We are having a hard time on what to do this summer and not spend alot on vacation. I don't know if anyone else has the same problem but everything we look at is alot of money. What do you guys do?

One place I always recommend when people ask for frugal vacation ideas is St. Louis. Our family has been there several times and really enjoyed it and it was by far our cheapest vacation. When we went we usually just spent 4 days/3 nights or so. We stayed different places...always with a breakfast buffet, and they were all reasonable. The St. Louis Zoo, Science Museum, Grant's Farm (our favorite) and lots of other activities are free!!!! There's the arch (if you just go look it's free, but costs to go up). So we'd get cheap room rates, have free bkfst, free entertainment, and just pay for a few meals. We could have a great time for a few hundred dollars. I see you're from the Chicago area. We also went to Door County WI last year and rented a small house pretty cheaply. I just did an internet search and shopped around. Good luck!!

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We never actually go anywhere (well, we have gone to DesMoines to stay with the inlaws!). We prefer to do day trips. A trip to the zoo, Drive to a state partk spnd the day, explore other areas of the state, type thing. You save tons this way and still 'get away"!

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~Happiness is a large family~

Hey we live in Door County WI! Yeah there is a lot of things that you can do up here pretty cheap. If you decide to come up here I could look up some stuff for you. Just give me a price range.

Check out my avatar that is a picture I took leaving Bailey's Harbor Marina while the sun was coming up. (we were going out salmon fishing, excelent fishing and cheap charters are available I know some of them personally- they are always on the fish there are also sight seeing charters off sail and motor powered boats awesome!)

WE had this predicament last summer too. Luckilyy, we didn't go to far from home, about 4 hours, up north to Maine. Anyway, what we did was dh has hotel points that we used for rooms at HOliday Inn. He travels alot for work, and got a card to just accumulate his points them use them for us. SO we stayed at Holiday inn for 4 days. and that place is great because they have a FREE continental breakfast. We would get up and gorge ourselves on teh free food and be set for a while. Also, I packed a cooler in the back and filled it with sandwich meat, cheese, tuna fish, fruit, chips, drinks, ect. This way, we didn't pay for lunch anywhere either. That was a HUGE help. When it was lunch time, we would just find a picnic area, and make some sandwiches and enjoy ourselves. Dh was VERY proud of this idea, and all the money it saved him. LOL So we only ended up eating out at supper time, and the most we paid was the night we deicded to go 'OUT'. LOL We ate pizza and stuff like that, because it was cheaper. We saved alot of money alone just not eating out for every meal.

I would also plan your trip in advance and find out what sort of specials you can get before hand. A theme park might have coupons out somewhere, like on grocery bags or Pepsi cans, find out!

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~Missy~Mommy
Meghan8.Samantha7,Cameron4

We have gone camping for a couple days and my children love it!! We make smores, cook out burgers and have great family time. I plan our meals and the camp site rentals are about $15 per night.

Have a good weekend!
Michelle

We are going to try camping this summer too.

We also go to a big family cottage with extended family. It gets crowded but it's really fun and we all split the costs of food and gas for the boat.

The other thing we do is travel to visit extended family. Both of my parents come from large families so we have family all over North America. It's just this year the cost of gas is keeping us from going too far.

We've never done Disney, or a resort, or any place with a hotel where we didn't have to cook our own food. We'd like to try it once but I'm afraid of getting spoiled and never wanting a simple vacation again!

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Camping is always a good choice! Last year we took our boys on our fist ever real vacation! We spent 2 full days in Lagoon Park (Utah), it's an amusement park but not a huge one. I found some coupons so admission was only about $100 (for 5 of us). We packed a cooler with tons of snacks, drinks and lunch stuff so we didn't have to buy the expensive food in the park. I originally booked a hotel with a free breakfast, but when we showed up at 10pm they said they didn't have our reservation (long story); had that panned out as planned we would have saved $100. In the end I think we only spent $600 for the whole trip and we spent an extra day to go to the SLC Zoo. I felt pretty proud of myself because I paid for nearly the whole trip on my income It was priceless to see the gleaming faces of my kids!

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I believe what you think about comes about...
Money comes easily and abundantly!

DH and I don't have a lot of vacation time this summer, so we can only do things on weekends--plus we have a really little one. So this year we are doing day trips. It is ending up saving us a lot of money. We're going to do the zoo, we are doing to two different amusement theme places, and we are also staying one night in a cabin on a lake. All these trips will cost us about 500$ with gas included, and food. we were able to find coupons and speccials for the different theme parks--that helped save a lot. I think 500$$ for a family of 5 is pretty good, but I am sure you could do even cheaper.

We also go camping all the time- it's a lot of work for DH (and myself too)- but we always have fun- even if it is a downpouring rain!

Last year we took our first official vacation to Niagara Falls, Canada. It is only about a 3-4 hour drive from us (3 with DH driving- yes he's a lead foot ). Anyways- since it was our first vacation and we did not have a whole lot of money we looked for a lot of good deals. I found a hotel only 1 block away from the falls that offered a nice package deal (gave you a deep discount at a resturant, free breakfast and had indoor/outdoor pools and jacuzzi's). We only stayed for 3 days but for everything it came to about $600 for all 4 of us (the youngest was free for a lot of the things)- we got the Niagara Paarks pass- a deep discount on all of the Falls attractions, we ate out everyday- but took snacks with us. We actually had a lot of fun on a meager budget (we actually came home with quite a bit of money). On our way home we visited the NY side of the Falls- (which I must say I kind of liked it better) and visited a friend in Erie and spent the night there and then spent the wholle day at Presque Isle.

The best way to go on a decent vacation that I have found is look for deals through a hotel that will offer discounts, packages and even include some attractions. We are going on vacation again this year to Myrtle Beach and I must say the earlier you go and further in advance you book makes a major difference. I booked our room about 3 months ago and out of curiousity I checked how much it would be now- it was about $150 more than what we have to pay! Also look into coupons- if you can't bring stuff to eat with you- look into places that locals will go to- they will usually be a lot cheaper and good food. HTH!