With the Walt Disney Family Museum officially opening to the public tomorrow, a vacation is long overdue.
Back in the spring, we wanted to escape to Hawaii but had friends get engaged shortly after who are likely to get married there. I love Hawaii but don’t properly vacation all that often (where a proper vacation is defined as a week or more), so it would be silly to go twice within the course of a year. And did I mention that Hawaii is expensive?
Then we came up with the idea of going to Buenos Aires, the Paris of the West. Although a plane ticket can be double a ticket to Hawaii, the stay would be much more economical than most other locations of similar appeal. A multi-course meal at a top restaurant, for example, would cost only $40. I had plenty of PTO that had piled up over the life of the project, but my somewhat unpredictable work load made it difficult to isolate the full two weeks I am sure we’d need to do Argentina justice and truly make the expensive ticket worthwhile.
We stayed in the vein of beach vacations for a while but didn’t want to wait long enough to sufficiently avoid hurricane season on the east coast. The southern west coast was too close to home and I’m not enough of a fan of Mexico to take a chance on another trip there just yet. To reference David Foster Wallace, I’d group Mexico in there with cruises–supposedly fun things I’ll never do again (until I forget or grow bored enough with the other options). Without the time to go abroad or inclination to head north where it’s getting cooler, we needed a trip that wouldn’t be ruined by weather.
So now we’re touring cities of the southeast! Charlotte, Charleston, Savannah, and Atlanta to be exact. Atlanta has intrigued me ever since I worked on a project there (research, no visit) at my old job. However, Atlanta has sort of taken the back seat to Charleston and Savannah in the course of our planning. Atlanta almost got dropped from the itinerary entirely because we liked North Carolina’s Outer Banks (in part due to a flashy web site that mesmerized Dan and my excitement about potential hang gliding lessons at Kitty Hawk), but we decided that Atlanta added significantly less driving time.
In the case of a hurricane, we can head inland from our coastal destinations a little more easily than we might have from the Florida keys. I’m looking forward to doing something fun and a little unusual, hopefully without blowing a ton of cash. So the challenge of the last weekend was selecting accommodations. We stayed in this fantastic 1920s Hollywood-inspired boutique hotel in Portland that we raved about so much that our roommate booked a trip to Portland and stayed there. It felt especially good because we got a great rate that included half off truly gourmet breakfast in their dining room. We set out to replicate that success and will let you know how it goes.
Charlotte – 1 night – Aloft Charlotte Uptown at the EpiCentre
Aloft is a downmarket brand of the tres chic W hotels. Since we arrive late on a Saturday night, we wanted to be in the center of things and it sounds like there will be lots to do right in the building (a highrise).
Charleston – 3 nights – Notso Hostel
I read about the Notso Hostel in the New York Times (“Charleston on the Cheap”) but Dan did not quite share my enthusiasm. Researching accommodations in Charleston was a huge time suck because everything was either outside the city center, super old fashioned (and not even in a particularly tasteful manner), or very expensive. While Charlotte hotels all offered a discount for longer stays, there were few deals to be found in Charleston. I had finally unearthed a potentially risky but potentially awesome vacation rental studio that I was ready to try for better or worse when Dan woke up from a nap and decided to check out Notso Hostel’s web site. One look at the pictures of all the visitors having tons of fun and he was sold! I should have known to show him the web site in the first place because I’ve never really done the whole hostel thing before and it got me excited. Because Charleston arguably has the most going on, it makes sense to go light on the luxury and focus on experiencing all the city has to offer, maybe with some new friends. This also allowed us to splurge a little more on Savannah where we could get more for our money.
Savannah – 2 nights – AVIA Savannah
The web site tells all. On the waterfront, centrally located, and very stylish. We might take some time here to watch the 42″ flat panel TV.
Altanta – 2 nights – Artmore Hotel
More than anything the bar had a similar appeal to the cozy one at Hotel Deluxe in Portland where we had a most excellent time.
Charlotte – 1 night – TBD airport hotel*
And… drumroll, please… average cost per night per person: $53, including tax. That doesn’t even take into account the super cheap night we’ll spend at an airport hotel.
Next up – activity planning.
Filed under: Other Cities Tagged: | Atlanta, Charleston, Charlotte, Savannah
