Our tips are geared more towards those planning a long trip.
Accommodation
In Europe, stay in one star hotels. Do a little Google map search to ensure it is in a nice and quiet area close to the railway station. Rooms are spartan but clean, and breakfast is sometimes included.
We had rules when it came to accommodation. Generally, we tried to get our own room with a toilet and a shower. This ranged in price from $3 a night in Nepal to over $100 a night in New Zealand. To our surprise in many countries, but particularly Vietnam and New Zealand, backpacker accommodation were more than adequate and fairly cheap. If there is no WiFi in the room, the problem is usually solved by sitting in the lobby area. Note: A lot of places that advertise free WiFi don't deliver on the promise. Several times we encountered, "Oh, it is not working today", little too much for coincidence.
Hydration
In Europe, it is safe to drink tap and fountain water. Always carry an empty water bottle and fill it up when you can. You will be surprised how much you will save! Note: You drink a lot of water when the temperature is in the low 40's Celsius!
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Oops, that was a wine fountain!
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Meals
Eat on the cheap some of the time. We bought a cooked half chicken and a salad pack in Florence for about 5 Euro, and had a picnic by the river. We bought a take out pizza in Naples, ate it in on a square while sharing a bottle of wine. Note: We carry our own cutlery in our day packs!
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Hmm, wonder what that Italian man is thinking!
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Be sure to make up for your cheapskate ways by occasionally splashing out on a fancy meal. Disobey our other rule 'have dinner at the restaurant-drink your wine later at home' on these nights! You don't always have to be a miser, but you should always try to budget your money efficiently.
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| Cheers |
Train Tickets
Take the regional trains in Europe if you have the time. They are much cheaper than the high speed trains and take much longer. Often they don't have air-conditioning, but all the windows will be open and you get to meet the local people. In Italy, there often is a 50% discount in the summer for travel between 11 am and 2 pm. When buying the tickets (at the station or online), it is cheaper to break the trip into intervals and purchase your journey as two separate trips. If you buy your ticket online, you can print it at the ticket machine at the train station just punching in your ticket number. Always remember to stamp/verify your ticket at the machine on the platform before boarding the train or you ticket is not valid and you will be fined.
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| Ticket Validation Machine |
Sharing Transportation
In a country like Jordan where taxi was often the only mode of transportation, we saved money by asking at reception if anyone else was going our way and then we shares costs.
Airline tickets
The same happens often with airline travel, especially if you are transferring flights at a major hub, such as London, Frankfurt and Sydney. Major travel sites often only show you the best aggregate flights from one vendor. Two separate tickets from two different airlines often cost far less than the best price on an effective combined route. We also found it was almost always cheaper to fly on a Tuesday or a Wednesday. Also be aware that there are often alternate airports close by. So for London for example, also check Stansted, Gatwick, and Luton instead of only checking Heathrow. The landing fees at the other airports are much smaller, meaning big savings for you, especially if you have the time to take the longer bus or train ride.
We also looked into purchasing a round the world ticket. We found it to be expensive (about CA$7,000), and with too many restrictions to make it worth our while. For example, we could only head in one direction, e.g. west to east. So, if you were heading west to east around the world, you could't fly to Rome from Istanbul, as that would be going east to west.
As mentioned in an earlier blog, we had the flexibility to change our plans. There are so many low cost airlines that it was generally pretty easy to get from A to B. We also used rewards points for several of the flights, and we believe our airline costs were probably 40% less than the round the world option, about CA$3,000 each savings. So our advice is, unless there is a compelling reason to buy the next flight on your route, don't do it. Take the time to find the low cost airlines that fly where or close to where you want to go. For example we flew from Geneva to Toulouse for CA$64 each, and made our way to the south of France from there, saving CA$300 each instead of flying Geneva to Beziers. Don't be lazy and only rely on sites like Expedia; we mainly used Skyscanner and visited each airport's website to find the names of all the low cost carriers that fly on them. Log in directly to these sites and get the deals! Be sure to factor in the luggage cost and don't get sucked in to paying to reserve a seat. Most of the time you will be able to sit together anyways.
We never booked flights far in advance as we often got tips from other travelers and locals of places that 'you must go' which we had never heard about. We would have never seen the spectacular caves at Phong Na in Vietnam otherwise.
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| Paradise Cave |
City Tours
In major cities plan your day if you can and do a circle walking tour. A leisurely 10-15 km walk over 6 hours makes for an enjoyable day, and the savings in bus fares justifies that low calorie gelato/beer combination at the end of the day!
Laundry
Get in the habit of washing your clothes in the sink. Buy a sink plug set (different sizes) before you go, as hotels as a rule don't provide them (they don't want you to do your laundry in the room!). Your clothes are mostly sweaty as opposed to dirty, and sink washing early in the evening means dry in the morning if you travel with quick drying clothes. This won't work for cotton and jeans, though. Who wants to spend their time travelling looking for a laundromat, spending hours watch the clothes wash and dry, or worse still, paying the ridiculous prices the hotels charge per piece of laundry. We also both purchased a quick drying towel. Great to take to the beach and usually fully dry within an hour of washing. Caution: Be aware in some countries your laundry just won't dry in your room, due to the humidity (e.g. parts of Vietnam).
LUGGAGE
The world now is truly global. Anything you can buy in Canada you can get elsewhere, often for a much lower price. Watch out for the counterfeits, so find a reputable merchant. It worked well for us traveling with a knapsack as opposed to a suitcase. It just easier to get around, and on and off public transportation. Must old hotels in Europe, and many in Asia don't have elevators, and it is not fun dragging your luggage up 5 flights of stairs.
On The Road Technology
We traveled with an iPad Mini. It has a much larger screen than a cell phone and is much easier to use in the long run for writing the blog and checking emails. We used Skype to make phone calls, and didn't really miss having a phone. All the thousand of pictures we took were uploaded along the way to a cloud, so they were safe in case we lost the iPad, the camera or the SD cards.
WiFi
A lot of coffee shops, bars and restaurants offer free WiFi, and when going for coffee, a drink or a meal we would always choose places with free WiFi. Some places you would only get 30 minutes for free (mainly NZ), but it covered our need. We also used the WiFi at public libraries, which in most cases was free. Tip: You can use their WiFi even after the library is closed, as it signal is so strong it reaches up to a block away.
Currency
When exchanging cash, it is best to avoid airport kiosks due to the unfavorable rates. We used our debit cards to withdraw cash. Traveler's cheques have largely gone the way of the dodo bird, and are excepted in very few places. Always pay for any credit card purchases in local dollars, never in Canadian or American funds, as your bank will give you a better rate. We have heard that the Capital One Mastercard has the best deal for foreign purchases. They do not charge the 2%-3% currency conversion fee.
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| Nepalese Rupees |
Reading Materials
Almost every place we stayed had a free book exchange. It was great because we hardly bought a book the whole trip, yet we were constantly reading! We also used E-readers, but would be very cautions where we used them in order not to expose ourselves to uncomfortable experience or ruin the devices. Imagine Dorte's surprise to find a book written in Danish by one of her favorite authors, while we were in Nepal.
Splashing Out
As with any trip, our focus wasn't always on saving money, but the less we spend the longer we could travel. When we were at the Amalfi Coast in Italy in the high season, we just had to bite the bullet and pay, if we were going to enjoy ourselves and have an ocean view. It turned out to be a really smart decision. To our delight, there was a fresh fish market just down the road. Enjoy yourselves, but always spend the time to hunt out a bargain.
Happy Travels
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