10 Perfectly Good Substitutes for Expensive Vacation Spots

At least 34 of your friends have gone here recently, and they’ve all taken Instagrams by an extremely blue pool or vibrantly colored hotel wall and anyway, it’s so hip it makes you (me) want to cry. Palm Springs is a popular scene, and deservedly so. It is stylish and fun. Palm Springs is very cool. Your friend who is in a band goes there a lot and posts pictures of himself and his music friends and they’re all wearing cool sunglasses.

Desert Hot Springs is quieter and cheaper than Palm Springs, but other than that, they are extremely similar. One time, I thought I was in Palm Springs but then I found out two days later it was actually Desert Hot Springs and I was like, “What,” followed by, “This is just the desert, both of these places are literally just the same desert.” Anyways, Desert Hot Springs is just as pretty but less flashy. Classic Kroger.

Look, Scottsdale is nice. It’s a really, really nice place to live. I know a girl from Scottsdale, who may or may not be me (it’s me). Everything is new there compared to other cities, and it’s basically if a resort was a whole town. Doesn’t that sound nice? Yeah. Because it is nice. However, it really, really (obnoxiously) wants to be Beverly Hills, and that’s all there is to it.

Scottsdale is Beverly Hills in the desert with more strip malls—and regular malls! Really nice regular malls. Visit Scottsdale Fashion Square and luxury shop to your heart’s desire—or go to H&M because there are regular stores there, too. There are plenty of expensive restaurants nearby for you to eat a fancy meal at but there’s also a Chipotle, in case you don’t want to. This is Arizona: land of chains. Then you can go back to your fancy resort at the base of fancy Camelback Mountain and sit in one of the fancy spas they’ve definitely got there.

The whole town of Scottsdale is pretty much one large resort with the theme of “Beverly Hills But Desert Version, Please Look At Us, We Are Fancy Also,” therefore making it the Kroger version.

Sure, you could go to Vegas and be surrounded by a million people everywhere while traveling up and down the strip spending a thousand million dollars. Sure. You could do that. There is nothing wrong with that. But guess what, you can do a lesser version of this right smack in the middle of the desert for a lot cheaper of a price and about 1/500 of the exercise.

The middle of the desert in between Los Angeles and Phoenix has several casinos for you: Morongo Casino! Fantasy Springs Casino! …Other ones, as well, also! Not only can you still gamble and drink and make tons of bad decisions here (in a bite-size, exponentially lesser value of a packaging), but they’ve also got your basic entertainment covered, as well. Decently famous comedians you might know and kind-of-still-relevant musical acts are always performing there. Mike Tyson spoke there for some reason at the end of October—to a sold out crowd! What? Sure, why not! It’s just the right amount of kitschy fun that will make you go “Why am I doing this?” just like you would in Las Vegas–but in a much more generic way.

Insider Tip: One perk of desert casinos is that you are literally in the middle of nowhere, so you don’t have to be indecisive about where to go for fun because you usually only have like 3 choices! Try all of them! Here they are, probably: Outlet mall, Taco Bell, and the casino that you are staying at.

The Grand Canyon is one of the Seven Wonders of the World, but at the end of the day, it’s just a bunch of beautiful, majestic cliffs surrounding a botanical desert oasis that happens to be lower than the regular ground. Like, wow, I guess. You can see this sort of scene other places, and for cheaper!

For example, right next door is Utah. Did you know that Arizona and Utah look incredibly similar? Well, they do. And Utah’s got Canyonlands, with breathtaking views and trails and an alternatively priced canyon adventure. The Grand Canyon is a name-brand vacation and there are sure to be way more crowds than you’ll want to deal with. Both parks are rocks that are very tall and red—why not opt for convenience? Canyonlands is smaller and you can see it all in, like, a day, probably. The Colorado River is even there, as well–just like the big Grand C. Plus, its name is Canyonlands, which is extremely on the nose, and therefore very Kroger-like in branding. The quality is still there, though. We promise. Give some other canyons a try, why don’t you?

