Travelling on a budget challenges you to make the most of every hard-earned penny, ultimately making you value your experience more so. Furthermore, it is about perspective. When you break down the sections that make up a successful holiday or travel plan, you can begin to unravel the rabbit hole of comparison websites, volunteer and work schemes programmes, offers and deals.
Establish a goal, a place in mind:
We must first establish what goals we want to achieve in terms of travelling. Do we want to see the Taj Mahal, The Great Wall of China or something more stripped back? Once we establish where we really want to go, we can start to plan how and where our budget can take us.
Budgeting for our goal:
There is a hierarchy when it comes to budgeting. The three most basic, but important principles that must be considered are:
- Flights / Excess Travel
- Accommodation
- Food
Flights / Excess Travel
I would recommend looking on comparison website for flights, such as Sky Scanner or Kayak. You can play with days and months that are cheaper to fly. Off peak times, so out of school and public holidays, flying on a Tuesday or Wednesday as well as buying return flights are sometimes much more economical. Furthermore, if you plan to travel further within your trip, you need to consider airport transfers, taxi’s, coaches and internal / external flights. In south East Asia you can use a service similar to Uber or Lyft, called Grab. These prices fall drastically under the charges of the traditional taxi firms. Additionally, if you’re travelling a longer distance from one end of a country to another, consider sleeper buses. You can pay up to £20 for an overnight journey for sometimes a 12/13 hour ride. In Europe, most cities have Uber and you can travel by train to all countries within Europe, it maybe worth look into the Interrailing passes. A months pass can cost you from as little as £157 with access to three days of travelling from country to country.
Accommodation
There is a huge variety of accommodation when it comes to travelling. Traditionally, hostels are the go-to, but sites such as Airbnb have made a huge impact in the last decade or so.
Hostels are great if you are solo travelling. You will have the opportunity to meet many people in the same positions as you. I would recommend looking on Hostelworld as it lists all hostels in your preferred area – breaking down reviews, amenities, location and room sizes. Hostels charge per person per night, and at a lot lower rate than hotels. But, compare. You’re going to be graced with the art of comparing and snagging the best for your budget.
Airbnbs and homestays are increasingly popular also. If you’re travelling with more people than just yourself, sometimes a home stay or an Airbnb are a beautiful option. Airbnb works very similarly to Hostelworld, except they charge per-night rather than per-person. This can sometimes work out cheaper as the nightly cost can be divided between your counterparts. You can stay most commonly in a residential home, flat or apartment. This offers you a unique cultural experience, most hosts will welcome and advise you to the best local restaurants, sights and secret spots – removing you from the generic tourism that populates most destinations.
Food
Food. Budgeting for food is so important! Research the area in which you are going, are they renowned for their street food, market stalls, restaurants? Places such as South East Asia are populated with street food vendors, at ridiculously cheap prices. In South East Asia you can get away with eating breakfast, lunch and dinner out, at perhaps £6-£10 a day, if that. Whereas for many places in Europe and the Western World, eating out for every meal is not an option and will cost a bomb.com. In this instance, supermarkets and grocery stores will be the gift that keeps on giving. If your hostel or Airbnb has a kitchen, make use of it! Many hostels will sometimes have pasta and rice in the cupboards, if you are scavenging a free meal.
- Note: Depending on your circumstance, you can decide to work / “volunteer” at a hostel, café, b’n’b or a multitude of other places to earn your food and accommodation. Workaway.info is an amazing website which lists all job opportunities in your preferred area. It is €36 (£31, Jan 2019) for a single person annual membership. Equally, Au Pair World (free membership) is similar to workaway, however, is specific to childcare. (Blog post about Au Pair is available)
Budgeting after the necessities
After you have accounted for these three necessities, you must then consider:
- Entertainment: Tours / Excursions / Activities
- Spending money
Entertainment / Tours /Excursions / Activities
Many places you will be visiting are for a reason, whether that’s for famous buildings, landmarks, museums or excursions. Most of these activities follow a similar pattern: they mostly all cost money. Although you cannot fight admissions / excursion costs and paying is the only option, there are sometimes ways to slightly skip the system.
The Grand Palace in Bangkok, for instance, has admissions of 500 baht (£12, in retrospect is extremely cheap considering it houses the Thai royal family. However £12 was not in our budget that day) so instead we walked into the palace grounds as far as we could, until we needed to buy tickets. We toured the grounds and appreciated the architecture, all for free.
Experiences like this can be found all over, take Park Güell in Barcelona for instance. You can walk the perimeter of the still intricate park and yet appreciate Antoni Gaudí's gratis experience. In many cities, especially European, you can find museums or galleries with free admissions. Furthermore, most cities offer free walking tours, in which they rely on donations, with you settling the price. These can sometimes be the best and most efficient ways in touring a city, with understanding its history, quirks and secret restaurants.
Lastly, be cautious and aware of the ever, over priced tourism stands. Street tourism stands will try and sell you anything, most specifically sought after excursion tours. They will charge you often double or triple the trips worth. If you are interested in a tour:
- 1: Google, research, look at reviews and check out online prices, TripAdvisor never fails with the honest, great advice.
- 2: Check to see if your hostel, host or hotel is offering the same tour or knows the best and safest place to buy.
Generally, hostels and hotels will offer you a discounted rate if you buy through them, just never be roped into buying the tours at these street stands - no matter how persistent they are.
In total, you have established where your money can take you. You have accounted for all the necessities including flights / travel, accommodation, food and entertainment. Once you have endured endless hours of research, prepping, planning scrimping and saving, you will be finally able to put your plan into action, whilst not drowning in debt in the process. Good luck!