Discount Travel Secrets: My Practically Free Trip To North Carolina

Hi Reader,

As I mentioned last week, I am currently out on the road again!

I just spent a couple days in the small mountain town of Sapphire, North Carolina before continuing my road trip down to Florida.

It's kind of like going to Pigeon Forge, except it's on the back side of the Smoky Mountains, and the town is MUCH smaller.

Sapphire is more of a place to unplug, enjoy the outdoors, and maybe try some golf or ziplining or boating out on the lake.

Here's a little bit of a breakdown of my costs just to get to North Carolina:

• topped off gas before heading out on my trip, which was $4.88/gallon in Ohio 🥲
• filled up at the Buc-ee's right outside of Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg for $3.99/gallon
• 2 night stay at Fairway Forest Resort $0 (I used timeshare points - but the cost equivalent was $386 for the total stay or $193 per night in an updated 1 bedroom deluxe room with a full kitchen and in-unit laundry) (I have lots of points to burn so I splurged a little 🙊 - our average per night spend for our timeshare overall is about $125 a night)
• brought tuna salad cracker kits, protein shakes, sweet potato chips, oreos, & bottled water for my snacks on the road & during my resort stay (all of which I normally have at home every day except for the tuna salad cracker kits - I usually have greek yogurt with mixed nuts, but greek yogurt doesn't travel as well)
• for my dinners, I brought a can of skyline chili and half a box of spaghetti & made that both nights (which is significantly cheaper than my normal dinners I'd make at home, but it's all shelf stable, so it travels well)

So overall, the only extra out of pocket spending was a full tank of gas that I otherwise would not have used if I were at home all week.

Cost savings to keep in mind:

• use GasBuddy app to track gas prices, so you don't end up at the most expensive gas station
• join the free rewards programs for gas stations - most will give you at least $0.10 per gallon or more (Speedway, Love's, Pilot/Flying J, etc)
• stop at truck stops like Buc-ee's, Love's, Pilot/Flying J so you can get gas, food, and a bathroom break all in one place without any extra driving around wasting gas
• bring some drinks and snacks with you so you never get hangry and over-indulge at restaurants

You can check out the room tour from Fairway Forest Resort over on our Youtube channel, which just went live a couple days ago, and the blog post review is up on our blog now too!

Be sure to follow along on Instagram in real-time for the rest of my trip now that I'll be in Florida for a couple weeks!

See you next week,

Eva and JP 💎

P.S. Ready to plan your next trip?

Find some of our favorite travel-related resources below.
Using our affiliate links won't increase your costs in anyway, but it will earn us a small token of gratitude from the company for directing you their way.

Follow us on Social Media! 👇

​​​​​​