A Frugal Girls Mini Vacation

I just got back from a great trip with my mom and two sisters, Violet and Lizzy. We moved abroad when my little sister Lizzy was only 6, and Violet and I moved out of the house right around then. We realized that we girls never really did trips together, and Violet had the idea to go on a hiking trip/mini vacation with the three girls and our mom, and we had an awesome time. 

It was frugal and fun and just hit the spot.

Violet wanted to go to this specific water hike that is very famous, and is a rite of passage, of sorts, for locals, as it something a large percent do growing up here, which we never did since we only came at a later stage.

We left yesterday afternoon, came back yesterday night. 

Entire cost of the trip? 

$25 per person plus groceries.

My mom has off Tuesdays. So that she wouldn't need to take any vacation days, we left the area after she finished work yesterday. We used a hybrid car to save money on gas, and drove approximately 2 hours until we reached a camp ground, on a beautiful lake. For the camp ground, we paid per car- the car cost $28, and we divided the cost among the four of us, so $7 per person.

We arrived at around 7 pm, enough time to set up our tent (one we used for many years on camping trips as children) before it got dark.

For supper, my mother brought along leftovers which she warmed before she left, and kept in an insulated bag to keep warm. 

After eating supper, I collected some firewood and leaves and kindling from around the area, and got a fire ready... only I noticed in the fire pit there were some embers from a previous fire. We decided to see if we could get the fire lit with no matches, just using that ember, and we did it! It wasn't so easy or fast, but it was an enjoyable challenge.

My sisters roasted hot dogs and marshmallows on the fire (which my mom and I didn't have as we both follow the paleo diet.)

In the morning, we packed up our tent and drove another 20 minutes to get to the nature reserve where this park was. Entrance fee was $6 per person.

Once in the nature reserve, we hiked across a plateau, and then down into a gorge, in which a stream flowed. 

The path of the hike was literally walking through this stream the vast majority of the time. It was over 100 degrees Farenheit today, but the water was icy cool, making it quite a pleasant walk.

Eventually, at the end of the trail, we reached an oasis like area, a massive pool with water over 20 feet deep in the center, and a waterfall flowing into it, with trees and flowers growing all around it, shading much.

We swam and enjoyed here for quite a while.

While we were hiking, we ate food that we brought along from home- dried fruit, homemade ground beef jerky, nuts, chestnuts, carrot sticks, butternut squash and banana leather for the Paleo people, and tortillas with sausages and carrot sticks and crackers and cookies and pretzels for everyone else. 

After that, we ended up going to another park close by, with free entrance, where we also hiked along a stream in a gorge, filled with lots of beautiful plants.

Though it is against the law to pick plants in these nature reserves, as a forager I couldn't help but notice how many different edible plants there were. We saw grape vines, wild raspberry, mint, figs, dock, mulberries, jujube, acorns, milk thistle, wild fennel, wild mustard, capers, chasteberry, lupine, amaranth, and much more...

We saw birds and frogs and fish and lizards and crabs...

And then we drove home. We were originally planning on stopping at a restaurant along the way, but decided that that would just be unnecessary, since we still had so much food left in the car, so we ate more leftovers and dried fruit and nuts and jerky as well as some canned veggies and were perfectly content with that.

The last $12 for the trip? Cost of the gas split.

This was quite a fun trip. It was nice to have a break from my routine, and have an enjoyable time, excising, in beautiful nature, with my sisters and mom. We plan on doing something like this again!

And best part of it really was that it didn't set us back financially at all. Even babysitting we bartered so that wasn't a monetary factor!

What is your favorite type of frugal vacation? What types of frugal vacationy activities do you like?
Does this look like the type of trip you'd enjoy?