Our trip to Victoria – cost breakdown, frugal tips, and lessons learned

Last month my family went on a much needed vacation.  You see we spent thirteen months being as frugal as possible so that we could meet a specific savings goal. And once we met that goal we wanted to reward ourselves by cash flowing a trip to Victoria, Canada.  Cash flowing means paying for something without going into debt or dipping into savings. We set money aside in our fun fund specifically for this trip and I’d like to share our cost breakdown, some frugal travel tips, as well as some lessons I learned.

One thing I always say about personal finance is that it all comes down to what you prioritize most. This is something that is unique to each person/family and situation.  We’ve gone on vacations where we’ve found the most budget friendly hotels and splurged on the tourist attractions. But for us this particular vacation was all about the hotel. That is what we chose to splurge on more so than anything else.

A girl and her castle

When I was 12 years old I traveled to Victoria with my parents, and from the moment I saw the Fairmont Empress Hotel I fell in love for life.  To a 12 year old it looked like a castle and I wished that we could have stayed there. But it was one of the most expensive hotels in Victoria and my family was not rich.  I passed by it every day of our trip wondering what it would be like to stay in the castle. My wish came true 10 years later when my husband and I went to Victoria on our honeymoon.  I finally got to stay in my dream castle and it was everything I thought it would be.

Now that my husband and I have been married for 16 years and our daughter is 12 years old (the same age I was when I first visited Victoria), we thought it would be the perfect time to go back.  But we agreed we would only go if we could afford to stay at the Empress Hotel. Because once you go Empress you can never go back! Just trust me on this!  

So here is a breakdown of everything we spent and the lessons we learned along the way:

Flights and Transportation

I purchased our flights and hotel through Expedia.  They are my preferred travel website because they’re easy to use, allow you to bundle flight, hotel, and car deals, and they keep your travel itinerary on their site so you don’t have to dig through emails.  Our flight from San Jose, CA to Victoria, Canada cost $323.79 which came out to $107.93 per person. Our flight home cost $373.08 which came out to $124.36 per person. I was pleasantly surprised by these low rates because even though we weren’t traveling too far (we stayed on the west coast the whole time), I expected international flights to be more expensive.  

Frugal travel tip: If you have flexibility in terms of your vacation days, try to play around with the dates when you’re looking for flights on Expedia or any other travel site.  You’ll find that flights are cheaper on certain days.  

I always try to book one of my flights, if not both, on a Tuesday. I’ve found it’s the least expensive day to fly.  For this trip we flew to Victoria on a Tuesday and returned on a Saturday. We considered flying home on Sunday but the flights were more expensive. So we cut the trip a day short which also saved us money on food, hotel, and anything else we would have done with our extra day.

The only other transportation costs were for the shuttles to and from the airport to the hotel.  We used an airport shuttle and it cost us $45.26 to get to our hotel when we arrived and $46.05 to get back to the airport at the end of our trip.  I’ve found airport shuttles to be more economical than taxis and you can reserve them ahead of time.  

Baggage Fees

One thing I forgot to look into ahead of time was baggage fees.  I usually check this ahead of time and try to be strategic about how we can spend the least amount.  But I had a hectic schedule leading up to the trip, so it wasn’t until I was at the Delta kiosk at the airport that I found out they charged $30 per bag.  We had 3 bags so we paid $90. Because we were in a hurry, I didn’t take my time to think things through. It wasn’t until after I paid and handed over the luggage that I realized my daughter’s bag was small enough to be a carry on.  That was a $30 mistake!  

Frugal travel tip: Always check the airline’s baggage fees and policies.  Pack as much as possible in one big suitcase. Pack everything else in carry-ons in order to avoid paying for more than one bag.  Or better yet, pack lighter and use nothing but carry-ons if you can!  

On our return flight I only checked in 2 bags and we kept my daughter’s as a carry on.  The baggage fee for the return flight was also $30 each. But since it was in Canadian currency, it ended up only costing us $45.68 for the 2 bags – that’s half of what was paid the first time.

Attractions

 As we were only in Victoria for 3 full days, we only did 2 attractions.  The first was a tour of the city on a double-decker bus through Gray Line. This was a great way to see the city and spend the day!  We sat on the upper floor of the bus so that we could take lots of pictures. Our tour guide told us all kinds of interesting facts about Victoria that I wouldn’t have found out otherwise. 

The best part was that it was a hop-on hop-off tour. This meant the bus stopped at 15 different places throughout the tour and you could get off anywhere and then hop back on whenever you wanted.  The bus returned every hour. It was a convenient way to explore parts of Victoria that were too far to walk to. This tour is good for 24 hours, so timing it right means you could spread it out over 2 days if you started in the early afternoon and wanted to use it again the next morning.

The second attraction was the Butchart Gardens, a group of floral display gardens stretching out over 55 acres.  The gardens were about a half hour drive away from our hotel so we knew we would need to rely on some sort of transportation to get there.  After going to the visitors’ kiosk near our hotel, I picked up quite a few brochures. Doing a comparison, I found the best deal was a shuttle that would drive us to the gardens and back, and the price included admission.  Our total cost for the shuttle and admission came out to $106.65 which was roughly $35 per person.  

