I have plans on going to WordCamp Chicago and WordCamp Dallas (which is relatively closer). I’ll probably be staying at the cheapest hotel in the area and I’ll be driving. I thought about going to WordCamp New Orleans, but I might do that next year. I made a commitment last year that I would go to at least two WordCamps (well, actually I wanted the second to be San Frisco, but I won’t be able to afford a plane ticket, and I’m not going to spend three days driving). So, it is going to take 6 to 8 hours driving to WordCamp Dallas and 8 to 9 hours driving to WordCamp Chicago (depending on where it is).

I have plans on recording sessions in HD at both places. I could have a live cam, if I wasn’t using Vista or the video camcorder had Vista drivers, but alas, it does not. I don’t think they are going to create one for Vista either. Well, actually I do have a web cam, but that is such poor quality. I would only do it if I was close to the speaker. I think the other point is that I’ll need to take my PC and laptop to pull it off. I’ll have the software on my PC, not my laptop and given how much video I’ll be recording, I’ll need to store it on my PC, which will have a lot of RAM and hard disk space.

Between now and the two WordCamps, I need to buy Adobe Elements bundle, 2 1.5TB hard drives, and 8 GB of RAM for my PC. I’ll also need to buy hotel rooms for both places and save money for gas and food. I’m unsure, if I’m going to attempt to even try to get plane tickets. I hate driving all that time, but I’m not going to spend $300 on a plane ticket, when I can drive and spend less than $100 on gas. Actually, I can drive about 300 miles on a single tank of gas. So if it costs $20 to fill up, I can get to WordCamp Dallas and Chicago for ~$40. So yeah, it is going to take 8 hours given to get to both places, but if I have to drive 3 hours to get to the airport for a cheap price and then spend 4 hours on the plane, then I’m wasting too much money. Not to mention, if I’m flying then I either need to rely on some guy driving me around place to place (hey I do have a HD camcorder, so if you want me to record the sessions, I could be picked up).

Right now, I see a flight to Chicago, for $280, which is non-stop and will only take an hour and a half. I like that, because I’ll only have to drive an hour and then another hour and a half. Two and a half hours totally beats 8 hours, but it costs too much. There is a $160 plane ticket for Dallas, but I’ll need to drive 3 hours for a 1 hour trip. So either way, I’m going to cut my time in half for a lot more money. I’m not going to be flying.

So I’m looking at 8 hours. Hotel prices are pretty cheap, so depending on the venue and how close I get, I’ll probably spend a lot less money then I think. So without the plane ticket, the total money I’ll be spending will probably equal one plane ticket. There are a couple of restaurants I will want to go to. In Dallas, I didn’t really get to go to many restaurants and I want to try the Chinese down there to see how it compares.

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