Cheap Travel Tips
Cheap travel tips that usually isn’t in the travel guides.
There are plenty of guides online that will teach you how to travel on a shoe string
how to plan ahead and find the cheapest hotels, the cheapest airfare and the cheapest food. We will therefore not write another guide on how to travel on a shoe string, will offer several other cheap travel tips Instead we want to share a few tips that we use to save a lot of money and that usually isn’t in the guides.
- Do not assume that the hostels are cheaper than hotels. Guide books about cheap travel tips teaches us that it is cheaper to backpack and live at hostels but the truth is that it often can be cheaper to stay at proper hotels in poor countries. Especially if you go of the beaten track. This is due to the fact that the hotels are for the local cash strapped people while the hostels directly targets foreign tourist that do have more money than the locals. As an added bonus you usually get a higher standard of living at the hotels, private rooms and private bathrooms. On our travels we found that it can often be 50% or even 70% cheaper to stay at a small local hotel than it is to stay in a hostel, especially compared to hostels with a web presence. The cheapest alternative of all will however continue to be tenting out under the stars. This can however be dangerous and is not recommended.
Buy rather than rent could be another fro us cheap travel tips. If you plan to stay in a country for more than a few days than it can often be worth to buy rather than rent. It might seem very cheap and reasonable to rent a bike for USD 5 a day. It allows you to get around town and you do not have to waste money on taxis or buses. You do however have to consider that stuff is cheaper in poor countries than what you are used to from home so it often possible to buy a new bike for USD 50 and a used bike for even less. You do not have to stay in a place for very long until that is the cheaper alternative and as an added benefit you can can make some one very happy when you leave by giving them a bike.
- Travel light. A lot of back packers and shoe string travelers bring a lot of unnecessary things with them and travels with more luggage than most regular travelers and although we understand the desire to bring a selection of clothes and to bring home souvenirs the truth is that you usually do not need more than money, passport, camera, maybe a phone and two pairs of clothes. If something breaks you can buy new clothes a long the way for next to nothing. By traveling light you might not be able to bring home as many mementos but you will get the chance to make a lot more memories since it will make it easier to go to a lot of places and it will allow you to use the bike you just bought above to go between cities and places. Something that can be very challenging to do with more stuff to bring along.
- Bring along a fishing pole and catch your own dinner (were allowed). It is from these cheap travel tips that combine business with pleasure
Hi Anatoliy, thank you for the sharing your helpful cheap travel tips. That’s great info