I haven’t yet made my travel plans but I’ve got a solid To Do list going about what I need to do to make it to Houston this year and enjoy the trip. The list includes:

• Figure out if we should drive or fly. I think that we’re probably going to do this trip in the early fall and it will be a short trip if we do. In that case, we are most likely going to fly there. However, since the whole family is going, it is probably more cost-effective to drive so I still have to look at the options more closely.
• See if my husband really wants to go. I say that the whole family is going but the truth is that I only know for sure that I’m going with the kids. My husband might want to skip this trip. One of the ways that we save money on family trips is by having just one adult go with the kids to avoid the price of a second adult admission everywhere we visit.
• Look for a cheap hotel. It looks like there are some good discount hotels in Houston so this shouldn’t be a problem.
• Make an itinerary. I don’t want to have a full itinerary of what we’ll be doing every minute of the day, of course. However, I do want to make sure I make some plans in advance so that I know what to budget for the trip. We’re going to have to re-work some of other travel plans this year to fit in this not-really-planned trip so I need to make sure that we’re really organized about the whole thing.
• Ask my online friend from Houston if there’s anything else I should know! I’ll keep you updated about what she has to say. In the meantime, if you have any suggestions for a first time cheap family trip to Houston, I’d love to hear them.

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I’ve developed a wonderful online friendship with someone who had read this blog and written to me. She had originally written to let me know about some good discount hotels in Houston. Although I didn’t particularly need that information right now, I really liked the woman and we’ve been talking about travel online ever since. She just wrote to me to ask me what I thought about doing New Year’s Eve at Times Square. What a great question!

I have to confess that I’ve never done New Year’s Eve at Times Square. It’s not something that I want to do with my kids and I like to be with them at the holidays so it’s not a trip that I’ll be taking any time soon. However I’ve known people who have done this. Some of them loved it and some of them hated it. Some did it frugally and others spent way more money than they wanted to. Based on what they have told me, the tips I’d have for doing New Year’s Eve at Times Square include:

• Book a cheap Times Square Hotel in advance. You have to book in advance to even get a room let alone to get a cheap room. It’s best to get a room right at Times Square because it saves you the cost and hassle of transportation to the event.
• Make the New Year’s Eve event the big deal event. You shouldn’t try to fit in a lot of other touristy stuff during this quick trip to New York. The event itself is free so focus just on that and do other New York stuff on a different trip.
• Do some pre-drinking at your hotel. If you’re a New Year’s Eve drinker then you’ll want to plan on only getting one drink at the bars near Times Square. Before that you should do your drinking at the hotel with beverages purchased at a local grocery store. It’s a lot cheaper that way.
• Bundle up. A lot of people that I know worry about wearing beautiful clothes to this event. Don’t spend the money on something special. It’s going to be cold out anyway so just put on your cutest jacket and scarf over whatever you feel comfy in.

Have a safe new year whether it’s in New York or elsewhere!

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