A Day Trip to the Beach from Utah

We do NOT live near the ocean (we’re in landlocked Utah!) but earlier this spring a friend mentioned that there was a 7 a.m. flight to Orange County out of the Provo airport and then one back at 7 p.m.

Even better, those tickets are very inexpensive because Provo mostly flies budget airlines like Breeze and Allegiant.

I couldn’t get the idea out of my head and at a family party, I floated the idea to Bart’s mom and sisters. By the time we went home that night, we had picked a date and we had 12 people confirmed to go on the trip!

I booked the tickets – they were $84 round trip, but I got them even more inexpensively because I bought them in person at the Provo airport during the two hours a week the Breeze desk is open and that means you can skip the technology fee that they charge if you buy them online (it was $28 per ticket, so across 12 tickets, I saved over $300 by spending 45 minutes at the airport).

The magical day finally came this past week and we got up early, caught our flight and were looking at the ocean by breakfast time, then back home to sleep in our own beds by 10:30 p.m.

What an adventure!

Ella actually planned the whole day’s activities which was a total delight and she did a great job.

Here’s what our agenda looked like:

A Day Trip to the Beach from Utah

• 7:30 a.m. flight from the Provo Airport to the John Wayne Airport
• Take an Uber to Rose Bakery Cafe for breakfast
• Walk over to Treasure Cove Beach for tide pooling, coves, and beach
• Take an Uber to Balboa island
• Walk the cute little shop streets, get a Balboa Bar or frozen banana at Sugar ‘n Spice, visit Balboa Candy
• Take the ferry over to the Balboa Peninsula (cash only!)
• Ride the Ferris Wheel at the Fun Zone
• Pick up beach rentals (umbrellas, chairs, boogie boards, toys)
• 2-3 hours at the beach on Balboa Peninsula
• Uber to dinner at Postinos around 4:30
• Uber to the airport at 6:00 p.m.
• 7:15 p.m. flight from John Wayne Airport to the Provo Airport (land just after 10:00 p.m.)

I mentioned this trip on Instagram and got a FLOOD of questions about it. Here are some of the most commonly asked questions:

How do you find cheap flights like this?
This wasn’t any special deal – Breeze is a budget airline and has cheap tickets all the time (they’ll vary from date to date, obviously). We looked at several dates and picked one that worked for everyone and had cheaper tickets. As usual, a week day was less expensive than a weekend!

How far in advance did you buy the tickets?
I bought them in early June, so about 6 weeks before our day trip!

What is the technology fee for?
I think it’s basically a way for airlines to make extra cash. You’ll see it called an “optional technology development charge” at checkout and it is the fee they are charging you to buy your tickets online. It’s optional because you CAN get out of it by buying your tickets at the airport in person. Allegiant does the same thing (they call theirs “Carrier Usage Charge”). The fee varies – I’ve seen it as high as $50 on a roundtrip ticket – so keep an eye out and see if it’ll be worth it to you to go wait in line at the airport at a very specific time.

What is the day/time you can go buy them in person?
In June 2024, it was 9-11 a.m. for Breeze at the Provo airport (I believe it 11-1 for Allegiant). I would definitely call the airport and find out before you make the trip over there!

How long was the flight?
About an hour and 45 minutes each way!

How early did you need to be at the smaller airport?
We got to each airport about an hour before our flight. We had no luggage to check and Bart and I have TSA precheck, so from the front door to the gate took all of about 8 minutes on each end. Plus Provo airport parking is RIGHT THERE, so we were parked literally 2 minutes away from the front door of the airport and then our Uber dropped us at the John Wayne airport doors, so there was no time spent parking. An hour was PLENTY of time – I’d have felt fine with 45 minutes (but didn’t want to stress out the rest of our party who might have been less cavalier than I am). In both cases, we had time for people to get drinks, go to the bathroom, and wander around for at least 25 minutes before we started boarding.

What did you pack?
We each brought a backpack with a towel (these Geometry beach towels were perfect for packing small, drying fast, and not holding onto a million grains of sand), a swimsuit, and a book or Kindle plus headphones for the plane. I also brought along a few small snacks – beef sticks, dried clementines, almonds, sunglasses, a pair of beach shoes for me since I wanted to wear sneakers on the plane and for longer stretches of walking, plus a travel charger and my phone. My sister-in-law and mother-in-law both brought sunscreen.

Did you rent a car?
No, we opted to just Uber so we wouldn’t have to deal with parking or spend time at the airport picking up or dropping off a rental on both ends of the trip. I think we ended up saving money by doing Uber. We did 2 Ubers most of the time (6 and 6 in each), but one ride it was faster and only a few dollars more to do 3 Ubers with 4 people per Uber.

