...that’s why [probably] I agonize about going on holiday, too.
Only yesterday was looking at prices to get to Miami.  Even with cheap plane tickets ($200 roundtrip) the housing prices are shocking, $130 a night for a run-down hotel. A long weekend, counting food, will cost me close to a thou.
Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll stay on my sofa. And pay for artificial travel - books, or movies, or reading travel blogs…

Let me see. I am in a cafe next to a Mediterranean beach just north of Valencia. The coffee and beer are good. The Calatrava extravaganza is just south of me.

No, I do recommend travel.

Just out of interest, this weekend has cost me less than £200.

Just out of interest, Michael, did you go to Valencia for a weekend and paid all your expenses out of pocket - or the weekend was part of the business trip to Spain?

I read an online journal of a Linux executive who lives on a mad traveling schedule like you, Michael - although she concentrates more on the US and Japan. Of course, she consciously choose this type of work and lifestyle - in fact, she builds a career - and her monetary compensation allows her travel for pleasure, too (when she has a few days snatched out of the racing). But mostly her seeing of the world, however alert and interested, is paid for by her Co - and that puts her in a different category from the rest of us, plane passengers.

But now that you mentioned Calatrava, I might reconsider my strong adherence to my lovely sofa. In fact, if there were thematic architectural tours to explore the work of specific architect, I’d be the first to subscribe. Imagine - seeing Full Collected Works by Calatrava - in 14 days of my hard-earned vacation!

Brian,
take a look at Ryanair or Easyjet. It’s pretty hard not to find trips costing a fraction of £100 around Europe. I suspect that if you announced your intention to make a trip, a trickle of invites to stay would come in.
There are trips to the USA currently going for under £300. I grant you that’s proper money, but bear in mind half the passengers on the Mayflower probably didn’t make it, it took weeks for the lucky few, and it cost them a lot more to buy passage, you really should go.

I book my European weekends away (which I pay for with my own money, by the way) four or five months in advance, and in most instances I have a certain flexibility about where I will go and which weekend I will go. I often pay less than £50 for a return airfare. It costs more if you book a weekend away closer to the departure date, but a midweek trip can be booked at that price with very little notice. However, in this particular instance, I booked the fare to Valencia last August, and paid £28.04 for it.

Spain is full of cheap hotels in the way that France used to be but isn’t so much any more. On Saturday night I paid €35 for a perfectly comfortable and clean room with en ensuite bathroom. (This sort of accommodation is now easily bookable over the internet, making it easier if you like to have somewhere booked before you arrive). I spent just over £20 getting to and from airports, almost all of that on a return train ticket from central London to Stansted airport. (Valencia has a metro line that goes to the airport on which you pay a standard metro fare, so €1.80 each way there). That’s about 75 quid.

In Valencia I spent another €80 on food, drink, and entertainment, so that’s about a hundred and thirty quid in total. (However, I would have spent money on food, drink and entertainment back in London. If I had spent the weekend on my sofa it would have been less than that. If a friend had called me up and suggested going to the pub / a movie / a restaurant, I could easily have spent that much or more). So I am not sure that the beer and skittles money really counts as part of the expense of the trip.

Also, I bought four bottles of wine and some Jamon Iberico back in my luggage. That’s another €30 or so, but you could argue that actually reduced the cost of the trip. I buy wine in London, but the taxes in Spain are a lot lower, so every bottle I buy in Spain and not London saves me money. And if I wanted ham of that quality I would have to go to a gourmet food store or Borough market, and pay a lot more for it than I did.

So a weekend away like that really does fall into the “petty cash” level.  This was a particularly cheap airfare - they usually cost a little (but not necessarily a lot) more. If I have a driving trip and I rent a car that costs a bit more, and trips to more northerly destinations can cost more in terms of accommodation and food. (There are lots of cheap options in Eastern Europe, if cheap is what you want).

I second Antoine - you should definitely come visit us in US; NY in particular offers much for your particular interests: f.i. I just received a newsletter from this private tour guide announcing a new tour:
“THE RIALTO: THE THEATERS OF 1880 Meet at Broadway and E. 13th Street, northwest corner.  Up Broadway to Times Square, you will see the theater district of Sarah Bernhardt, Oscar Wilde, Lillian Russell and Lillie Langtry”
-besides the architectural Rand tour (the one I took some time ago).
Definitely worth the expense.

Michael, weekend in Valencia off-season and Miami in-season are incompatible. Correct comparison will be either trip London-[any fashionable]Alpine ski resort and New York-Miami or London-Valencia and New York - Columbus, OH. However, I appreciate all the useful tips, duly noted.

I don’t think your point of view is shocking. The nice thing about spending 200 on something you’ll have for a long time is ........... you’ll have it for a long time. A vacation is gone after a week or two.