Our Trip By the Numbers

We got back last night from a wonderful vacation to the Pacific Northwest.  It was SO beautiful and green there.  Loved it!!  Here's our trip by the numbers (all costs are for two people):

• Total trip was 10 nights, 11 days.  We went to Portland, Vancouver, Seattle, Silverdale/Poulsbo, Pt Angeles, and Victoria BC.
• We spent two nights in a hotel in Victoria ($121.72) and the other eight nights at the homes of friends and family.
• Transportation costs were: flying from Las Vegas to Portland ($179.80), taking Amtrak from Vancouver to Seattle ($54.00), and flying back from Seattle to Las Vegas ($241.60).  Fortunately the hubby's cousin loaned us one of his cars so we only used public transportation in Victoria but otherwise had a free car to use for most of our vacation.
• We spent approximately $500 in spending money (everything from ferry fees to meals out to gas to buying a few things at the Goodwill, to snacks, day passes for the bus, etc).  I should have kept better records!
• We saved money by: having free places to stay, not doing any tourist activities that required a fee (meeting up with friends was fun and a few took us out to eat, walking around the parks/waterfront areas, etc), parking in Pt Angeles (cost $18) instead of taking the car with us on the ferry (cost would have been $58 EACH WAY to do so; public transportation in Victoria was about $5 per person per day), eating out at inexpensive places when necessary.
• We could have saved more money if: I would have liked Filipino food (it was like a gourmet restaurant at the cousin's house because their in-laws were also staying there and they formerly owned a restaurant in the Philippines and needless to say they were excellent cooks, unfortunately I don't like Filipino food so I usually picked up fast food to eat--not healthy and not cost-effective), we took the absolute cheapest flights to and from the Pacific Northwest (we paid a bit more for Delta Airlines in order to get air miles and also to reduce the return flight from nine hours (!) to four hours, we didn't eat out as much (we hit a few nice restaurants and technically could have bought food and cooked it but eating out is part of traveling for us).
• And some other nifty tricks: we shut off our phones in BC so we didn't get charged for international roaming so when we weren't together we had to set times and locations to meet up; for my birthday my SIL said "go out to a nice meal on me" but instead of spending $100+ on just the two of us at a fancy place, we used the money to take us and the four cousins out to a nice buffet place (Kings Wok in Silverdale which was awesome) which I thought was an excellent use of the money; I bought a great pair of jeans for $1.29 at the Goodwill in Silverdale (I just can't seem to pass up a thrift store these days), we only bring two carry-on bags each and never check luggage with the airlines (saves on the fees).

Overall we had a wonderful trip.  Now I am looking forward to our next adventure which will be either to San Francisco, Chicago, or New Orleans (I think we will postpone the cruise to the fall because it looks like I may have an eight-week temporary job at the end of May).