
This past weekend was huge in the boxing world, as Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather finally came face-to-face inside the ring at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. It was so big and so hyped that the cost of pay-per-view skyrocketed from the usual $60/$70 to $90/$100 (standard/high definition).
Well, the fight ended up being quite underwhelming. Of course, I didn’t expect it to match the hype leading up to it, but it really flopped in comparison to all the marketing that was done to promote it.
With the letdown, I thought about what other travel activities and investments that $100 could have been used for instead of the “Fight of the Century,” and came up with this:
Destinations (roundtrip from Los Angeles for the weekend of May 8 to 10 unless otherwise stated):
Greyhound bus/Amtrak
- San Diego (up to $50.50 depending on time of departure)/ San Diego ($74 in value seating)
- Oceanside (up to $35)
- Las Vegas (up to $89 for standard fare or $70 for web fare depending on time of departure)
- Santa Barbara (up to $42)/ Santa Barbara ($84 in premium seating)
- San Luis Obispo (up to $82)/San Luis Obispo ($98 in value seating)
- San Francisco (up to $89.50 for web fare)/San Francisco ($71 one-way in value seating)
- Sacramento (up to $99.50 for web fare)
- Phoenix ($97 for early afternoon departures)
- Tucson ($98 web fare for morning/noon departure)
- Tijuana (up to $55 refundable fare depending on time of departure)
- Palm Springs ($58 in premium seating on Amtrak)
Travel gear (from Amazon.com unless otherwise stated)
- Osprey Daypack ($89.95)
- Anywhere between 82 to 100 travel essentials from dollar stores (82 is the minimum assuming the dollar store charges $1.11 per item and that the purchase is made in California, where sales tax is 9 percent. This count includes tax in the price. Click here to read about 16 travel items you can get at dollar stores, but there’s much, much more available.)
- 8GB Amazon Kindle Fire ($99; useful for downtime)
- Travel bundle 1 (essentials): $99.85 total
- Neck pillow ($12.95)
- Travel umbrella ($15.37)
- Set-your-own-combination lock ($12.76)/Three-pack combination lock ($8.99)
- Stainless steel water bottle ($9.99)
- Portable flashlight ($9.99)
- String backpack ($8.99; useful for going out on outdoor activities)
- Packtowl ($29.80 for XX-Large)
- Travel bundle 2 (tech and electronics): $94.67 total
- Headphones ($21.65)/ Earphones ($6.46)
- Power bank ($19.99; to charge iPads, iPhones, and other USB charger devices)
- Universal adapter ($6.69)
- AT&T Nokia Lumia 635 GoPhone ($46.34)
Wow, that is a lot of money for a pay per view. This is a really neat write up. Years gone by, I spent many hours riding Grey Hound, and Via Rail (the Canadian equivalent to Amtrak), and was always very memorable experiences!
Thank you for researching and sharing! 🙂
~Carl~