Last week we took a mini family vacation to Saint Louis. We wanted to spend very little but still feel like we were on vacation. We used Priceline to start our "On a Budget Mini Vacation" and put in a bid of $43 on a 4* Hyatt at the Arch which is on the river (was running for about $180 a night for the King Arch view we had) and so we only paid $108 including tax for two nights for our hotel :) The hotel parking is $26 a night so instead we parked at a condo's underground parking garage 2 blocks away for $3 the first night and $8 the second night... I'd say that was a much better deal than the $26 a night we would have paid!
Saint Louis is a great family vacation place to go if you are on a budget! Both the Zoo and the Science Center are free! The Science Center parking is $10 but if you park on the planetarium side (the building is attached) parking is free. Parking at the zoo is $15 but there is A TON of street parking at the Zoo that is free. We didn't pay to park at either place. You can take food into the zoo if you want as well, we saw several people with whole coolers.
We also took a tour at the Budweiser factory... which you guessed it... free.
It does cost $10 a person to go up in the arch (although under 3 is free), but it's worth it to go up. I believe this was my 3rd time going to the top in my life.
So including gas, hotel, food and activities we spent less than $250 on our whole 2 night 3 day trip - when we were looking at going to Chicago for 2 nights it would have cost that just in a hotel!
Here are some (okay it's a lot!) pictures from our trip:
____________________________________________________________________ If you like my blog please click the image below. There is nothing to sign up for, just click and you are done. Thanks!