Frugal travel tip: If you’re vacationing in a tourist town, check if they have a visitors’ center or kiosk.  You’ll find all kinds of brochures and information so you can see what your options are and compare rates. Plus the people who work there are very knowledgeable and can help find the options that work best for you.

Food

We made sure to pack some mini cereal boxes as well as 2 boxes of granola bars for this trip.  Our plan was to eat them for breakfast and snacks so that we would only spend money on lunch and dinner (and some desserts too).  We stuck to this most days, but with sunrise being in the 5 o’clock hour we found ourselves waking up early, eating early, and then being hungry again well before lunch.  So we did end up paying for a couple of breakfasts. We did our best to keep lunch and dinner costs low. Sometimes we split entrees or appetizers and we stuck to water almost the entire time so that we wouldn’t be paying extra for drinks.  

There was one meal that I almost put in the “attractions” category because it truly was an attraction in itself.  On the third day of the trip we had high tea at our hotel. It’s one of those things everyone says you must do in Victoria and it was definitely an amazing experience!  But it also cost us $226.14 – one of the most expensive meals we’ve ever had, but so worth it! Our waiter made the experience even lovelier as he told us all about how he had served the queen when she had tea there back in 2003.  He even told us what kind of tea she ordered and we made sure to sample it.

Overall we spent $498.33 on food (the tea was almost half of that)! With the exception of the day we had tea, we never spent more than $85 per day.  For a family of 3 that’s pretty good!  

Frugal travel tips: Pack food with you for breakfasts and snacks. When choosing a restaurant take a look at their menu prices online first to help you make your decision.  Not ordering drinks will save you at least $5 a day per person. This might not seem like much, but it adds up!

Souvenirs

We only bought souvenirs for our parents, my boss, the lady who was pet sitting our cats, and ourselves, so we didn’t spend too much.  We gave our daughter a budget of $50 Canadian money (about $38 American) to spend on whatever she wanted. Our total souvenir cost was $156.26.  

Hotel

Here’s where the big expense came in.  Remember how I started this post – with a story about how I fell in love with the Fairmont Empress Hotel.  There was no way we were going to go back to Victoria without staying there. It was something we made a priority.  When we booked our hotel and flights through Expedia they were bundled and I didn’t see a cost breakdown that showed how much the hotel cost versus the flights.  It honestly didn’t matter to me how much each thing cost as long as the total was in our budget. After we got back from our trip however, I started becoming curious to know just how much the expensive Empress Hotel cost us, especially because I knew I would be writing this blog post and I wanted it to be as specific and accurate as possible.  

So I called up Expedia and asked for a breakdown, and imagine my shock when I found out 4 nights in the Empress Hotel cost us $1,736.16!  That’s $434.04 per night! We’re used to spending about half of that when it comes to hotels. My husband said if he knew this information ahead of time he would have considered staying at a different hotel, but I for one am glad we didn’t know!  Staying at that particular hotel was the highlight of the trip. Not only was it beautiful inside and out but it was conveniently located in the best part of the city, near the water and all the shops and restaurants. I wouldn’t have done it any differently.

Bank Fees:

Here is another lesson learned.  It had been so long since I traveled internationally, I didn’t think to inquire about transaction fees.  While we were in Victoria we paid for everything using a debit card which is tied to our fun fund. You can check out my blog post about our fun fund and our other bank accounts here.  Little did we know that our bank was charging us cross border fees for every transaction.  Luckily it was a very small percentage and only cost us $17.21, but next time I will probably charge everything to my credit card and pay off the balance as soon as I return from my trip.  But I will first call my credit card company to see if they charge any cross border fees.    

Frugal travel tip: Let your bank know anytime you’re leaving the state or country so they don’t freeze your account when they see what appears to be unusual activity.

Total Cost

When all was said and done, our trip to Victoria, Canada cost us $3,518.34.  Usually when we go on vacation we budget $5,000 and our trip usually lasts at least 7 days.  Because this trip to Victoria was only 5 days, I’m satisfied with what we spent. If our goal was to be as frugal as possible on this vacation we could have probably spent closer to $2,500.  But as I mentioned before, this vacation was our reward for sacrificing so much for over a year while trying to reach our savings goal. So we allowed ourselves to splurge.

Deciding what to prioritize during a vacation

Whether you realize it or not, every time you go on vacation you decide what to make a priority.  For example, one family vacationing in Hawaii might want to splurge on attractions or activities like kayaking, scuba diving, maybe a helicopter ride.  They wouldn’t care as much about the hotel so they’d budget more of their money on the attractions and less on the hotel. But another family might be going to Hawaii to relax on the beach.  Maybe they would be willing to splurge on a beach front hotel if they were planning on spending most of their time there. It’s different for every family and for every location.

The next time you start planning out a vacation, think about why you want to go to that location and what you’re going to prioritize.  That is where the majority of your vacation budget needs to go. As long as you’re frugal with the rest of your vacation expenses you can plan out and go on that vacation you’ve always dreamed of.