The lady at the front desk of the inn handed me two keys on brass tags, real keys, and said breakfast was from seven to nine and the parlor had a fire going. Outside the window it was already dark at five-thirty, and the little village was strung with white lights all the way down the street.
We have driven through Pinehurst plenty of times. It is only about 45 minutes from our house near Maxton, past Laurinburg and up through the Sandhills. But we had never stayed there, because most of the year the rooms near the golf courses cost more than a whole weekend somewhere else.
The price difference
I started watching rates at a small inn in the Pinehurst area back in the summer, partly out of curiosity. In spring and fall, which is golf season, a standard room on a Friday ran anywhere from $230 to $260 a night. In early December, after the fall tournaments and before the holiday rush, that same room dropped to $118.
That is less than half. And honestly, for two people who do not play golf, the off season is not a sacrifice. We did not need a tee time. We needed a quiet room, a good bed and somewhere pretty to walk.
We went on Friday, December 5, our December trip and Wes's idea of a "rest weekend" after the bigger Smoky Mountain trip in November.
A quiet village in December
Pinehurst in mid-December felt like someone had put the whole place under a glass dome. The streets were nearly empty Friday evening. The shops had wreaths on every door, the big trees were wrapped in lights, and you could hear your own footsteps on the brick sidewalks. We walked the village loop after supper with our hands in our coat pockets and looked in windows. I did not buy a single thing, and I am proud of that.
The inn was old and comfortable, with creaky wood floors, a four-poster bed and a radiator that knocked once an hour like it was checking on us. Breakfast was included: biscuits, eggs, grits and a bowl of fruit nobody touched. Wes went back for a second plate of biscuits and said nothing, which is his highest praise.
Saturday morning we drove over to Southern Pines, walked the main street with the railroad running down the middle, had a light lunch and were home by mid-afternoon, early enough to get supper going and pick up June from Tonya's.
What it cost, and the cash-back
This trip has a twist on the receipt. All year I have put our gas and groceries on our no-annual-fee cash-back card and paid it off in full every month. By December the cash-back had piled up to $186, and I decided it should go to a trip, since gas money is what earned most of it. So I redeemed it as a statement credit against this weekend.
- Inn, 1 night: $118
- Room tax: $15
- Gas, about 90 miles round trip, about 3.2 gallons at $2.85: $9
- Supper in the village with tip: $72
- Saturday lunch in Southern Pines: $18
- Total: $232
- Cash-back applied: $186
- Out of the trip account: $46
I count the full $232 in our yearly totals, because that is what the trip actually cost. The cash-back is a small side benefit of paying for things we'd buy anyway, not a reason to spend. I am not going to start chasing points. I just like seeing them land somewhere useful.
Supper was the biggest line, and it was worth it. We ate at a little restaurant with tablecloths and candles, and I had a pork chop the size of a hymnal. It is not where we eat on a normal trip. But we saved so much on the room that we let ourselves have one nice meal, and it felt like Christmas had come a little early.
If you live within a couple of hours of a resort town, any resort town, check what the rooms cost in its slow month. Golf country in December, beach towns in February, mountain towns in early spring. The rooms are the same rooms. The only thing missing is the crowd.
