I know it’s been a little while, but I never posted about Texas Furry Fiesta (TFF) 2025. I attended, but didn’t get very many pictures. I mainly got pictures from the opening and closing ceremonies, and one group of fursuiters. The lack of pictures does not mean it was not a busy weekend, however. I did attend quite a few panels and get to meet quite a few new people.
However, most of the interesting story comes from the room-sharing and carpool arrangement which permitted me to attend to begin with. I will tell the story as best I can while preserving anonymity/privacy of the others.
TFF was a mere three weeks after another very important, non-furry-related, event I attended which was also a significant drive away and involved an expensive hotel stay. I had significant doubts until the very last day of pre-registration that I would be able to attend. I ran the numbers, figuring in a reasonable amount for meals and incidentals and it turned out to be possible. The arrangement was that I would both carpool up there (and back, as it turned out) and room with a local friend of mine, and room with a third local fur who would be in the room for one night. We would also carpool and ride public transit to and from the TFF hotel itself. The only real complication was that I would be locked into the same arrival and departure times, which was a minor thing as it turned out as I was pretty exhausted by the end of the day anyway. The driver also had specific fast food restaurants to stop at on the way up there and back, which were among those I normally patronize so not a big deal.
Public transit for all four days would only total $15 as the first day involved parking at a paid lot near the hotel, and the last day I only needed to ride one way. I had enough wiggle room in the budget to spend $50 on dealer’s den merchandise. My dining expense total for the entire weekend, including the trip up and back, was just shy of $106. It could technically have been even lower as $37 of that was spent on-site at the Sheraton.
My share of the hotel bill was $115 with about another $30 for my share of the carpool fuel expenses. The TFF weekend pass was $80. There were some other expenses which brought my actual expenses higher, but what I’ve named here adds up to less than $400. That said, I want to come back this in a later post because there are cases where this kind of arrangement (staying off-site and riding public transit) won’t work, or won’t work as well.
