Updated: 08/04/19 | August 4th, 2019
After over a decade of traveling the world on a budget, I’ve met a lot of long-term travelers. many are amazing, insightful, generous, and open-minded people. They’ve taught me a lot about the world and myself.
Unfortunately, within the long-term travel community, there seem to be some travelers who make travel out to be a competition. maybe you’ve seen it during your travels. These travelers seem to support an unspoken one-upsmanship about who can visit a place while spending the least amount of money.
To them, it’s a badge of honor to say, “Well, I did France for X dollars less expensive than you,” as though the less expensive you go, the much more authentic your experience is.
I’ve seen this attitude expressed on my site when I share my cost-of-traveling posts. There are always a few people who say things like, “Well, I think you overspent because I did it for half the price.”
I’ve never understood this cheapness competition.
To me, being a backpacker or budget traveler has nothing to make with how much money you spend. Rather, it has everything to make with how you spend it. just as you don’t have to have deep pockets or a count on fund to afford to travel, you also don’t have to live on a shoestring to call yourself a budget traveler.
One of my most significant pet peeves is this obsession with cheapness that I see among a lot of travelers. I’ve never understood why a person would live like a pauper while saving money for a trip, only to then go on that trip and still live like a pauper.
If you only have a small amount of money to spend, better to take a shorter trip doing all the activities you want than continuously saying, “I would love to do that, but I can’t afford it” on your long trip.
To me, traveling is about being frugal — not cheap.
It’s about not wasting money on pointless stuff. Not snacking or purchasing a million tacky souvenirs or going out and getting drunk every night. It’s about understanding when and where to spend your money, no matter how much you happen to have.
Can places be went to for dirt cheap? Samozrejme. You can be like this man who mooched off Europeans for 12 months and thereby only spent $5,000 USD. He spent so little by squatting, hitchhiking, never going out, not going to one museum, and getting totally free stuff from people.
That’s a great way to travel cheap. I’m sure the locals really appreciated him giving back to the community the way he did. but beyond that, if you camp, cook all your own meals, don’t drink, or never do anything extra that costs money, you can always go somewhere and spend very little.
But I don’t see the point.
Why go somewhere if you’re not going to actually delight in what that place has to offer?
That’s not to say you have to continuously splash out, but if you aren’t going to learn about the history or see the sights or engage with the people, then why even bother going?
Whenever I visit a place and then do a budget guide for it, I always admit that I overspent. Without a doubt, you can always visit a place less expensive than I did. I overspend because travel is my everyday life, and I like to treat myself once in a while. It’s why I include not only what I spent, but also talk about why I overspent and how much that country ought to really cost.
My destination guides reflect my idea of what a budget traveler is: someone who spends money smartly, not cheaply. They’re for the traveler who wants to go away, possibly doesn’t have a lot of money, but still wants to delight in lots of activities.
I didn’t visit Italy to skip the good meals and gelato.
I didn’t go to Bordeaux to turn down a red wine tour.
I didn’t spend over a year saving money so I could cook cheap dinners every night in a hostel kitchen.
I didn’t go to Australia dreaming of the Outback to turn around and say, “No, that trip is a bit out of my budget. možno inokedy.”
I remember when I first went overseas. I did everything as cheaply as I could. I skipped doing a lot of things I would have loved to do in the name of “budget travel.” I never took that cooking class in Italy, never went diving in Thailand, never did a red wine trip in Australia, and never went inside the Tower of London.
I regret those decisions to this day.
I said I’d do them next time, when I had money.
But you know what? next time has yet to come. other things have gotten in the way.
Everyone has his or her own view of what a budget traveler is. To magazines like budget Travel and Travel and Leisure, or even writers like Rick Steves, “budget” implies $120+ USD hotels and $40 USD meals. I read those magazines and look at their prices and go, “How is THAT budget travel? That is expensive!” but I guess for their readers who have a bit much more money and are many likely solidly middle to upper-middle class, those prices are budget.
