February 21, 2024 – Add Barcelona to the list of cities the Real Housewives have wreaked havoc on, bringing their special brand of drama to another international location. I’m going to lay out for you a rough estimate of what it would cost to vacation like the Real Housewives. In this case, that’s to Barcelona and its surrounding area for five days in May.

The Set-up

For the uninitiated, cast trips are always a big deal on the Real Housewives franchises, typically with one domestic and one international trip each season. This year in season 16 of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, the ladies made their way to Barcelona so real housewife Sutton Stracke could release the ashes of famed modern dance choreographer Merce Cunningham in Sitges.

Yes, you read that correctly. 

Now nevermind that Sutton has been holding on to some of Merce’s ashes for 15 years since he died at age 90 and decided to release them as part of a reality television storyline. I somehow imagine this is not how Merce imagined the final vestiges of his life on Earth would scatter away, but here we are. And how a real housewife is connected to one of the fathers of modern dance is a tale unto itself, but for those who watch, you already know that Sutton is connected to dance because she has already made very clear to us that she is on the board of American Ballet Theater.

Regardless, we most definitely know that Merce is in the purse.

And if you’re curious, you can travel domestically with cremated ashes, but different airlines have different rules for traveling with them based on if they have to be carry-on or if they can be checked. Internationally it is based on the country, and you can travel with them to Spain. Just be sure to check which way the wind is blowing when you scatter them so that your loved ones’ remains don’t end up flying back onto the people you’re with as happened to our Beverly Hills ladies. 

The Players

Now that the stage is set, let’s get to the players. You’ve heard about Sutton already, and joining her on the trip are our six other Beverly Hills housewives: Kyle Richards, Dorit Kemsley, Erika Jayne, Garcelle Beauvais, Crystal Kung Minkoff and Annemarie Wiley. In brief, leading up to the trip Kyle has been fighting with Dorit and Sutton, Dorit has been fighting with Garcelle, Sutton has been fighting with Annemarie, Annemarie has been fighting with Crystal, and in a major turn of events, Erika is fighting with no one.

The Trip

We only see three days of the ladies’ trip, but we can assume that they were in Spain for several days longer with some off-camera time. For our purposes, we’ll assume they were there for five nights, and we know that they visited in May of 2023, so all pricing below reflects if the trip were to take place in May of this year.

Flights

While we don’t know which airline the housewives flew to Barcelona, we do know that they had lie-down seat pods in the highest class (and we know that Dorit wore $1,217 Chanel pajamas on the plane). For our purposes, we’re sending them on Delta in Delta One, for a cost of $11,650 per round trip ticket.

Transportation

Every Real Housewives fan knows that the best fights go down on the sprinter vans that transport the women around. Based on research from a number of sites, a sprinter van for half a day in Barcelona is going to be approximately $1500, on the conservative side. Over five days that’s $7,500 or $937.50 per person in a group of eight.

Lodging

The housewives are staying at a gorgeous, 15-bedroom property built in the 14th century called Villa Catalonia in Sant Pere de Ribes. It is also possibly haunted. Erika points out she senses it is a haunted house because she “has the ability to smell different spirits."

While the Airbnb listing is no longer up, it was when I first investigated. Five nights at Villa Catalina in May would cost $32,439.55 before taxes. That’s $4,634.22 per person.

Experiences

We see the housewives go on a private tour of the historic Poble Espanyol, an open-air architectural museum built for the 1929 World’s Fair in Barcelona. A similar three-hour, private tour with transportation would cost $1,666.08 for eight adults – that’s $208.26 per person.

After the tour, they have a VIP dining and performance experience at Tablao de Carmen, one of the city’s best-known ‘tablaos’ or flamenco bars, which is $1,362.56 for eight adults at $170.32 per person. They themselves also do a flamenco performance, which doesn't go well… To prepare for it, the day before they did a flamenco workshop, which you yourself can do for as little as approximately $30 per person. 

Dining

Eating is a big part of all housewives shows, and every fan knows that meals are not only where some of the biggest drama goes down, but that we always get to see what the ladies are ordering to eat and drink. 

We see them dine at La Font de Prades, a traditional Catalan restaurant with a great option for a multi-course meal for only €30. But these are housewives, so let’s add on an alcohol budget for the same amount, bringing our total to €60 (approximately $65).

They also have two unique, private experiences at Villa Catalonia – a paella workshop and dinner with a chef, along with a tapas evening with a musician and open bar. To approximate something similar for the rest of us, you can do a Barcelona Paella Private Cooking Class & Market Tour for $176.96 per person and a Barcelona Wine & Gourmet Tapas Tour for $143.72 per person.

That all takes care of two dinners and one lunch – we’ve got three dinners, four lunches and five breakfasts to cover still. Because these are real housewives, we’re giving them each a $50 budget for each breakfast, a $100 budget for each lunch and a $200 budget for each dinner. Adding that together with the private experiences and meal at La Font de Prades, that gives us a dining budget of $1,635 per person in total for the full five nights.

Shopping

Okay, shopping is a BIG one for the real housewives – afterall, Kyle tells us the first thing she does when she visits a new city is to locate the Hermes store so she knows which area to shop in. We only see them shopping once on this trip, where the highest price items go to Dorit (7 antique fans at €353) and Garcelle (a ring at €155).

But look, we know they spent a lot more than that. I’m giving them a conservative $1,000 per day shopping budget each for $5,000 in total.

Total

Once we add together all of our different items – flights, transportation, lodging, tours, experiences, dining and shopping, we come in at $24,265.30 per person. Now let’s add travel insurance on top of that because if there’s one thing we know about a housewives trip it’s that one of them is going to end up in an ambulance and/or the emergency room (this time it’s Crystal). A decent plan for a trip like this will start around $1,500, bringing our total to $25,765.30.

So there you have it – you too can live it up in Barcelona like a real housewife of Beverly Hills for approximately $25,000. Want all of it or just part? Or interested in seeing how you can scale this down for a more affordable, but just as fun, trip? Reach out for a free consultation, and let’s start planning. Bon viatge!