Enjoying San Diego on a Budget

NOTE: This article is from an old blog Golden wrote on from 2017 to 2019. It was called Mama Wants an RV. The blog has since expired but the memories remain. Thanks for reading!

Original Post from July 11, 2017

We recently embarked on another amazing trip to San Diego. I just can’t get enough of the ocean! It’s like the beach is calling my name from the moment the plane sets down. The kids have the "ocean" bug too. However, my husband is adamantly opposed to the beach. It’s just not his thing, and because it’s not his thing, he insists on wearing jeans and boots every time we visit it. Perhaps this is to show his strong distaste for the sand. For him, the beach equals buying another broom to frantically extinguish each and every tiny particle from our hotel room.

Coronado Beach

We have stayed in multiple hotels over the years, but when our budget is tight we look for the best deal possible. I have a strategy when it comes to choosing hotels, and it all began after I signed up for Wyndham Rewards. Their hotels include Super 8, the Baymont, Ramada, plus many more. These are just a few we have stayed at. While it takes 15,000 points for one free night, it only takes 3,000 points to knock off about one hundred dollars off a stay in a larger city.

How we make it work

First, we stay in cheap Wyndham hotels in smaller cities on road trips. We don’t need anything fancy since we’re just passing through. Prices range from $45 to $65 a night. Since we book early, we usually earn 3000 points for one night’s stay! Then when we do plan a trip to someplace big, like San Diego, Denver, or Seattle, we use our points to bring the price down. For example, we stayed at Ramada Limited near Sea World this last trip. The normal price was $165 per night, but we stayed for only $65 per night when we used 12,000 points. The hotel was very nice, and freshly remodeled in the last couple of years.

Food is another way to control spending while on vacation

The hotel served a continental breakfast for free, but it was mostly carbs. So, we made a trip to the grocery store. For breakfast, we bought a 12-pack of frozen burritos for $10 and a pint of yogurt for $3. That’s three days of breakfast for four people. We supplemented with fruit and oatmeal available at the hotel. Lunch purchases included sliced meat and cheese, plus bread and chips. This trip we were savvy enough to remember to bring our left-over Subway packets of mayo and mustard! We also had fruit which we picked up at breakfast. The bagels from breakfast worked well when we were short one day of bread. Total for four days lunch: $12.

Dinner was the time for us to splurge a little bit. After all, we had four days of breakfasts and lunches covered for only $25. There was a Souplantation (also known as Sweet Tomatoes) near our hotel. I’m part of ClubVeg so each week I receive coupons to the restaurant via email. I printed out one before we left. It took $16 off our order! The kids had a great time picking and choosing from the salad bar and bakery, and of course, there was the amazing soft-serve ice cream bar.

Treasures can be found in unexpected places

Seashells hidden in the sand, only revealed at lowest tide

Each time we visit San Diego, we discover neat little restaurants and activities that are reasonably priced. Last November, my husband and I found LaSalsa located across the street from Hotel Del on Coronado Island. If you’ve ever been to Coronado, you know it can be extremely pricey. Well, not LaSalsa! This Mexican shop offers great prices and large portions, all within walking distance from the beach.

Other food stops included Menchie’s, a yogurt chain, where we each got half cups of sorbet or frozen yogurt with our share of yummy toppings. I teach the kids that we are able to go more often when we get appropriate sizes. There’s no sense in filling the cups all the way when it costs so much, plus, that amount of sugar in one helping can make a person sick! On July fourth, we stopped at Wendy’s so each person could get their own four for $4 meal, before driving to the beach to watch the fireworks!

Know what to expect each season

This was our first trip to San Diego during the summer months. Typically, we go during fall, winter, or spring, because it costs so much less, and there are fewer people too! July fourth was an especially busy time of year. We planned our activities as carefully as possible to avoid major crowds during the long weekend.

La Jolla Cave

Sunday found us at La Jolla Cave hiking the trail on the cliffs and watching the sea lions bark. While parking in this area was very full, a spot opened up very close to the trail. The views were spectacular! We made a trip to Ocean Beach afterward and watched the sunset.

Monday was our designated beach day. My husband finally realized if he was going to enjoy his time with the kids, he needed to get in the water. We found him an American flag bathing suit at the grocery store for only $8. After slathering ourselves in sunscreen, we played on the Coronado Beach for eight hours. The farther south you go, the fewer people. There is a small parking lot located off Silver Strand Blvd. and Avenue De Las Arenas. Don’t let the resident booth scare you, just pass on through to the public beach parking straight ahead.

San Diego has got to be one of the most hectic places to be on the fourth of July! It felt like every part of town was having some type of parade, celebration, and fireworks show. We decided to take it easy at Balboa Park, where it was actually quieter than we expected. My husband took a walk around the park with the kids, while I sat in my beach chair reading and coloring under a tree. We also toured the Memorial Rose Garden and then had a picnic. After tossing a football and then a frisbee, we made our way back to the beach.

Get paid after playing hard

Coronado Beach

No, I did not bring a chair to San Diego with us! We stopped at Play It Again Sports early in our trip to gather beach toys, and I found the chair too. The kids got great use out of an $8 boogie board, and my $23 beach chair was a back-saver! We returned both items at the end of our trip and received a $12 check. The store was able to deflate a beach ball for us, and we fit it along with the other toys into our suitcase for the trip back.

Only pack what you really need

Yes, we only took one suitcase! It actually wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be to pack clothes for four. Traveling in the summer made the clothing a tad smaller than if we were traveling in the winter. I had everyone contain their under-garments in their own gallon zip bag, then I squeezed out the air. In addition to sixteen sets of clothing, I was able to fit two beach towels, a picnic blanket, a soft-sided lunch pail, and all of our liquids. We flew with Frontier and the bag charge was $30 each way. As for our airline tickets, we used our miles to purchase tickets for the flight to San Diego, and paid out-of-pocket for the flight back home. This brought our airline costs to about $500 in total.

Since our flight did not leave until 7:30 pm on the fifth, we enjoyed a trip to the Maritime Museum and a 45-minute boat ride on the bay. I found a coupon online which got us $2 off for each person, and the boat ride was only $7 a person with admission. It really was worth it too, perhaps even better than the 1-hour cruises offered close by for $25 a person.

Other expenses included a car rental, gas, and parking. Our four-day trip came to about $1250, roughly $300 person! For San Diego, I would say that’s pretty reasonable.