How to Plan a Weekend Trip
Today, I'm in Wichita Falls in North Texas. It’s a small Texas town and that suits my small travel budget, so let’s talk about what I did during my weekend here and how much I spent on it!
Small Budget, Small Destination
I’ve been to some pretty interesting places, but the truth is, you don’t need an exciting place to have a nice time. When your goal is budget travel and you’re open to having experiences and adventures of all kinds, there are tons of places to explore all over the map that may surprise you.
That was my experience in Wichita Falls, Texas, which is the less famous Wichita Falls but which is definitely an interesting place to visit. The weather here was beautiful and the free attractions were surprisingly unique. There’s a lot of historic beauty and culture packed into this small town.
Space it Out
When you need to plan an itinerary for a short trip, don’t try to pack too much stuff in. It can be tempting to try to squeeze as much in as possible but if you do that, you’ll end up running out of time or running out of energy, or both, so pick and choose what you want to do during a short trip by choosing what you want to do most. Focus on this.
Give Yourself Time
And don’t try to squeeze more time out of the trip by scheduling short periods of time to visit attractions. Once you get to an attraction, take your time to go ahead and see it. Why else did you go at all, if not to enjoy it? Be selective about what you do if you have a lot of options, and focus on enjoying the stuff you do end up doing, and you’ll have a great trip.
I added plenty of down time to my weekend getaway schedule, including some shopping time. So let’s go through my itinerary and my budget for this short weekend trip.
Night 1
It was actually late at night by the time I reached my destination in Wichita Falls, because I personally don't like to fly in the morning. I'm not an early riser, so there's need to try to kid myself and end up missing a flight because I slept too late. I don't need that kind of stress, so I try to schedule my flights for a more reasonable hour, so this put me in Wichita Falls at night. I had just enough time to get settled and get to sleep so I could have a full day the next day.
My brief first night in Wichita Falls cost me $25, plus the groceries I sent on ahead, because the driver overcharged me. An Uber would have been $12.
Day 1
For my first full day in Wichita Falls, my only full day here, I took an Uber for $17.08 to get my rental car from the airport, which was $151.55.
There's not much going on by way of public transportation in Wichita Falls and I couldn't ride Ubers to a bunch of different locations, so getting a rental car was the most economical choice even though, honestly, that's way too much to charge for a single weekend in a super low traffic town.
Either way, I hit up the free art museum and the World's Little Skyscraper next, two attractions here that I talked about in my most recent blog post. I visited another free art museum and garden and visited a cool thrift shop type place.
Lunch was $22.64 and it was way overpriced, which is also something I mentioned in my last blog, and I did a little shopping in the afternoon to get a better look around Wichita Falls.
I called it an early night and spent tie relaxing in the morning before going to the airport to fly out to Dallas. I ended up spending $11.74 on snacks and drinks while I was out shopping, and ultimately spent $61.39 on groceries because I did have to buy a little more than I needed just because of the way stuff is packaged. Like, I knew I wouldn't eat an entire loaf of bread, but what are you going to do?
Total Price
With the flight, the trip insurance, all these expenses I just discussed plus an extra checked bag fee, which was an unexpected and totally unasked for expense, the entire trip was $847.91. This was a bit over my budget of $800, but most of that is the $35 checked bag fee so actually, I was very close to budget.
A weekend getaway can be anywhere that takes you away from home. You don’t need a big city or a beach or someplace flashy. There’s a lot to discover in small towns all over. So do some discovering and hopefully, you’ll take a weekend trip of your own soon. If so, drop me a comment and tell me all about it!
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