Two Friends Discuss Planning and Budgeting for a Trip Together: 2016 Edition

Following their trip to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil two years ago (part 1, part 2), Hope and Amy are traveling from Boston to Seattle and Portland for nine days in mid-March.

After your trip together to Brazil, Hope said she was trying to get Amy to drunkenly promise to go to China next. Why aren’t you going to China?

HOPE: Wellllllll, since our last trip, a fun incurable autoimmune disease manifested in my body. Amy once joked that I contracted it through those sketchy burgers in Rio. When I mentioned to my specialist that I was planning a trip to China, he told me very gently that while he couldn’t stop me, that would be unwise. I met Amy in downtown Boston for a drink later that week and told her teary-eyed that we shouldn’t go and she shrugged and said, “We’ll just go later.”

AMY: We aren’t going to China because Hope’s doctor did not think that one year into her diagnosis, shortly following a very bad flare, would be a good time for her to travel there. I think Hope was worried that I would be super disappointed and I’m telling you here, Internet: I’m not. Don’t get me wrong; I was very excited to go. But I am not heartbroken. Most Americans traveling to China get sick to their stomach to some extent upon going and getting sick to my stomach is my least favorite thing in the world. I think we’ll go one day, but I am fine with it not being right now. I was glad we were able to come up with a different place to go that Hope’s doctor would be on board with.

Once you decided China wasn’t an option right now, how did you choose Seattle and Portland as your two destinations?

HOPE: Under my doctor’s advisement, we figured we should stick to somewhere ‘Western.’ As I remember it, no European destination seemed that appealing to us, but the West Coast is just as far, and we had never been to these states. We briefly floated the idea of letting our friends and families think we were still going to China and seeing how many Facebook posts of us eating French toast and Starbucks it would take for them to call us out on our lie. I still think we should do that.

AMY: Neither of us has ever been to either city and both have appealed to us in the past. I almost moved to Seattle last summer for a Master of Social Work program and then I didn’t. I am a little nervous I’ll get there and regret not having moved there. But hey, I could always move later.

When did you start planning?

HOPE: I think we decided after a couple caipirinhas in Rio that we were going to go to China. So that was March 2014. A year and a half later, my doctor peered over his bifocals at me and shook his head. Three months ago we chose the Pacific Northwest!

AMY: We’d been loosely planning China for quite a while, and on Wednesday, November 4 we met after work to look up flights and agree on which dates to request for vacation time (I know this was November 4 by the very specific “5:30p Shanghai plan” entry on our shared Google calendar. We share this calendar with four other friends, but no one else really uses it so we have become comfortable using it for events that just the two of us plan to attend.) Then on Thursday, November 19 (“5:20p Hope and Amy hang out”), we met again at a bar near my work and Hope shared her doctor’s concerns and told me that she couldn’t decide whether to listen to him or forge ahead. After talking it out over a couple of cocktails, we agreed to go to a place with American hospitals and then began planning in earnest from there. We gave ourselves a deadline of December 31 to book flights, accommodations, and trip insurance.

What were your non-negotiables?

HOPE: Accessible Western medicine. A place that we hadn’t been before. I wrote Amy an email while buying our flights about how I’d rather drop $100 than do a layover in Chicago at 3 a.m. I also wanted an ‘entire home’ Airbnb but that didn’t even come up. I also wanted an Airbnb that wasn’t too far from each city’s downtown.

AMY: I literally can’t think of one. I don’t think there were any that we had to talk about. We’re writing answers to these separately, so I guess if Hope has a ton I’ll look like the fool. Anything I wouldn’t negotiate on (I insist on sleeping indoors; I don’t want to eat fewer than three meals a day; I don’t want an Airbnb host who wants to be friends and show us around the city) I didn’t even voice because I figured Hope wouldn’t have a problem with it.

How did you choose a place to stay?

