We ate out for all of our meals: I ended up spending around $450 on food and drinks throughout the trip. Santa Fe is known for green chili, so I had a goal of eating green chili in every meal (which I succeeded in, thanks to all of the breakfast burritos, salsa, mixtos, enchiladas, tamales, tapas, and, yes, a green chili croissant that I ordered at the Santa Fe Farmers’ Market). I even bought a green chili scented candle for $17, which smells exactly like roasting green chilis. It’s incredible.
Because this trip was really about art, we hit up the Georgia O’Keeffe museum (where I spent $20 on the ticket and $50 on some prints and a t-shirt—love a museum store) and purchased tickets to MEOW-WOLF, a gigantic interactive, immersive art installation, where tickets go for $43. We spent a few afternoons bopping through the town, browsing though the art galleries sprinkled along Canyon Road. We were also on the hunt for turquoise jewelry—another Santa Fe speciality—but because turquoise can come at a steep price, we visited an amazing thrift shop called The Double Take where I bought a silver and opal ring for a fraction of the usual price ($150). We heard about a nearby town called Chimayo that’s well-known for textiles and rugs, so we made plans to visit the town, but on our way there we took a detour and stopped by the Nambé Falls & Lake Recreation Area where we went on a hike (and by that, I mean we waded through a river barefoot and climbed a rock face) to see a waterfall. By the time we finished the hike, we were exhausted—and ravenous—and decided to skip Chimayo and grab some mixtos and micheladas ($30) at Rancho de Chimayo before heading back to our Airbnb.
On our last day, Monday, we bought $21 day passes for El Rey Motel so we could hang out and work remotely by their pool. On our way to the airport, we stopped and grabbed a quick dinner at a large industrial food hall called the Sawmill Market in Albuquerque before taking a red eye back to New York.
My Total: $1,786
A quick solo trip to Charleston, South Carolina
Kathryn Crimmins, who is in her mid 30s, works in healthtech in New York City.
A couple of years ago, I spent a month living in Charleston, South Carolina, and quickly fell in love with the city’s charm and history. I was eager to head back for a quick visit and figured early November would be the perfect time — New York was getting chillier and Charleston was wide open and welcoming visitors again after the craziness that was 2020.
I found a roundtrip flight from LaGuardia Airport to Charleston International Airport for $95. This route can get pretty expensive but if you purchase your ticket well ahead of time and opt for basic economy, you can keep it cheap. I arrived on a Thursday and took an Uber straight to the very beach-trendy Ryder Hotel, a recently renovated boutique hotel downtown, where I booked a three-night stay for $875.
I kicked off my weekend with some small bites at a modern Southern-style restaurant Lenoir before dropping into a comedy show (for just $15) at Theatre 99, a live improv comedy venue right around the corner from my hotel. After the show, I ordered a couple drinks from Little Palm, Ryder Hotel’s bar, and was able to keep the tab low since a free welcome cocktail came with my stay.