This past weekend, my wife and I headed to the great state of Ohio to attend the wedding of my best man. It was one of those trips that I didn’t hesitate to make, even though I tend to be someone who spends much on travel or vacation. And yet already this year we have flown to California, will be flying back to Ohio in September (for a family reunion) and November (for Thanksgiving).

When I went to book flights several months ago, I found a bit of a problem with flying from the Boston area to Cincinnati: Direct flights were over $500. Flights with one layover weren’t much better either, and honestly, how do people have time to spend the whole day flying somewhere, especially when I could drive the same distance in the same amount of time?

So instead, we opted to fly to the Akron/Canton airport, which even now still has direct flights from Boston for $200. We borrowed my mom’s car (thanks mom!) and made the 4 hour drive down to Cincinnati. Sure, we had to pay $50 in gas, but it was still nearly $800 cheaper than had we flown into Cincinnati. Even better, we got to spend father’s day with my dad.

We stayed at a hotel for $99 a night, not a bad rate, and saved about $50 total thanks to AAA. Food was of course mostly provided by the wedding events, although we did make a lunch trip to the Cheesecake Factory.

As for a gift, I was surprised to hear by my co-workers that $100 was the going rate for presents nowadays. So instead of putting together a few pans and dishes from their registry to total that amount, my wife went out and found some beautiful hand-made kitchen pottery for a much more reasonable price.

Overall it was a great weekend. I still believe in the philosophy my dad has tried to teach me, which is that there a certain things in life you should be able to just enjoy instead of fretting about the cost.