I must start with a piece of advice for the cheap: don’t try to go on a cheap-ass vacation alone. I’m terminally single, myself, so I know how difficult this can be, but you need friends for vacations to be really affordable. Accommodations are just not priced to be obtained by one person, because the world is against us, my single people. (Like Kelly Clarkson says, people like us, we gotta stick together.) Either get yourself a single vacation buddy, or a few, or a couple that likes you, or even half a couple whose vacation styles don’t mesh.
Take my friend JAS and I. We both are sit-by-the-pool, drink-a-beverage-with-a-little-umbrella, have-some-nice-food, take-it-easy vacationers. We went to Key West together and it was amazing. We also like to have unconventional life experiences. We’re trying to save and schedule for a vacation to this place at some point, because it’s a bed and breakfast and a ALPACA FARM. With a winery nearby. We want to sit in a pretty place with a hot toddy, and also pet an alapaca. (Or a llama
or a goat. We’re simple people.) JAS’s sweetie JS, on the other hand, is a sleep-in-a-tent, back-to-nature, hiking-and-pooping-outside type. JAS and JS go on some trips together, but JAS and I have agreed that we should just take the big long seriously relaxing vacations together. And that’s totally cool. JS likes to go with their best friend and hike in the mountains. If you have a partner, you likely see them all the time — you need a vacation from them too. I know it is true, Cracked said so.
What destination constitutes a cheap vacation for you naturally has a lot to do with where you actually live. I’m based in the D.C. metro area and grew up in North Carolina, so the southern-type end of the east coast is the region I’m most familiar with. My first entry will be on the North Carolina coast, because it is a cheap-ass vacation destination that is very dear to my heart, and my next will be on New York — no doubt the first of many on New York.