This past weekend, my girlfriend and I decided to take a trip off-island. We hopped on an 18-minute flight from St. Thomas to Puerto Rico for a three-day trip. Neither of us had ever been to Puerto Rico before, so we were excited to travel someplace new together.
Starting out, my girlfriend and I had a very clear picture about how much money we wanted to spend. We weren't willing to break the bank for a 3-day trip, but we also didn't want to be so frugal that we couldn't enjoy our time; we still wanted it to feel like a vacation.
We agreed that $500 each ($1,000 total) was all that we were comfortable spending. To be clear, we wanted this amount to cover absolutely everything.
Here's a look into our wallet:
Item Cost
Taxi to/from St. Thomas Airport.........................$20.00
Flight from St. Thomas to Puerto Rico.............$184.20
Flight from Puerto Rico to St. Thomas..............$154.20
Hotel...........................................................................$227.24
Rental Car..................................................................$113.62
1 bottle of water at St. Thomas Airport...............$3.25
1 paleta (popsicle).....................................................$3.40
2 tickets to tour the fort...........................................$10.00
1 bottle of water at the fort......................................$1.55
Lunch at St. Germain................................................$45.00
9 postcards..................................................................$3.35
Coffee............................................................................$8.00
Dinner at Ali Baba......................................................$63.00
Casino...........................................................................$10.00
CVS (cereal, milk and orange juice)......................$8.40
1 lemonade and 1 water in the rainforest.............$5.00
Sushi delivered to the hotel.....................................$64.67
Gas for rental car........................................................$12.36
TOTAL: $937.24
1. Transportation
As we expected, our largest expense was transportation, because it included our flights to and from Puerto Rico. We spent $169.20 each on flights. For ground transportation, it was imperative that we rented a car because taxis in Puerto Rico are very expensive and they would have eaten up our whole budget. Since we did not want to rely on public transportation, I did some research and found a cheap car rental that charged only $7.00 per day (bonus: they had shuttle service to and from the airport!). But, when we added up the insurance, taxes, and other ridiculous fees, our total came to $113.62. Taking into account gas and other nominal fees, the total amount we spent on transportation came to $484.38.
2. Accommodations
When it came to choosing a hotel, I quickly learned that a cute modern suite in downtown Old San Juan would break the budget. Also, places downtown either don't have parking, or they charge around $20 per night to park your car in their lot. Instead, I found a place that was about a 10-minute drive from Condado (the center of nightlife in PR). For 2 nights, our total came to $227.24. In all honesty, there were some ups and downs to the hotel (it was actually a condo that rented out individual units for a minimum 2-night stay). There wasn't any type of housekeeping service (no extra towels on demand, and no one to make the bed after our first night), and the location wasn't exactly what we wanted. But on the flipside, the room was spacious, clean, and quiet - it had everything we needed. A pleasant surprise was that It also had an incredible ocean view and a view of the marina.
3. Food
Buying inexpensive food in Puerto Rico is not a problem. However, we wanted our trip to be romantic and we love eating out...so we went a little overboard in this category, and our total food expenditure came to $194.27. When deciding where to eat, we took two different approaches. Sometimes we bought street food as we came across it and other times we searched on Yelp or Tripadvisor for the highest rated and most popular restaurants nearby. Our favorite meal of the trip was at a cute little bistro tucked away in Old San Juan called St. Germain Bistro & Cafe. They had the most delicious sandwiches, and the ambiance was so relaxing!
4. Souvenirs/Gifts
Casey really wanted to buy postcards to send home and authentic Puerto Rican coffee. I wanted a new sarong, but I wasn't quite able to find what I was looking for when we were shopping...so I spent (and lost) my souvenir money (a whopping $10.00) at the casino instead. Our total for this category came to $21.35.
After all this, our grand total was $937.24 - $62.76 under budget! We were delighted that we were able to keep our expenses under the amount we had agreed upon. We knew that we could have done better - we did not need to spend $70.00 for each of our fancy dinners - but, the time and effort we spent towards planning our trip ahead of time paid off! We met our goal without having to sacrifice certain luxuries (such as our modern hotel room and after-hike lunch overlooking the rainforest).
Now, we can start saving for our next trip!
Check it out for yourself:
St. Germain Bistro & Cafe
156 Calle Sol
San Juan, Puerto Rico, 00901
Instagram: @stgermainpr