Okay, so “Idaho Falls” is slightly less romantic sounding than “Niagara Falls.” Totally. We’re right there with you. Maybe when you think “Idaho” you don’t immediately think “incredibly beautiful waterfall,” but wait a minute there, mister, that’s where you’re mistaken. Idaho has some lovely, foresty locales. And get this: Idaho’s Shoshone Falls, a waterfall on the Snake River in southern Idaho, is 45 feet taller than Niagara Falls. That’s right: bigger falls, fewer crowds. When I heard that I was like, “Are you kidding me???????” but no, they aren’t!

I don’t know about you, but if I can get a larger waterfall, PLUS all the outdoor loveliness that goes along with visiting a gigantic waterfall inside of a forest/canyon area without all the masses of people literally everywhere, I’M IN. Who needs Niagara Falls?! Not this girl, that’s for sure.

There’s no getting around it: Lakes are the Kroger version of oceans. The beach is big and beautiful, and there are a million beautiful beaches around the world that people love to vacation to.

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See? Good lakes. Lake Tahoe is a nice lake of note and has tons of lovely resorts, outdoor activities, nice dining, and views. You can go on hikes by lakes. Do you like the woods? Lakes are usually there!

That said, it remains true: Lakes are stupid, small seas. Can you captain a ship on a lake? No, you can’t. You can captain a boat, though (boat is the Kroger version of ship). Lakes are small-humble, even. Oceans are vast, and extremely large—too large for your small family, some might say*! And for this, a modest lake is the Kroger brand alternative to your excessive beach vacation.

[*Editor’s Note: No one says this.]

If lakes are still too big for you, may we suggest visiting: a pond. Here’s a pond. If ponds were sold at the grocery store, they would definitely be significantly cheaper than lakes.

I know you probably want to go to Joshua Tree because you’ve heard about how incredible it is, and those rumors aren’t wrong. Here’s the thing: You can just go out to the desert and find that it’s extremely similar and no one will be around for miles. Remember what I said about Palm Springs? Same thing goes for this: There are Joshua trees in lots of desert areas that aren’t actually called “Joshua Tree.”

You can look at some lovely ironwood trees in Blythe, for god’s sake. It’s the desert. It mostly all looks the same. We’ve been over this. There’s a lot of dirt. You like dirt and being very warm? You can do this a lot of places. Drive your car to literally anywhere else in the desert other than a popular, hip, well-known vacation spot to have a similar, albeit Kroger-like, experience.

Disneyland is very expensive. It seems to get more expensive as each year goes by. Hell, each month. Excuse me, sorry, let me start over.

It’s a known fact that all Disney Parks go up several dollars in price every three minutes*. And as lovely as the Happiest Place(s) on Earth is/are, it’s becoming more difficult to afford tickets. Who cares—instead, go to Holiday Land in Santa Claus, Indiana. This place has everything: Christmas, Thanksgiving, Halloween, the 4th of July. Does your child want to go on the Dumbo ride? Forget it–they got “Dancer’s Fish” here, which is flying fish, and they apparently belong to Dancer, the reindeer. And, who needs the teacup ride when you have “Dasher’s Seahorses” the carousel? And again, yes, for clarification, that is Dasher, as in the reindeer, and he does have his very own carousel of seahorses, for some reason. Why do these Christmas reindeer have their own sea creature-themed rides? I don’t know: magic, maybe? Christmas magic? Who cares! Reindeer love fish, I guess! Welcome to Holiday World!

*Not accurate information whatsoever

Boston is a mecca of American history–however, it can be a little pricey. If you’re looking to take a trip to brush up on some history, Colonial Williamsburg is a much cheaper, more Kroger-like Boston-duplicate, except instead of regular citizens walking around, it’s actors dressed up as 18th-century colonial people, who you can ask questions about their lives and jobs. Doesn’t that sound fun? They’ve also got an outlet mall–the Kroger-version of a regular mall!