Planning a Cheap Family Vacation

Rather than boring you with all the steps and tips of how to plan a cheap family vacation, or CFV, take a look at how I roll with my family of five, without taking out a HELOC.

I have been lauded by the woman whose opinion matters most (my wife, not Oprah) as the cheapest man on the planet. I have a few grown-up toys, but have mysteriously survived without a boat, a pickup, or an ATV. I am not an impulse buyer, unless something purchased with between three and six months of forethought is considered an impulse.

For this reason, I am the vacation planner. She decides where we would go (since otherwise we would never go anywhere), and it becomes my job to plan it. I do occasionally throw a few ideas her way, but I don't even have veto power once she has made up her mind.
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So, after much deliberation and compasion, I purchased a family-sized tent, one that could "easily" be set up in the dark, for just over $75. It came with two extra sleeping bags, a couple of canvas chairs, and some miscellaneous camping stuff. I spent a few hours net-surfing, and e-mailing some old military friends.

The next day we loaded ourselves into the car - me and all the women in my life. Three daughters, 13, 9, and 7, crammed into the family sedan with a full tank of gas. I headed north, with my wife reading the map, mostly so I could drive her bananas when I try to read it and drive at the same time. We made a beeline for central Missouri, where an old friend was expecting us. He didn't have the room to board us, but this was known in advance: we set up the tent in his front yard. My wife got some video of my friend and I trying to set it up while the girls watched. We all laughed until our sides hurt.

After a less than restful night, we headed down an intentional detour to a place called Tightwad, MO. There isn't much of anything there other than a city limit sign, which happens to be chained and welded to the pole to prevent theft. Okay, other than its symbolic value, that's pretty boring. But over the next thirteen days, we forged our way through five more states, finding all sorts of cheap stuff to do.