San Diego With Kids: The Budget

I promise I will share a budget breakdown in this post, but first a note on traveling with friends. Just because you are friends with someone doesn’t mean you should take a trip together. Even under ideal circumstances, travel can have its stressful moments, so you want to be really honest with yourself about whether or not your travel styles and preferences are similar or at least compatible.

Kacy and I are excellent travel buddies for the following reasons: 1) I really enjoy planning trips, taking into consideration others’ preferences and Kacy prefers to clearly communicate her preferences and then leave the planning to someone else (although for the record, she can plan both a great trip and a great party). Having multiple “planners” or no one who wants to pay attention to the details is probably going to lead to more conflict, a less fun trip, or no trip at all. 2) We enjoy doing many of the same things and are willing to compromise. If you enjoy entirely different activities, you will either take turns being miserable or won’t actually spend time together. I do think it can be great to take time to do your own thing when traveling with friends, but if you don’t want to do any of the same things, you may not be the best travel partners. It’s also important to compromise. Legoland is a great example of this - because of Harrison’s age, this wasn’t high on my list of must dos, but was for Kacy and her boys. So we did it and had a great time, although it’s probably not a stop I would have made if traveling just with Harrison. 3) We are on the same page about budget when traveling. This is crucial. If one person wants to save money by cooking all their own meals and the other wants to eat every single meal at a fancy restaurant, you may not be ideal travel buddies. If one of you wants to stay at the cheapest hostel you can find and one of you can’t imagine staying in less than a 4-star hotel, you may not be ideal travel buddies. There is nothing wrong with either approach; you just need to have a discussion to ensure your approach to spending money is similar enough to have a trip you both enjoy and feel good about.

That leads me to the budget for our trip to San Diego. Kacy and I agreed on the big stuff beforehand - where we were staying, driving vs. flying, major activities. Then when we were actually on the trip, we both took a pretty relaxed approach to spending. We generally took turns paying for meals or coffee and filling the van with gas, but we didn’t worry too much about the specifics. Which is why this is just a general budget for our trip with some estimates here and there.

One of the best things about traveling with friends (other than being with actual friends, obviously) is being able to split some major expenses. In this case, we shared the cost of our home rental, which was expensive but equivalent to what we would have spent on two hotel rooms and gave us so much extra space, and the cost of gas for the hybrid minivan Kacy’s mom generously let us borrow for the trip. The costs below are my estimated expenses.

Accommodation: $597.52

The Airbnb cost $1215.03 for three nights and was worth every penny. I had a $20 credit, bringing the total down to $1195.03, which we divided evenly.

Transportation: $150

Kacy and I each probably put one tank in each way and one-ish while we were in San Diego. This was certainly less than the cost of plane tickets and a rental car.

Food: $250 - $300

We could have cooked, but we didn’t. Instead we ate tacos and drank lots of coffee (me) or tea (Kacy). This is really a general estimate of what I spent on food. Some of our most expensive meals were, unsurprisingly, when we were a captive audience at the San Diego Zoo and Legoland. Outside of that, we tried to find the best local spots. We also grabbed Wing Stop and Pizza Hut on the trip home and found a park to eat it in because we are all about balance.

Activities: approx. $250

The 3 big activities we did were the Birch Aquarium ($19.50), the zoo ($62), and Legoland ($100.99). There were also some miscellaneous costs such as parking at Torrey Pines and the various souvenirs we just had to buy. Kacy’s costs for the same activities (not including souvenirs) were closer to $500 because of the extra child and many of Harrison’s tickets were free or significantly discounted because of his age. It is worth considering a Go City Pass. I did the math for our trip and it made more sense for us to buy tickets for these activities individually, but depending on what you want to do, the Go City Pass may save some money.

Total cost: approx. $1200

We had the best time in San Diego. I am looking forward to many more trips with my sweet boy in the future, especially if we can take those trips with amazing friends. Those memories are truly priceless.