At the same time, some people will look at my budget guides and say,”Ako je to na tom rozpočet?”
Vždy existujú spôsoby, ako robiť miesta lacnejšie, ak ste pripravení urobiť obete. Osobne mi nevadí kemping, stan a varenie vlastných jedál – keď som na púšti. Ale ako súčasť každodenného cestovného životného štýlu? Nie je to pre mňa. A na základe mojich skúseností si nemyslím, že je to rozumné pre väčšinu cestujúcich tam vonku.
Jedným z mojich najvýznamnejších návrhov rozpočtu je vedieť, na čo chcete minúť peniaze pred cestou, a potom ich použiť ako základ na vytvorenie rozpočtu. Týmto spôsobom sa na cestách neprehradíte, pretože ste sa pripravili čo najviac. Nebudete domov skoro, pretože ste sa dostali slepí nákladmi.
Ak viete o svojich nákladoch, môžete lepšie naplánovať svoj rozpočet a potom byť so svojimi peniazmi skromný – bez toho, aby ste boli lacní. Pretože nebudete mať druhú šancu tak často, ako si myslíte. Majte svoje peniaze na tie skvelé aktivity, o ktorých ste snívali, namiesto toho, aby ste ich preskočili len preto, že obsahujú cenovú značku.
Cestovanie nie je nejaký závod na dno. Nie ste lepší cestujúci, pretože ste išli do Francúzska a rozhodli ste sa minúť žiadne peniaze.
To z vás neurobí cestujúceho z rozpočtu.
Myslím, že ťa to len robí lacným.
Na konci dňa si myslím, že konverzácia, ktorú máme v rámci rozpočtovej cestovnej komunity, sa musí presunúť od uprednostňovania „lacnosti“ k prioritu „skromnosti“. Cestovateľ, ktorý míňa svoje peniaze múdro, bez ohľadu na to, koľko utráca, je cestovateľ rozpočtu.
Ako cestovať po svete za 50 dolárov denne
Môj najpredávanejší sprievodca v brožúre New York Times po World Travel vám dá pokyn, ako zvládnuť umenie cestovania, aby ste sa dostali z vychodenej cesty, ušetrili peniaze a mali hlbší cestovný zážitok. Je to váš sprievodca plánovaním A to Z, ktorý BBC nazval „Biblia pre cestujúcich v rozpočte“.
Kliknutím sem sa dozviete oveľa viac a začnite ho čítať ešte dnes!
Zarezervujte si cestu: logistické návrhy a triky
Zarezervujte si svoj let
Nájdite lacný let pomocou SkyScanner. Je to môj obľúbený vyhľadávací nástroj, pretože vyhľadáva webové stránky a letecké spoločnosti po celom svete, takže vždy viete, že žiadny kameň nezostane nezostáva.
Zarezervujte si ubytovanie
Svoju hostel si môžete rezervovať s Hostelworld. Ak chcete zostať niekde inde ako v hosteli, použite Booking.com, pretože neustále vracia najdostupnejšie sadzby pre penzióny a hotely.
Nezabudnite na cestovné poistenie
Cestovné poistenie vás chráni pred chorobami, zraneniami, krádežou a zrušením. Je to rozsiahla ochrana v prípade, že sa niečo pokazí. Nikdy som nešiel na výlet bez toho, pretože som ho v minulosti musel používať mnohokrát. Moje obľúbené spoločnosti, ktoré ponúkajú najlepšie služby a hodnotu, sú:
Safetywing (najlepšie pre všetkých)
Zaistite moju cestu (pre tých nad 70 rokov)
Medjet (pre ďalšie pokrytie evakuácie)
Ste pripravení rezervovať si cestu?
Pozrite sa na moju stránku zdrojov, kde nájdete najlepšie spoločnosti, ktoré môžete použiť pri cestovaní. Uvádzam všetky tie, ktoré používam pri cestovaní. Sú najlepší v triede a nemôžete pokaziť ich pomocou ich cesty.