Traveling with more than four people can be expensive and complicated! At least that’s what I’ve found. Usually we go camping or stay at friends’ houses and that helps with lodging costs. Then most recently I wrote about scoring a deal on a room at Great Wolf Lodge, but now I have another option to add to the list of frugal getaways and that’s Airbnb!

I have stayed in Airbnbs in the past but this was the first time we did it as a family and I really can’t say enough good things about how it turned out.

First of all we were a little flexible with our dates so that helped bring the costs down. We were also flexible about where we wanted to go. I didn’t want to drive more than four hours, but living in Cincinnati we had multiple states to choose from. In the end J found an amazing little cottage on some farmland in Fremont Indiana.

There was a deal going for $88 a night and they didn’t even have a cleaning fee (which most Airbnbs do). With taxes and fees it was $110 a night. I know that’s still a lot of money and there is no way we could have done long trip at that rate, but you have to admit it’s a steal. We would have paid that much for a decent hotel, but with the cottage we got so much more! This was our room.

This was the girls room.

The boys slept on an air mattress in the living room.

On top of that we saved so much money because I brought food that I prepared ahead of time at home. I did a similar concept at Great Wolf, but this time I had a full kitchen to work with. Not only that, but it was my dream kitchen!

I was even able to pack meals for when we left the cottage. Our next camping gear investment is going to be one of those coolers that keep food cold for days, but since we had a full size refrigerator I didn’t have to worry about that too much this time.

Another thing that camping, and GWL have in common with this Airbnb is that the entertainment is included on site. We definitely left the cottage to go to some local farms and orchards,

but we ended up doing far less excursions than we planned. We were content to play games, chill out, and hang out by the fire.

When we did go out there were plenty of activities on the road trip there and back that were free!

I would describe this fall break as a once in a lifetime trip, but hopefully this type of trip will happen more than once.