Can not afford to come? Think again
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Posted on: Sat, 01/19/2008 - 3:16am
Can not afford to come? Think again
Hi, we realize that many people are concerned about the $195 cost, which is just under a 3x cost of Barcelona($73).
When we get into the real conference costs it turns out that staying in major US downtown city is the real problem. Here’s some tips for traveling to Boston on the cheap.
Airfare: We recommend http://kayak.com Fares from Oakland California are as low as $250. Austin, TX to Boston is $350. $770 London, to Bos. You can take a train from NYC for less than $200.
Hotel: If you have a car, and your willing to commute you can find hotels for as little as $67 a night.
http://www.daysinn.com/DaysInn/control/Booking/checkavail?propBrandId=DI&id=08407&rate=000&checkInDate=03%2F02&checkOutDate=03%2F07&numberAdults=1&numberChildren=0&numberRooms=1&corporateCode=00000123456&iataNumber=123456&otTravelAgent=00026946&travelagent=00026946
Hostel: http://www.bostonhostel.org
$27.99-$44.99 per night per person
Car rental: http://www.usave.com/ for $38 a day.
Need financial assistance? Fill in your registration profile. http://boston2008.drupalcon.org/contributors-need-financial-assistance
Stay with members of the community: There’s 200 members of the Boston Drupal user community. http://groups.drupal.org/boston
Cheers,
Kieran
http://www.couchsurfing.com - Boston has a very active community, you can find a free place to stay and meet some really cool people too. Check out my profile (http://www.couchsurfing.com/people/johndbritton), I guarantee you’ll have an excellent time.
Don’t forget when you’re looking for a hotel in a city, check into parking!
More often than not, parking can be an additional daily fee. The difference in real cost between a hotel on the edge of town with free parking and a nearby subway station to the conference can be more than you think if parking near the conference costs you $25/day.
Of course they never tell you this on Travelocity/Expedia/Orbitz et al. and you don’t know until you call the hotel and ask “is there free parking? what will it cost me to park?”
Sometimes with research you can find nearby to your hotel public, $10 a day parking. Knowing this in advance might save you from getting suckered into paying the hotel $20 or more a day. Pull up, register, hand your bags to the baggage clerk (except your laptop), jump back in car and hit the public parking then walk back to hotel.
HotDrupal
Lots of people offer rooms in their homes for short term housing. You can pay in some cases $30 - $50 a night (I stayed in one when visiting Chicago). That beats a hotel any day!
Maybe someone can create a site for people who want to share hotel rooms. If nothing is up by the end of this coming week, I might try to find the time to do it.
Motel6 is 12 miles away, but affordable at 67$ per day. With the T pass ($15 for a week), transportation may not be an issue.
Google Maps link.
If you’re looking for an easy way to save money coming from NYC avoid the train and take the bus instead. The bus costs around $35 each way. Ride is between 4 and 5 hours, bring a laptop, a good book or travel companions.
Unfortunately, that $15.00/week fee is only for Zone 1A travel, and that Motel 6 is in Zone 2. It appears that the cost of traveling that route is $2.00/trip, which would bring the total up to about $22.00 to $26.00 for the week, depending on the length of the stay and the number of trips made in a day. Still not a bad deal.
One thing I noticed on the Motel 6 site is that they offer rooms with either 1 queen bed or 2 full beds. While the cost is slightly more for two occupants (~$72 + tax = ~$79/night), two people could go in together and get a room with 2 full beds at almost half the price as one person doing it alone. And, you can get a discount (~$4/night) at that Motel 6 for registering on-line.
Cheapest place in Boston is the YWCA Boston Berkely. Single rooms are $60 per night, doubles are $90 and triples are $105. It is very low-fi and the wifi may be spotty there. There is also limited space for males so be sure to book in advance.
It’s only a couple of miles from the convention center and very close to the busses that’ll take you to there: http://www.hopstop.com?action=route&route_id=wdfj2bcily7ec2b8
The Holiday Inn in Somerville, which is one of the two “official” hotels (you get to it by clicking on “lodging” on this site)— is reasonable at $115 (plus tax) for a double —- and it DOES include free parking.
It’s about 5 miles from the convention center. There is public transportation which requires some train changing (I think two changes). I think the most efficient route from the Holiday Inn will be sharing a taxi. A taxi would be around $18 including tip which would be $4.50 a person with four people in the taxi.
@Emanual The simplest thing re: offering to share rooms at hotels might be to simply start a thread in this forum. Kind of a low-tech solution, but might be the easiest thing in getting that job done.
Shai
content2zero
$4.50 seems very reasonable if there are other people who would also be interested.
StudentUnivese has a one day GoFare special and today’s destination is Boston! I just saved $25 off my flight just because of the special for anyone buying a ticekt to boston.
http://www.studentuniverse.com/goDeal.html
Keep in mind you have to be a student or faculty member to purchase tickets from there but hey, if you qualify its a good deal.
Regards,
Blake
It is possible to get some good deals on hotels using Priceline.com. I bid last night and got a room at the airport Hyatt Harborside for $60 per night (with fees and taxes, it comes to just under $70 per night). The hotel has a shuttle to the airport, where from the looks of it, you can then take the silver line subway to the convention center. As with all things Priceline, your mileage may vary. For anyone interested in trying the Priceline route, I wrote an article with lots of bidding tips.
The Ubercart Posse (Ryan Szrama and I) have reserved a triple room at a hostel 1.9 miles from the convention center called the YWCA: http://www.ywcaboston.org/berkeley/index.html
We have decided to give away the third spot as a prize in a contest!! The contest rules are simple. Post to this thread on Ubercart.org and flatter, threaten, boast, plead, or in some other way convince us you are the most deserving to win. Any argument will be considered. Ryan and I will choose a winner based solely on our personal opinion. Ryan has stated that his vote will be heavily influenced by the best Drupal or Ubercart related Haiku. I am looking for the most creative / humorous post. If anyone decided to get an Ubercart logo tattooed on their body, they automatically win!
So sharpen your wit, search wikipedia for the number of syllables in a Haiku and toss your hat in the ring!
Peace,
Andy
I cann’t visit the site.
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