Are you hoping to travel to D.C. in January to watch Barack Obama be sworn in as our nation’s 44^th president?

You may be in for some sticker shock - on several fronts.

I did some analysis of flights to D.C. area airports during the inaugural period (the swearing-in is Jan. 20^th) - so I could compare the cost of those flights with flights earlier in the month. I was looking for the cheapest possible flights to the cheapest D.C. area airports - Reagan, Dulles or Baltimore.

This was an eye-opener. See the chart I put together - notice that some “inauguration week” flights from Los Angeles to D.C. are about FIVE TIMES more expensive the week before.

Take a look the airfares go up for inaugural week flights, across the board. From the President-elect Chicago to Gov. Palin’s Anchorage. I guess you could say this is the Super Bowl of politics - and then some.

But getting a flight, expensive as it is, may be the easy part of the inaugural festivities. You are going to need a ticket.

Fortunately, all 240,000 inauguration tickets are free (supposedly, you just ask your Congressional representative for one) - but in practice, you may have to buy one, if you can afford it. One enterprising scalper I spotted via eBay is already offering a pair of tickets for $7,500 - each.

And note: that $7,500 ticket may not even buy you a seat. Yes, there are 240,000 tickets - but only 30,000 actual seats.

Then there’s the question of where stay. We already know the venerable Willard Hotel is all sold out, but there’s still room at the Hilton Washington. Even better - the Hilton has a special package deal for two, which includes a sumptuous suite, tickets to an inaugural ball, and a private dinner - all for just $44,000.

Hmm - sort of make the airfare expenditure look like small potatoes, huh?