My wife and I married at 22, about three months out of college. A lease started on our new apartment in Philadelphia literally three days after our wedding, so we had a brief honeymoon in Rockport, Massachusetts (just a thirty minute drive north from our wedding!). For the next two and a half years I was in graduate school, paying for it from my day job to avoid a loan, and at the same time starting to pay my undergraduate loan. So vacation wasn’t exactly an option, though we did manage to get to a few family get-togethers.

So now we’re about 26 years old, and with discussions of starting our own family taking place, we decided that it was really about time we take a vacation together - before it’s too late!

About a month ago, I started looking at vacations in the Caribbean. We had never been anywhere tropical, so we figured it’d be a great place to go. Aruba sounded like a perfect destination, until I made the discovery that fares from Boston rarely got below $400 per person. Next I see that hotels average around $300 a night, and that most people spend over $100 for dinner! Adding all this up, along with the miscellaneous fees and spending money for excursions, and we were looking at well over $2500.

I scoured the deal sites that everyone recommended to me, but either they were too strict in their dates, or the “deal” evaporated when you read the fine print (or reviews for the resort).

I had nearly given up hope when last week, I was browsing through Farecast when I saw a small inconspicuous link which said “Deals from Boston”, and below that “SFO for $220.” SFO? As in, San Francisco? As in, a coast-to-coast flight for about $200? Say it ain’t so!

In a frenzy of instant messages my wife and I tried to decide whether to jump on this or not. Of course, while we were doing this, the flight doubled in price back to the standard fare, and I felt crushed. I swore if I ever saw an opportunity like this again, I would just jump on it.

So when the same fare reappeared three days later, I did. I sent a message to my wife - “We’re going to San Francisco in 7 days” - and bought the tickets. Yes, this flight was indeed for the next weekend, or six days from today. I am rarely this impulsive, but after a month of frustratingly searching for the perfect vacation, I wasn’t going to miss my chance.

Next I started looking for hotels. They were quite expensive, with even one or two star hotels averaging over $200. I looked at places outside of the city, but San Francisco is very friendly to walkers, and I didn’t necessarily want to have to drive into the city every day.

So I couldn’t believe it when I saw the Omni Hotel (a four star luxury hotel rated the #3 luxury hotel in the U.S. by TripAdvisor) had a deal for $185 per night through Expedia - about one quarter of their normal nightly rate! I have no clue what caused this deal, but I thought the opportunity to stay in a luxury hotel for less than $200 per night (compared to their standard rate of $699 per night) was too good to pass up.

We’re both very excited about this vacation, but I have to admit that it took a lot of effort for us to spend money on it. See, when it comes to quality, long lasting purchases (like the couches we bought recently, or a new computer), I am able to justify these purchases to myself. Sure, leather couches may cost $2000, but they will last at least five years, and are something we use every single day. In the end, we’re spending about one dollar per day for those.

Compare that to a vacation which might cost $2000 for four days, and we’re instead spending $500 per day, or 500 times the amount of those couches! Of course, sitting at home watching a movie on those couches will not be nearly as thrilling as walking through Muir Woods or taking a cable car to Chinatown. But at least from a financial standpoint, it’s very hard to weigh those two things against each other.

Still, I don’t regret it. We have been married three and a half years, and deserve a vacation together, and I think that we aren’t being nearly as extravagant as we could be with it.

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