Different teams and different ideas of cost.
I can count the times we've been to Championship on one hand, and I guess from a small town of 23,000 thousand people, we do Championship on a budget, not thousands of dollars.
My kids pay about $100-$150.00 each for their travel and that can be reduced by us helping them raise some money while we are waiting. I believe we can reduce the cost per student to only $100.00 per student to attend the championship with 4 students staying in a room by simply raising about $2,000 that is divided among 30-35 students.
We stay outside of St. Louis to keep the room rate down under $100 or right around $100 per night. Unfortunately, I don't agree with the "Steele Meetings" championship housing and doesn't lend itself very cost friendly for teams that are trying NOT to spend thousands on attending championships, so we AVOID steele meetings all together. We also divide the team into an EARLY CREW and Rest of the team. This reduces the nights required for hotel rooms significantly. Instead of booking 4 nights for everyone, you book 4 nights for a few people, and 3 nights for the rest of the team. For a regional we do the same, book 3 nights for a few, and 2 nights for everyone else. This is done to reduce the hotel costs.
We really appreciate, the fact we can drive to Championship. That is a location advantage we have, I assume over teams that have to fly.
We carpool with parents or mentors, which reduces the cost even further and just reimburse gas to those who drive, unless they are good hearted and donated their gas to the team. Being a 4-H team, we don't have access to school busses, so our only options are carpool or rent a charter bus. We rented a charter bus in 2007, which broke down and was the worst experience ever. It was not worth the $6500 and the headache of what to do with a bus all weekend, parking fees, and driver tips. Having parents and mentors that can help you car pool is very nice, because you have your own built in adult chaperones to help you keep track of your kids. Have a mandatory TRAVEL MEETING the Monday before your event to assign carpool seats and hotel rooms and talk about the event before you leave.
The kids are responsible for their own food money but typically we stay at a hotel that offers free breakfast and this time our hotel is offering a "snack bar" in the evenings. We also do a signup genius for parents to donate food and we do a tailgate LUNCH for the kids for free. Here is an example of one we just did for Pittsburgh.
http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0D...E3-pittsburgh1
So costing for the team? Just the registration fee of $5000, which is GRACIOUSLY paid for by our major sponsor UTC.
Cost to the students? About $100-$150 per plus food.
The cost per student includes monies to pay for gas and travel expenses.
Hope that helps shows a shoestring approach.