The Perfect Family Vacation
As many of you know, our family just competed our summer vacation using most of the ideas and techniques we talk about. We really want you to know we live what we talk about so that you can be assured it is possible.
Our trip took us first to Prague for four days/three nights. We stayed in a wonderful apartment, which fit all six of us perfectly and had a kitchen that we used to cut down on the food cost. ($89.00/night) Keep in mind the hostel down the street was $18/night which is fine if you are traveling by yourself but as you can see the apartment was much less for six of us. Keep this in mind when you are looking at Bed & Breakfasts, Hostels and other accommodations, what is the charge per person.
We then rented a car and drove to Vienna, Austria to stay again for three nights. We found a new place for car rentals in Europe that had incredible prices – $120 for the rental and we spent nearly that for gas (a little over $8/gal), $105. The company we went through was Argus Car Rentals and the price included the insurance which is important. We stayed at the Courtyard by Marriott, which was just a block away from the Shonbrunn Palace and the best part, it was FREE. We used our Marriott reward points as we talk about in chapter three of our book.
From Vienna we drove back to Prague and stayed again for FREE at the Courtyard by Marriott at the Prague airport then a next day flight to Milan Italy. We thought about driving from Vienna down through Italy but the drop off fee for the car was over $1000 and our flights to Italy were only $34. We also rented a car in Italy from Argus for $407 for the two weeks.
We stayed two nights in Venice, $90/night at the Hotel Piave. This was a quad room in Mestre just outside of Venice. We then stayed at our favorite place in Italy, Capezzana, at the farm house for three nights at $53 /night finally 2 nights in Florence at an apartment $55/night.
We then stayed the remainder of our time in Sorrento along the Amalfi Coast at no cost with some amazing friends. Our last night was also FREE at the Marriott in Milan before we flew home.
So, a breakdown of the cost. We spent more than the last time we were here mainly because of the exchange rate and gas prices. We also stayed in more “pay” places because we moved around so much.
Breakdown for 6 people
Item Our cost Regular price
Airfare (all flights) $656 $10,600
Accommodation $716 $2,040
Rental Car & Gas $1,032 $2,360
Food $1,260 $2,340
Misc/Souvenirs $865 $865
Total $4,529 $18,205
We saved $13,676 on this trip using the ideas in ‘Have Kids – Will Travel’.
*Originally posted 7/2011
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