$175

Totally worth it. I can’t wait for my full week of vacation in April.