See All Our Costs For Our Family Vacation

See How Much Our 6 Day Family Vacation Cost

Do you ever wonder how much other people spend on their vacations? Often times people will say “I’m headed to XYZ because I just got a hotel for such a good deal!” I’m always interested to hear how much the trip ended up costing.

I am going to show you exactly how much our family of 5 spent on our last trip. It was a 6 day trip.

Last year we moved from Utah to Texas (Austin area). It was our first holiday season away from our families. For the past decade, we have always had Thanksgiving dinner with either my family or my wife’s family or sometimes even both. We knew this year was going to be different. In October we starting thinking about our options. Those were, have it with just our little family, invite some friends over, or hope someone invited us to their house (which someone did). We also got another invitation to go to Florida.

We have some friends (& their friends & their friends, it’s a large group) that have a tradition of going to Fort Walton Beach Florida every Thanksgiving. We were invited so we decided to go. At first glance, it seemed like it was going to be kind of expensive. Everyone in this large group (probably 50+ people) all stay at the same resort & since we were probably the last ones to book the options seemed very limited. Flights were crazy expensive which eliminated that option. The drive is 12 hours. We would probably not want to drive the entire way so we’d have to book an additional hotel each way. I was thinking the trip was going to cost over $2K.

Booking Where We Stayed

After some research & just three weeks before Thanksgiving, we decided to book it. We found a 3 bedroom place on the top floor with THE best 270-degree view! I am all about paying a bit more for a good view. We booked it for 4 nights. It was $775.89 including cleaning fee, resort fee, insurance, & taxes. We booked it through Homeaway.com. It was perfect for our family of 5.

We also decided to break up the drive on the way down there & stay one night in Louisiana. Since we have never been to Louisiana we wanted to stay somewhere a little more unique rather than just finding a Holiday Inn Express. Our friend suggested the Nottoway Plantation Resort. We checked it out online a loved it. We stayed in a gorgeous little cottage with a pond right out front. It was $87.73 for the night booked through Expedia.

Before we left on our drive to Louisiana we ate breakfast at home & brought some snacks. We did buy some snacks at Bucc-ee’s (THE BIGGEST GAS STATIONS EVER) $10.93 on the way but we didn’t stop for an official lunch.

There isn’t really anything near Nottoway Plantation but that didn’t matter. The grounds are beautiful. They have a restaurant on site in the bottom of the mansion which we ate at. The food was good but pricey. I would eat there again but I wouldn’t bring my kids. We spent $80 for dinner there! That was almost as much as we paid for our room. We also really enjoyed the hot tub & pool. The pool was freezing which probably explains why no one was there besides us.

On the drive from Louisiana to Florida we did stop & eat out at Panera Bread, $20.34 but we didn’t even buy any more snacks.

Finally In Florida

Once we made it to Florida we bought groceries & only ate out for Thanksgiving dinner. We ate at an Ocean Buffet which was $51 for ALL 5 of us. We played at the beach all day every day which is free.

For our drive home, we didn’t book a hotel. We thought that we would play it by ear. If our kids did well then we would just drive all the way home. Luckily our kids did amazing & we drove the full 12 hours. We stopped once to eat at Panera Bread again, $27.52 & also some gas station stops. We made it home around 9 pm & had a great trip.

Here is what we spent on that trip:

Gas – $147.33

Groceries – $127.31

Eating out – $189.79

Resorts – $863.62

We spent $1,328.05 on that trip however, our out-of-pocket expenses were $464.43 because we had travel reward points from our credit card that covered the $775.89 stay in Florida & the $87.73 stay in Louisiana🙌🏼 

Here is a picture of the actual transactions that happened during that trip.

When you break down the total we spent, even without the reward points, it’s a very doable amount for a family to go on vacation. It would equate to saving $110.67 a month to go on an annual trip like this one.

I think that sharing this kind of personal financial information is helpful. It’s nice to be able to see what other people are spending so you can reference that with how much you spend.

Hope this will help when you’re planning your next trip & feel free to leave a comment or email me.