Next family road trip- Vancouver, WA

Yep, we're headed to Vancouver over next Memorial Day weekend, May 21-24, 2009. We'll be attending the Life is Good Conference at the Red Lion Hotel.

I'm looking at renting a beach house, because the price of a hotel for the week ends up being more than a beach house. I wasn't too crazy about staying at a different hotel than the one the conference was at this time, I did it mainly because the price was so much cheaper- $311 for hotel and flight, the flight alone was supposed to be more expensive than that.

This time, though- I'm wondering if I can get a beach house close enough to the convention. I guess I should see if they're having late night sessions, see how far we can get a house from the hotel. It would be nice if we could be right next door.

A beach house would be cool, we could share it with another family.

I don't know. I need to build a little countdown widget. I should also check out the hotel discounts, in case I decide I don't want to stay elsewhere. The point, though is that I need to get my family to one of these conferences.

Home from the trip

Did you know that United charges $15 for each bag you check, even if it's not oversized.

I didn't budget for that, I should probably have just layered all of my clothes on top of each other to wear home.

Had I factored the $30 into my budget, I would have chosen a different airline, tickets were $12 more and their bags were free.

Next time I travel, I will just bring an empty bag, buy clothes at a thrift shop when I get to my destination and then only pay to bring it home. Yeah right- I'm not really that organized.

Cheaper Travel Wardrobe

I foresee a revolution of thrift shops popping up around airports. I don't know if you buy clothes at thrift shops. My kids go through clothes so quickly, we are very blessed to have friends around us often giving bags full of clothes to my girls, but when we need something right away, we head off to Value Village or something. Anyhow- so I get to the airport, after carefully budgeting for my trip, and am completely surprised by the fact that I have to pay $15 to check a bag. It wasn't over-sized, that's just the cost now, $15 for every bag you check. So there goes my lunch money. If i had known about that, I wouldn't have spent money buying clothes before I left, I would have just bought them when I got there. So $30 round trip to bring my clothes. I have half a mind to wear them all home, so I don't have to pack anything. If I weren't traveling with a baby I'd do that. Hmmm, maybe we should both do that. I bet it's cheaper to mail my stuff home. I wonder if I tried a Space bag, could I fit it all into my backpack?

Save a Fortune on Hotel Phone Calls

Instead of calling my kids from the hotel, which would cost a fortune, I use a website that I found that calls them and gives them a message. It looks like it's marketed for prank calls, which is rude- but just to send a message from the internet, it's a great idea. All you do is punch in the phone number you're calling, you get to choose your own caller ID number and name, which doesn't show up at my house, it just says unknown and then you type in a message. A man's voice, which doesn't sound too robotic (according to my kids) relays the message. The first time I used the service, the kids were confused. "Mom- some guy just called us and said 'call your mother, she misses you and she wants you to call her' and he didn't even answer after that." Anyhow- I hope you enjoy that little travel tip.