We all have exotic travel destinations on our checklist. But when we think of actually visiting those places, the main hurdle is usually the amount of money that we think we would need to spend to do the trip. You will find no end of people telling you how expensive Western Europe, Scandinavian countries, or Japan for that matter, is.
In reality how expensive a destination is usually depends on how the visitors go about their trip. The biggest chunk of most travel budgets is spent on transportation and accommodation. If you can manage to bring down these costs, the cost of your entire trip goes down considerably. Then, of course, come food and other stuff.
With a little bit of research, it is possible to do pretty much any trip on a significantly lower budget that what you might be thinking it would cost. Here are some tips on how to travel the farthest on a limited budget.
TRANSPORTATION
AIRFARE
How to find the cheapest air tickets could be the subject of a PhD thesis. The tricks keep evolving as airlines upgrade their softwares to keep up with travel hackers. However, here are some general pointers.
For international tickets, you tend to get the best fares if you book two or three months ahead of the trip. According to rumours, exactly 56 days before your trip is the best time to book. But of course, no airline or online booking agencies confirm this. Also, if you have been regularly checking out tickets on the same route lately make it a point to clear your computer’s history and cookies so that the booking website cannot track you and charge a higher fare.
Also, you could possibly get cheaper fares if you check from a Windows desktop on an Internet Explorer browser as compared to an Opera browser on a Macbook.
Don’t blindly book whatever price you get on the first site you visit. Visit different sites and compare the prices. Remember, not all air ticket booking sites sell tickets of all airlines! Skyscanner is a good website to compare prices of different booking sites. I also like Momondo for flights in the West. As someone based in India, I do make it a point to check Cleartrip, Makemytrip and Goibibo and compare rates. I am a little biased towards Cleartrip because my experience with their customer service has been really good. Once you zero in on an airline, visit the airline’s website to check whether they are offering the same ticket for a cheaper price.
Also, when you’re going somewhere far and need to change planes one or two times, consider alternative routes or buying two tickets instead of one for the entire journey. When I was going to Japan, return flights to Tokyo (the obvious entry point) were upwards of Rs 41,000. I checked out flights to other cities and chose to buy my return ticket to Nagoya because I got that one for around Rs 28,000. Another time I was travelling to Perth from Calcutta. The best connection seemed to be AirAsia flights via Kuala Lumpur. Instead of booking a single return ticket to Perth, I bought two return tickets a Calcutta-Kuala Lumpur one and a Kuala Lumpur-Perth one-on the exact same flights. Why? Because it cost me Rs 8,000 less.
The best and simplest way to find a cheap ticket is to be elastic with your travel dates. I wanted to fly to Vancouver in July but that was the time of the Calgary Stampede and the return tickets were around Rs 80,000. I flew a month earlier and paid Rs 56,000.
TRAINS AND BUSES
I love to travel on trains because they are usually a great way to see a new place while travelling (you can hardly do that on flights) and you also get to meet and interact with local people.
Many countries offer train passes for foreign visitors. Depending on how much travelling you plan to do, buying such a pass could save you lots of money. The Eurail pass is a great way to see Europe without spending a bomb on transportation. Train travel in Europe is typically an expensive affair. If you book at the right time, plane tickets are way cheaper. There are country-specific passes, regional passes and the global pass that you can use in 28 countries.
The JR Pass for use in Japan is tailor-made for foreign visitors and you can only buy it outside the country. I zoomed across the country on the prohibitively expensive Shinkanshen (bullet trains) numerous times with my three-week pass.
When you’re staying in a city for a few days, check out if they have transport passes. Many cities offer passes that could help you save a considerable amount of money. You can usually buy them at the airport and train station, i.e, your point of entry. A Euro7 pass in Berlin gives you unlimited rides in all public transport in the city for a day.
SLEEPING
If you are the kind of person who, on most days, do not care where you sleep, there are plenty of ways to bring down your sleeping costs.
First, look up friends at the place where you are going. Don’t have a friend there? How about a friend’s friend? An Indian living abroad is usually happy to host another Indian who is travelling to their city.
Second, try Couchsurfing or Hospitality Club. These are hospitality exchange networks that connect locals with travellers. I find Couchsurfing a great way to experience a new place because apart from being able to sleep somewhere without spending money, this platform gives you the opportunity to connect with a local person who could make your experience of the place much richer. But don’t be a freeloader! Take a small thank-you present for your host or take them out for dinner during your stay.
Third, if you are unable to find hosts on Couchsurfing or other sites, or if you prefer some privacy (which is not available on Couchsurfing in many cases), you might want to try out sites such as Airbnb, which is usually people renting out their spare rooms and that turns out way cheaper than hotels.
FOOD
Before going to Tromso in Norway I had looked up the cost of eating out and found it to be incredibly expensive. A meal at a mid-range restaurant costs around 250 Norwegian Krones, which, in Indian currency, is close to Rs 2,000. Since my guesthouse gave me access to the kitchen, I bought stuff and cooked my own meals. I think during the five days 1 stayed there, I spent less than what I would’ve spent if I’d been to restaurants for three meals in a single day.
Also, another way to keep food costs down is sandwiches. However costly food may be in a place, a sandwich can only be that expensive. Worst-case scenario, a sandwich that costs Euro 2.5 in Berlin will cost Euro 5 in Venice. A heavy sandwich is usally a filling meal for most people and the best part is you can eat it on the go.
There are, of course, no end of ways to bring down the costs further. But these points are a good place to start with. So, what are you waiting for? Start planning your next big trip already.