How far was the beach from the airport?
It took us about 13 minutes by Uber to get from the airport to breakfast and then it was about a 2 block walk from breakfast to the beach, so not far at all!

Where did you rent your stuff from?
We had planned to rent beach gear but hadn’t done a moment of research about it and assumed it would be easy to find when we were ready for it. And indeed, as we were walking from the Fun Zone at Balboa Peninsula the 2-3 blocks to the beach, we poked our heads inside a little shop called Balboa Beach and Bicycle Boutique and they had umbrellas for $5 for a half day, beach chairs for $6, sand toys for $3 and boogie boards for $10. We carried them the rest of the way to the beach and then brought them back a few hours later and called our Uber to dinner from there!

Did it feel stressful to keep looking at the clock to get back to the airport on time?
No, not at all. But I’m also not someone who is stressed about airports and airplanes. We knew what time we needed to be back at the airport and how much time we’d need to get from dinner to the airport, so it was all smooth sailing. We also had TSA precheck and no luggage to check, so it was very quick at the airport!

How much time did you actually get doing fun stuff between all the security and everything?
We were to breakfast by about 8:45 a.m. and then we arrived back at the airport around 6:15 p.m. so 9.5 solid hours of playing!

Did you have a plan B in case it as a non-beach California day? (foggy, cold, etc?)
We’d checked the weather the day before we left and it looked sunny and warm, so we didn’t make alternative plans, but we’d have made a pivot if necessary if the weather had gone south.

Did you have to go back all sandy on the plane?
Nope. There were outdoor showers at all the beaches and then we changed back into regular clothes for dinner and the flight home. There might have been a bit of sand on the girls’ shoes, but very minimal. Certainly nothing that would make you think “these people came STRAIGHT FROM THE BEACH.”

How much did it all cost per person?
Here’s a breakdown of the costs:

• Plane tickets = $56 per person
• Airport parking = $12
• Uber costs = $100 (this was for our family of 6 – Bart’s parents and sister paid about the same too)
• Breakfast = $67 for the family
• Balboa Bars/Frozen Bananas = $32
• Balboa Ferry = $6.75
• Ferris Wheel = $30
• Beach rentals = $14 for our family (Bart’s sister and parents also rented items)
• Dinner = $20 per person

So divided by 6 of us, it was $119.63 each. We could have reduced the costs by just spending the whole day at the beach which would have probably halved our Uber costs. And we could have skipped the Ferris Wheel and the treats at Balboa Island, which cost over $60. And we could have done a less expensive dinner or packed all our own food for the day. That would have put us around $80-90 a person instead, although then our beach rentals might have been full day rentals instead of half day which would increase that cost some.

Did your children melt down? I can’t imagine mine handling this epic adventure.
They did a GREAT job, but they are also well-seasoned travelers with many trips under their belts. Tally fell asleep the moment we got in the first Uber and slept until we got to breakfast and both Tally and Star fell asleep in the Uber from the beach to dinner and also on the way home from the airport. Tally got gently bumped getting out of the car at home at 10:30 p.m. which set her sobbing until I tucked her into bed 5 minutes later and then she fell instantly asleep.

Would it be hard to figure out for a couple who hasn’t flown before?
I don’t think so! Of course there might be a bit of extra stress because you aren’t familiar with security or boarding, but those are all very possible to figure out – thousands of people do every day! – and it’s a low cost way to get comfortable with it as opposed to an expensive international trip!

I’ve had too many flights delayed 6+ hours to ever risk something like this!
Totally fair and it’s not for everyone! We’d flown Breeze before without incident and we figured if it was delayed significantly on the Provo end, we’d just go home and if it was delayed significantly on the California end, we’d just get a hotel and stay the night. And happily, everything went totally smoothly!

After the cost of tickets wouldn’t it have been worth it to stay just one night? More bang for your buck?
I didn’t feel that way, personally. A hotel or Airbnb would have been somewhere between $200-500 for a night and then we would have basically doubled all the other costs by staying another day – more Uber rides, more meals, longer parking at the airport, more gear rental and activities. Basically the cost of a hotel was going to be about the cost of plane tickets so every night we stayed was going to add significantly to the cost. Plus, Bart and I both work, our girls have swim team and other commitments that made a single day more feasible, plus a lot of the fun of this was being able to do it in a single day (so we weren’t optimizing for getting as much bang for our buck as possible).

Any other questions about this trip? I’m happy to answer!

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