WOW! Going on holiday is an expensive business isn’t it!? I always wondered why people could never afford to go away as much as we have been traveling over the past 5 years… Until now, that is. I’ve been planning a trip to San Francisco for a few weeks in April – I can’t wait, but boy this is going to put a dent in our wallets!

Generally as a rule and necessity, Alex and I will only travel if we have a house swap, have managed to rent our place out via Airbnb or have found extremely cheap, but lovely accommodation. We are not used to paying top dollar for an average place to rest our weary heads after a day of sightseeing. For some reason, when I booked the flights to San Fran (a drunken whim), I didn’t quite investigate accommodation in the area as well as I normally would have. I hadn’t planned on spending this much, that’s for sure.

We have no swap and have not quite finished renovating our home in time to rent it out. San Francisco apartments seem to cost more than anywhere I’ve ever been. Did I mention this is going to cost us dear?

I’m not going to let it get me down. There’s a fabulous holiday at the end of the rainbow! We are just going to avoid eating, drinking and feeding the cat and no doubt we’ll find scrape the funds together. We are going to split our trip between San Fran with a few days in LA and have at least managed to book all of our accommodation via Airbnb, rather than any of the pretty average hotels on offer for our budget. I’m picky don’t you know.

One of the main issues in San Fransisco is finding accommodation with a place to park up a hire car. Parking is hard to come by in the area, in fact, most people don’t recommend driving. However, we certainly can’t go without a car, as we will be driving to various places out of town. Most hotels add a $45 to $55 charge for parking per day and then on top of that fee, you have to remember to add the dreaded tax.

You may think I’m’ going slightly over the top here, but when you are a bit of a skin-flint like myself and only like the best for the cheapest price possible, it’s certainly a shock to the system when you have to pay ‘normal’ people’s prices.

Forgetting all about the money and the lack of fun that I’m going to have before we go away, I’m certainly looking forward to this holiday. I have just joined yet another home exchange website… So, any other trips that we take this year will have to be done via one of those – Or they simply won’t happen at all.
I have just searched out a list of the most expensive cities to go on holiday. San Francisco is not high up on that list. I am obviously an over reacting, tight arse! Saying that, we only travel as much as we do because of that very reason.

Chart from Mercer’s 2011 Cost of Living survey

What’s country has been your biggest holiday investment?