Second Writing Retreat at SPI.
I’m on my second writing retreat at the island. I did some things differently this time, learning from last trip’s good & bad experiences.
First trip lessons: First & foremost! I had originally booked my hotel for two nights & three days… the main reason was to not spend too much. Then I asked myself, whyyyyyy?? Might as well cut wasteful spending elsewhere and not on my writing retreat.
I write. That’s pretty much my main priority right now & I’ve already made some investments on my writing this thesis semester. I bought myself a new laptop because my five year old chromebook wasn’t keeping up, and then a new laptop case & backpack. It made sense to invest into more days at the beach for my writing, too.
I ended up making a separate reservation for the rest of the week and inevitably got charged the hotel taxes twice, since they couldn’t just add the days to my original booking. Lesson learned! (Not to mention, a small daily “resort fee” for the hotel’s private entrance to the beach when I got there.) (Also I’d like to quickly mention that I got bamboozled by Amazon Prime & Student Universe, who promised to save students 10% on hotels. Then after I’d booked, I checked what the price would’ve been if I had booked directly with the hotel, and it would’ve been a few dollars cheaper each night. Fml.)
Anyway, I’d booked that hotel as a king suite cause I wanted a big bed, and to my surprise, it had a nice lil jacuzzi and a proper writing desk so all that made for a comfy and cozy place to hole up & write. The location sucked though, as it was more isolated from the rest of the island strip’s restaurants and stores.
I hadn’t packed any food with me because my duffel bag was already heavy enough to carry on the bus, so I constantly had to worry about my meals for the day. The hotel had a continental breakfast included, but I’m not a fan of cereal, muffins, and waffles for breakfast. I usually always have scrambled eggs and sausage for breakfast + iced coffee, but of course they didn’t have that. They had boiled eggs, ew.
But yea, I lost writing time to traveling time by having to get on the bus to find restaurants at the island or at Port Isabel.
With all the unnecessary expenses on hotel and restaurant meals and with what I know now, I could’ve easily stayed at the beach for two weeks instead of one. But at the end of the day I don’t regret it cause I learned some lessons + it was nice to enjoy the king suite and private entrance to the beach.
Hotel Two:
I got my second hotel dirt cheap. Hard to believe how cheap, but I scoured the internet for the lowest prices available on the most inexpensive hotels. The location is more central & way better for walking to stores or cafes. It’s also right next to a couple of bus stops too, in case I wanna get on to hang out at Port Isabel or check out nature trails here.
This time around I packed lighter, only one very simple outfit per day. I also bought a cheap travel kit at the grocery store for toiletries. I filled the four small bottles with my favorite shampoo, conditioner, body wash, and cleanser-- just enough for the week.
All this made my duffel bag extremely light, so I was able to pack snacks and foods for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I even packed my favorite peppermint mocha creamer + a bottle of Starbucks iced coffee.
Also this time around, I deactivated both of my social media apps, so I’m going to be wasting even less time on my phone.
Anyway. Here’s to having a very productive writing retreat.