HOPE: To make a very long story short: travel insurance that covers pre-existing conditions is picky and difficult. I need it because last February I planned a trip to Paris, went to the hospital instead, and my regular travel insurer said, “LOL TOO BAD, YOU SICK CHUMP.” Now I am older and wiser, or at least better versed in the loopholes of insurance coverage. For my special coverage for imperfect humans, you have one month after purchasing the flight to buy the insurance, and when buying the insurance you have to have bought all the things you are covering (travel and lodging). Meaning, after buying the flight I had to give Amy a deadline for picking our Airbnbs. Amy has been so unbothered about all these new travel rules. Over a couple weeks we sent each other our top three in each city and decided. I’m trying to remember whose selection won. I know we are going to Amy’s in Portland. I think we’re going to one I chose in Seattle.

AMY: Hope sent very specific instructions that we were to each choose three Airbnb locations in each city and email them to the other person with our commentary and then we would choose from those twelve places. Hope was much faster than me on this and had to hound me to send her mine and I sort of cheated because I really liked one of her Seattle ones and said, let’s just do that one. But then I found a good one in Portland and we booked that. I booked both through my Airbnb account and Hope promptly sent me $507.50 on PayPal. Like, within two minutes. I laughed out loud when I got the email from PayPal. Hope is a very responsible friend and I like that very much.

How did your last trip together color your expectations for this one?

HOPE: I CAN’T WAIT. Rio was so much fun. I expect we will do just as much drinking and walking and Googling directions to places in our tiny rented apartments. I expect we will spend less time at the beach and less time getting lost on buses because our data plans will work. I look forward to showing off my English skills the way Amy showed off her Portuguese in Rio. Maybe we’ll go to Chinatown (to take pictures and continue our Facebook prank) and I’ll buy something using Mandarin while Amy eats ice cream and looks on.

AMY: It only made me more excited. Hope is a great travel partner and I have great expectations. Hope and I read Great Expectations together in ninth grade with an English teacher who had no faith in us. We’d tell him excitedly about things we wanted to do together (the example that comes to mind is planning an elaborate April Fools prank wherein we switched houses in the dead of night) and he’d say, condescendingly, “It’s a nice idea, girls, but it’ll never happen.” (It did.) I’m sure he’d think we’d never manage to plan a trip to Brazil or the Pacific Northwest together. This trip is dedicated to him. (Ok not really. But in your face, Mr. [redacted].)

How important was it for you to have two beds in your Airbnb rental?

HOPE: Not at all, it just happened that way. This time Amy did not make a giant stink about me changing my friendship values because of preferred sleeping arrangements. Probably because a couple nights I brought ice packs into our shared Rio bed because ‘my feet get hot’ and the sheets got damp. Amy hates that.

AMY: Last time I was shocked that Hope wanted two beds since we’d shared thousands of beds (or so) since we were teenagers at sleepovers. This time around, I will admit I saw the appeal. It’s nice sleeping alone. Both of our Airbnbs have two beds (one has a full AND a queen) and I’m excited about it. I guess this is growing up.

With two months to go, what sort of planning have you done?

HOPE: I have made a budget, emailed The Billfold, Yelped breweries and brunch places and restaurants. Googled Things to Do in both cities. Made a Google map of all the things I want to do in each city. I requested the time off from work and asked an OKCupid date what in the area I should check out.

AMY: We have flights, places to sleep, and trip insurance in the event that Hope’s organs revolt. We have told our friends who live in Portland that we will be in Portland. I’ve half-watched several episodes of Portlandia. Hope made a map that I looked at one time.

Do you have a budget in mind for this trip? How much you expect to spend altogether?

HOPE: My budget for China was just over $2,000. I think this trip will be about the same because, while the flight is so much cheaper, the exchange rate (USD to…USD) is not as kind. So far we’ve each spent:

• $570 on our flight
• $507 on our Airbnbs
• $26 for our Amtrak train from Seattle to Portland
• And $60 on travel insurance

So that still leaves a fair amount for food, booze, and…I honestly don’t know what else is in those cities. A rose garden and an abstract glass museum.

AMY: I don’t have a budget in mind. Since this is a website about money, I feel like I should, but I don’t. I don’t want to overspend. I know that I won’t.

Aside from the flight and lodging, what do you think you’ll spend the most on?

HOPE: Food. What do I think we’ll spend the second most on? Maybe transportation, which I totally forgot to budget for last trip. Also maybe a tattoo. Don’t tell my mom. Hi Mom.

