New Orleans, LA
HOW TO: Survive in Nawlins on $100
So we got a call in Austin from my mom saying “Hey..are you doing ok? Because you overdrafted your account by $40.”
Oops.
Luckily we had about $300 in cash but still about 1,200 miles away from home. So! We had to be thrifty.
We left Austin at the absolute butt crack of dawn, drove through downtown Houston at morning rush hour. Packed our lunch with pb&j’s for the drive so we didn’t have to pay for anything and hit New Orleans at 4:00 in the afternoon.
We have heard a lot of amazing things about New Orleans, the people, the food, and the music being the best. Obviously its a rough place at night time but we were aware we probably didn’t have enough money to even go out at night so our parents could rest easy.
Ok, so if we have $300 but we still had to have some left to make it home so we said we could have $200 for NOLA.
The one RV Park in New Orleans was $100 a night and we planned on staying 3 nights so naturally we didn’t stay there. We scored a hotel room at the AC Marriott Bourbon Street Hotel with the world’s most amazing staff, water pressure, and pillows I have ever experienced.
Since we were staying in a hotel it means we had to park Trudy somewhere. We found a safe parking lot by the cruise terminal for $25 a night, taking our $200 down to $125 for three days.
All I have heard about New Orleans is what a party scene it is and how much money people blew in this city. The front desk gave us pages of recommendations of restaurants and bars so we had to pick and choose.
Day one: After being completely beat from the drive, we ordered pizza delivery to the hotel from Magazine pizza and had wine. A large spinach and artichoke pizza set us back about $20 after tip.
Day two:
Coffee in the room-FREE
Muffulatas from Central Grocery, split-$7.50
Hand grenade x2-$9
Bignets at Cafe du Monde- $2.73
Drinks and Alligator bites on Frenchman St: $25
Total Spent on Day: $46
So that was a little too much. but its ok, we did a bunch of things we wanted to do and that is for two of us. So this leaves $59 left for our last day.
Day Three
Breakfast: Coffee in the room - FREE
FREE Walking tour throughout the entire French Quarter- $5 tip
Lunch/Dinner: Fried Shrimp Po Boy and Daiquiris- $16
On our walking tour we came across Preservation Hall, an old jazz hall that has three shows a night. It was started during the Elvis days to help preserve jazz and give jobs to musicians who had lost their jobs with the rise of Rock n’ Roll. Tickets were $20 each and we had to go.
If you’re with me doing the math, we had $38.
Kaitlin is a server in Maui and was given a $2 bill as a tip forever ago and she never spends it.
This is how much money we didn’t have, she used her $2 bill to get us into the jazz show.
We put two Hurricane’s from Pat O’Briens on our credit card as a reward for being so strict and enjoyed an amazing concert of New Orleans jazz.
The next morning we woke up fairly early. We packed up and made it to Trudy and headed towards Florida. We were still rolling in our gas cards so we made it all the way to Florida without spending any money.
New Orleans was beautiful, the architecture, the music, the liveliness of this city was overwhelming. I definitely want to go back and experience it with a little bit more money but this goes to show you that you can hit all the highlights without breaking the bank.
Always remember, sight seeing is the best free thing you can do in a new city.
Kaitlin and I had a great time exploring the city, not being ashamed to take a nap in the middle of the day in our comfy hotel room, and listening to real jazz where it was born.
Definitely put Nawlins on your list.