$1500 Cape Cod Challenge Day 1: Plimoth Plantation

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Our family of five, two adults and three children under the age of 7, are on vacation this week in Cape Cod. I am determined to spend less than $1500 and have a fabulous time. After finding cheap accommodations, my next budget conscious decision was to drive to the Cape instead of fly. The travel time from Buffalo, NY is a very managable 8 1/2 hours. I've allowed $200 for gas on our trip.

On the first day of our vacation, we woke up early and left home by 5am. The kids slept in the car and we stopped for breakfast along the road ($15 McDonald's).

Our first destination was Plimoth Plantation (www.plimoth.org). Plimoth Plantation is a living museum located just off the Cape in Plymouth, MA. At Plimoth Plantation they have a replica of the Pilgrim's Mayflower ship, and a town of Pilgrim homes. There is also a Wampanoag Indian village. I teach third grade and tell the story of the Pilgrims every year, so I've been wanting to visit this museum for a long time.

To prepare my kids for what they would see, I read them the books On The Mayflower, Sarah Morton's Day: A Day in the Life of a Pilgrim Girl and Tapenum's Day: A Wampanoag Indian Boy in Pilgrim Times all by Kate Waters and Russ Kendall. These books tell the story of the Pilgrims and the pictures are photographs of actors at Plimoth Plantation.

By getting on their website before I left home, I found out that June 23 (the first day of my vacation) was Teacher Appreciation Day. Teachers get in free and family members are half off. The total cost of admission for my family with this discount was $27.50 (my youngest child was free). It looks like Plimoth is making this an annual event. So if you're a teacher interested in visiting I would check out their website next year at the end of June.

The best thing about this admission is it's a two day pass. So since we were tired from our long car ride, we only spent an hour or so at the museum and we'll come back later in the week to explore the rest of it. We ate lunch in the car at Plimoth Plantation. I had packed sandwiches in the cooler before we left home.

From Plimoth Plantation to Centerville on Cape Cod was about 45 minutes. By leaving in the late afternoon, we missed any Cape traffic. We arrived at our Condo around 3:30pm, checked in, and then headed out to the grocery store to stock up the fridge.

I packed dry groceries and brought them with us from Buffalo. So the only things we needed to buy were the fresh and refridgerated things. Our nearest grocery store was Shaw's in Hyannis and I spent about $85. We'll be eating breakfast at the condo, packing lunches in our cooler for the afternoons and grilling in the evenings.

To do Cape Cod cheaply, I've decided the tradeoff will be not eating out much. There are so many activities I want to do with the children, that I don't mind skimping on the restaurants. If you are more of a "foodie" you might choose to do more restaurants and less activities on your Cape vacation.

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