AMY: Brunch.

What part of having travel insurance relieves you most? What’s your nightmare scenario?

HOPE: I am very relieved knowing that if my immune system death-stars my body and I have to go to the hospital, Amy (and I) will get our money back. This answer got so much realer than it was in 2014.

AMY: I am relieved by the peace of mind that it will afford us both. My nightmare scenario is that Hope gets sick and we have to cancel and it turns out the insurance for some reason doesn’t cover it (because this already happened to Hope on a trip that she planned with her family last year to Paris). I will tell you what my nightmare scenario is NOT, though. My nightmare scenario is NOT that we have to cancel our trip. I think that will be Hope’s nightmare scenario and I want her to know that the only thing that would upset me about that is that it would mean she was sick. I don’t care at ALL about having to postpone our trip as long as we get our money back. The only thing I care about, relative to that, is Hope’s health. Seattle and Portland will always be there (unless that alleged earthquake that is set to destroy the entire Pacific Northwest actually happens. In which case, well, good thing we didn’t go).

Who do you think will spend the most between the two of us?

HOPE: I predict this time we will spend the exact same amount. Dollar for dollar. I’m excited to write down who pays for what in a little Moleskine notebook and tally it up in the airport.

AMY: I feel like we’ll spend the same. There isn’t anything, that I know of, that one of us really really wants to do or buy that the other doesn’t. If Hope keeps up her accidental pattern from Rio of buying twice the food that I do, I guess she’ll spend more, but I don’t think that will happen because we’re traveling somewhere where the menus will be in English.

What do you think will be the thing you disagree on most?

HOPE: Wake up times maybe? I like sleeping really late. But once in Rio I slept till 11 a.m. and Amy just read in the apartment for three hours waiting for me without any complaint. She’s stunningly easy going.

AMY: Whether or not to take public transportation vs. cabs/Uber. I don’t even know which side of this disagreement I’d fall on. But that’s my guess.

What do you think you’ll agree on most?

HOPE: When it’s time to go home after drinking. This is from our Rio experience. We have very compatible intoxication limits.

AMY: We will both agree with getting donuts more times than most people probably would.

Do you think one of you will throw up?

HOPE: No. I’m not even scared of jinxing it. No one will barf.

AMY: OH GOD I HOPE NOT. But you know what? If we do, we do. Life goes on.

What do you expect you’ll do most of our time doing?

HOPE: Walking, hiking, jogging to catch buses, running to work off donuts, strolling. We will move our legs.

We’ll be staying in the Richmond neighborhood in Portland and Ballard in Seattle. Feel free to send suggestions! I imagine we’ll spend a good amount of time scanning rooms in Seattle to see if Nicole is there.

AMY: Laughing. Eating and drinking. Walking. I am so excited.

Will you get tattoos while you’re there?

HOPE: I hope so. Amy wanted to get a friendship tattoo and I don’t love tattoos, but I’d love that. I want to get one that says, “It won’t last.” One, because I like the sentiment, and two, because it’s what I told Amy during our last year in high school, explaining that all friendships eventually crumble, and so would ours. So it’d be a funny thing to tattoo with her on my body a decade later. YOU WERE RIGHT, AMY.

AMY: YES. Please weigh in on friendship tattoo ideas in the comments. And before you suggest it, Hope has already poo-pooed the idea of getting matching tattoos of that high school English teacher’s face.

What do you think will be the things you splurge on most?

HOPE: I will buy nonsense foodie things off menus. Foie gras specials and salmon roe and all that obnoxious delicious stuff.

AMY: The tattoos, OR, perhaps we’ll decide to hang glide, since trying to do so was such a disaster in Rio. Stay tuned.

Do you think one of you will get bitten by a shark?

HOPE: Yes.

AMY: This question is leftover from our Rio trip. My answer remains: no. I do not. I don’t think either of us will be bitten by a shark ever in our lives. Call me brazen; that’s my outlook.

Hope Lanphear lives on the south shore of Boston, Massachusetts and is glad her flight seat is next to Amy’s this time around.

Amy Mullen lives in Somerville, Massachusetts and doesn’t even like American Chinese food.

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