The planning sheet for Charleston is taped to the side of our fridge right now, under Jack's baseball schedule and above a coupon for dog food. It's one page of notebook paper in Nora's purple gel pen, with a line for every question we ask before a trip. Two lines are still blank six weeks out, which is about normal.
We've taken eight food trips since spring break last year, from a $58 Saturday in Bell Buckle to three nights in New Orleans. Somewhere in there, the way we plan them turned into a system. A coworker asked me about it in the teachers' lounge last week, so here it is.
Three things every trip gets
One splurge meal. Just one, picked ahead of time and protected. Everything else can be cheap: sandwiches from the cooler, a hotel breakfast, a pizza eaten sitting on the beds. In Memphis the splurge was ribs in a basement downtown, $78 for four, and Jack gave them a 10. In New Orleans it was a gumbo dinner at an old Creole restaurant, $164, the most we've ever spent on one meal, and Nora still brings it up.
One local market. A market shows you what people there actually buy and eat, and it's usually free to walk. In New Orleans it was the French Market and a bag of pralines. In Chattanooga there wasn't a market on our route, so we went to a MoonPie shop, and I'm counting it.
One dish we've never eaten. A smoked bologna sandwich in Memphis. White sauce chicken in Decatur, which now lives in a jar in our fridge door. Boiled crawfish in New Orleans. This goes with our one-bite rule: everybody tries one bite of the local thing, and after that you can order whatever you want. Nora does not like spicy food, and she has still taken one bite of Nashville hot chicken and one crawfish, each followed by a full cup of water. That's the deal, and she has kept it.
The budget and the envelope
For in-state trips we plan on about $150 a day for the four of us, and that covers food, tickets and parking. Gas and lodging get their own lines, because they're mostly decided the minute you pick the place. The gas math is round-trip miles divided by 22, which is about what the Pilot gets on the highway, times what gas costs at home. Bell Buckle was 92 miles, so 92 divided by 22 times $2.69 came to about $11.
We don't always hit the number. Chattanooga went over: $171 in food, $150 in tickets for the aquarium and the Incline and $13 for parking came to $334 for two days, about $167 a day. Memphis came in under, $331 over three days, about $110 a day, because good barbecue is cheaper than you'd think. The day trips barely register. Our hot chicken Saturday in Nashville was $87 all in, Leiper's Fork was $64 and Bell Buckle was $58. Out of state, I plan food by the person instead, $40 a person a day, and New Orleans landed at $40.50.
Every receipt goes in an envelope with the town and the date on the front: food, tickets, parking stubs, gas. The Sunday night after we get home, I dump it on the kitchen table, total it and divide the food by four. The biggest lesson those envelopes have taught me is that lodging decides everything. Louisville came to $268 because Ryan's cousin Shane gave us his couch, and all it cost us was his dinner.
How we pick where to go
School calendar first: spring break in the middle of March, fall break the first full week of October, and summer. Then drive time. Under an hour is a Saturday. Up to about four hours is one night. Anything longer is the big trip of the year. After that we want one food the place is known for, one thing that costs nothing, like the Walnut Street Bridge or the Natchez Trace or Beale Street in daylight, and one thing for the kids, like an aquarium, a rocket hall or a bat museum. Jack picks the kid thing. Nora makes the sheet. Ryan checks my gas math every time, as if it has ever once been wrong. Here's what goes on the sheet:
- Where, when and how many nights
- Round-trip miles and the gas estimate
- Where we sleep, with the total after tax and fees
- The splurge meal
- The market
- The dish we've never eaten
- One free thing and one kid thing
- The daily budget, and an empty envelope
Charleston is June 14 through 20, six nights in a rental on James Island. The rental is $1,184 with fees, the most we have ever spent to sleep somewhere, which is why we'll cook most breakfasts and some dinners in its kitchen. The gas estimate is about $180, and the market is the Charleston City Market. The two blank lines are the splurge, which Ryan and I are still debating, and the dish we've never eaten. Nora wants she-crab soup. Jack has vetoed it twice. I'll tell you in July who won.
