Turn my Christmas from bummer to summer!

December 5, 2008 2:06 PM

Can you help me figure out how to use my 8 day Christmas Vacation to get somewhere warm and have a ton of fun?

Hey, sorry about how open ended this question is! I'm just wide open to suggestions, and I need to do something!

Short Version:
I am an outgoing single 26 year old male and I have December 20-28th to go on a crazy adventure. I live in Raleigh, NC. I want to go somewhere warm. Budget is $500 (not including gas). My priorities are to meet new people, build new memories, and have a lot of fun. If you were me, where would you go?

Long Version:
So... I try to go on random trips and have adventures whenever possible. Well, this Christmas I have 8 days off work and no where to be. Originally I was going to visit some friends in California but that fell through-- so I've got the time to myself and I want to have some fun!

My ideal trip would be road tripping down the Florida coast and maybe ending up in Key West, visiting awesome cities along the way. I like camping out and I've never minded sleeping in my car. I'd love to attend any special events where there are lots of 21-30 year olds. I'm all about meeting new people, going out and having fun, maybe doing something good for society along the way, and creating as many memories as possible.

An alternate idea would be to fly to the Bahamas or St. Thomas if there was anything special going on that wasn't quite so family/older folk oriented. A cheap cruise would be really fun... if it actually had lots of twenty-somethings on it as opposed to retirees/families...

The whole holiday aspect of this trip is kind of a bummer but I gotta work with what I've got.

Does anyone have any suggestions for stops, events, etc along the way?

posted by ZackTM to travel & transportation (3 comments total)

$500 isn't going to get you very far flying. A flight would take up about 60-80% of your budget. I think your road trip down the Florida coast to the Keys sounds great, especially considering gas prices are as low as they are.
posted by nitsuj at 2:29 PM on December 5, 2008

The road trip is your best bet. Flights are expensive, and cruises are too. Even a $199 cruise has 30% in taxes added on, plus on-board purchases and alcohol are really expensive.

I went on a cheap road trip out west and used this book to bring more adventure and insight to my travels. It includes a route down the east coast.

To stay cheap, have you tried couch surfing? Or if you were in a fraternity, you could try to stay in greek housing for part of your trip.

Or do you like golf? There's great courses in NC, SC, GA, and FL that you could do along the way.

As for a destination, I spent several spring breaks in Daytona Beach and really liked it- and it's 400 miles closer than Miami!
posted by JuiceBoxHero at 2:40 PM on December 5, 2008

Just remember florida is a long state. From the beginning of florida to key west is a day's drive. So that's basically 2 days taken up driving just in florida and not considering any stops.

Also, if you stop in northern florida it's not unusual to have temps from 25 - 32, so make sure you'll be warm in your car.
posted by justgary at 4:28 PM on December 5, 2008