The Cost of a Weekend in San Diego

Plus a comparison to last year’s expenses.

This is the second year I’ve been invited to perform as part of Marian Call’s annual Space Time show. I read short fiction about Mars and love and money (I write what I know, and make up some stuff about Mars) and I got to interview Scott and Kimberly Maxwell about their experiences driving Mars rovers.

Here’s how much I spent, over three days and two nights:

Round-trip flight: $220.20 (I didn’t need to check a bag, which was great.)

Gogo in-flight internet: $9.95 (I got freelancing work done on the flight to San Diego but didn’t purchase Wi-Fi for the flight back to Seattle.)

Hotel: $641.16. (Thank goodness I figured out ahead of time that I had accidentally booked my hotel for the wrong weekend.)

The Cost of Realizing You Booked Your Hotel Room for the Wrong Weekend

Housekeeping tip: $5. (It probably should have been higher, but I was limited by the amount of cash in my pocket. Maybe hotel receipts should include a line for a housekeeping tip, so I could pay via card.)

Food and drink: $170.34

Lyft rides: $152.92 (That represents nine rides, and $88.17 of that came from the two rides between my apartment and the airport.)

The one taxi ride I took from the San Diego airport to my hotel, where I really should have taken Lyft instead: $24.25 (The reverse trip on Lyft cost $9.09.)

Ghostbusters ticket: $17.84. (I spent a little less than Ester did.)

The Cost of Things: Supporting Your People

Total: $1,241.66

This is $170.85 more than the cost of last year’s Space Time trip, which included both a Los Angeles and a San Diego leg.

The Cost of a Week in Los Angeles and San Diego

The big difference here was the hotel cost, I think. I ended up spending $188.95 more on lodging than I did last year. I also spent a lot more on transportation, since last year I lived close enough to take the metro to the airport—and, last year, my phone was kinda broken so I wasn’t able to fully participate in the “let’s share Lyft rides around town” party.

Surprisingly—because I know that food number looks pretty big for three days—I spent a lot less on food/drink this year. Last year I spent $240.85 for food in LA and $93.79 for food in San Diego.

It’s fascinating how close the total costs are, even though one trip involved two cities and the other trip involved a more expensive hotel. It’s like “the Space Time trip costs this much, regardless of variation among individual expenses.”

Have any of you tallied up your year-over-year travel costs (for a specific trip) and come to a similar conclusion?

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