Low budget travelling

Travelling or moving to a new country is absolutely thrilling and exciting but it can also be quite hectic and stressful. Tickets, insurance, visa, packing, savings, are just a few examples of activities that need to be arranged and planned thoroughly. In this article I am going to present tips, websites, and apps that may be useful for every traveller, especially for those travelling on a tight budget. My idea is to bring easily accessible tools and resources to your attention so that on your next travel you feel confident and do not have to stress at all. All the tools presented here have been used and proven to be working by either me or my close friends travellers. Having a low budget does not mean buying less quality things. It is all about using today´s technologies, tools and online resources smartly in order to get what you need.

Travelling on a low budget implies more responsibility; you should bear in mind that since you are saving money on not having your trip arranged by travel agency, you will have to arrange a lot of things yourself. Under no circumstances should this fact discourage you. Quite the opposite, with following guidelines you can actually master planning the trips yourself and in no time become a successful “low budget travel agent” yourself.

Legalities first

1. Passport: if you don´t have one, get one. If you have one, check the expiry date. It is recommended to renew your passport at least eight or nine months before it expires. That is because of the“six month rule” according to which, in many countries, your passport will be considered invalid if it expires in less than 6 months prior to your returning date.

2. Check the visa requirements of a country you are travelling to. There is a lot of information on facebook groups or online forums. You may also check the official website of your embassy in a particular country. If you have any doubts, give them a call or write an email.

Tip: If you type “visa requirements for (example: Slovak citizens) Wikipedia” you will get all info you need in less than 10 seconds. It also features “Visa requirements map” thanks to which you do not even need to be bothered reading the whole article, because this map just shows it all.

Picture 1. Visa requirements map. Source: wikipedia.org.

Medical insurance

Medical insurance is not an obligation but it is always worth considering. Just give a call to your insurance company and ask what options they have. Insurance usually depends on a country you travel to and the length of the stay. Another thing to consider is vaccination. If you travel to third-world countries it is recommended to get Yellow fever and Hepatitis vaccine. If you travel to countries with high risk of malaria, better consult your doctor. Whenever I travel to those countries I make sure I carry a reliable mosquito repellent (you can get it in a pharmacy) and never leave any parts of my body exposed after sunset or at dawn. There is no such thing as anti-malarial vaccination. There are antimalarial tablets; however, I have no experience with those.

Credit card

Check your credit card. Now, I don´t mean just checkingyour balance. More importantly, check the services your credit card provides Some credit cards can grant you an access to airport VIP lounges, different kinds of insurance, such as medical insurance, lost luggage insurance, car rental insurance; or travel emergency assistance, which might be useful if you happen to need a doctor or a pharmacy in a country where you don´t speak the language.

Tickets

When buying plane tickets, I recommend starting your search with skyscanner where you get quite a fair idea about price ranges and airlines available. Once you find a flight suiting you the best, compare its price on skyscanner with price offered on the official website of a particular airline. My other favourite websites for searching the plane tickets are: momondo kayak and google flights

Tip: Go to google flights and in the section "Discover trips" click on "Places". Type the name of a region or a continet you want to travel to and you will get the tickets suggestions for specific destinations together with starting prices.

Picture 2. Google flights search. Source: google flights

Low budget travelling usually implies travelling with low cost airlines. Always check the websites of the most popular ones, such as Ryanair, Wizzair, or easyJet. If you are a frequent traveller you might as well subscribe to their newsletter.

As an ex-cabin crew I advise you to get in touch with friends working for the airlines. Generally, they have discounts for family and friends. In an airline I worked for I had a list of friends who were entitled for discounts on any flights worldwide.

Moving around

Once you arrive into a country you will probably want to visit as many cities as possible. The following resources can help you to move around in an easy and cheap way. Car pooling, or also called car sharing is your first option. My most favourite company of this sort is BlaBlaCar. It is a huge world-wide community where you just need to find people travelling to the same place as you and get in touch with those you want to travel with. The drivers´ profiles are verified and many of them are keen to pick you up even at your house. You can arrange all that either on BlaBlaCar website or download their app. If you are in a country where BlaBlaCar is not available, try to google other local car pooling companies.

If you travel in a bigger group you may consider renting a car. Every bigger airport has a few car rental companies so that you can get your car as soon as you arrive. This option is useful especially if you are planning a road trip with your friends. On rentalcars you can rent a car in no more than 10 minutes.

Last, but not least, you can always travel by bus or train. For travelling acorss Europe always check Flixbus and GoEuro.

Accommodation

You have basically four popular websites (all available as apps as well) at your service when looking for low budget accommodation. Let´s start with booking, which is probably the most popular. It features various types of accommodation all over the world, from the cheapest until the most expensive ones.

If you are more specific and planning to stay in a hostel, then check hostelworld. Hostels are cheap types of accommodation; their price usually depends on the number of people sharing a room: more people in a room means lower price for a person, and vice versa.

Airbnb is a type of sharing community, where hosts from all around the world provide the apartments, studios, or private rooms to rent. If you have a spare apartment you can also create an account on airbnb and rent it to travellers in your city.

Couchsurfing provides completely free accommodation. It is a community of people willing to host you at their house on their "couch". Looking for a place on couchsurfing basically works like any other accommodation search website. You select a city and date of your travel and it shows you all the hosts available in a particular city. In their profiles you can read more about each host, why they are couchsurfing, languages they speak or their hobbies. You choose a host and contact them with just a simple "Send request" click. As your hosts do not charge you, it is always nice to cook at least a meal or give them a small present. Couchsurfing provides a unique experience because you are staying at locals´ house. Many of hosts are keen to show you around and introduce you to your new city.

Experiencing the city

Food is one of the best ways to get to know a new place; and what better way to do it than with locals. There is a website which makes it possible for you. If you register on EatWithLocal. In socialgo you can find people willing to cook for you (either free of charge or for a small fee). Some of them offer taking you to their favourite local places so that you don´t have to spend money in expensive restaurants for tourists.

Tip: In 7-Eleven convenience stores you can often get a prepaid coffee card. For example, in Denmark regular coffee would cost you 27 Danish Krone, with this card, however, it would be 15 Danish Krone. So if you prepay, let´s say, four coffees, you just pay 60 instead of 108 Danish Krone.

To discover a city you can also make use of free walking tours. On freetour you can see the availability of free tours in your city. Sometimes they are even in different languages. Activities like this usually team you up with other low budget travellers. Since these tours are for free, it is always nice at least to tip a guy.

Other useful tips

Having internet in your phone is so practical. You can easily get a prepaid sim card and have a local number and data without a contract. Always check with the local companies upon your arrival. Trips are all about photos and memories. I make sure that all my photos are synchronized. I am using Google photos for that. If you are travelling with friends, Splitwise app might be useful. This app keeps the track of all the expenses and amount of money each of you spend on common goods. Let´s say you pay for dinner tonight, your friend pays for accommodation, and other friend buys the tickets. This app shows you exactly how much you all owe to each other. Dating apps such as Tinder or Happn can be used not only to get a boyfriend/ girlfriend but someone who will take you for a coffee and show you a city, as well.

Good quality travelling does not have to be expensive. With just a few bucks you can arrange an adventurous trip yourself. It´s all about using mentioned resources available to everyone and being keen to share; whether to share a car on your travels, or a room with people who, like you, are trying to save their money.

Here are some photos, either mine or my friends who are brilliant low budget travelers:

Prague, Czech republic

Budapest, Hungary

Paris, France

Berlin, Germany

Athens, Greece

Barcelona, Spain

Valencia, Spain

Alicante, Spain

Pompeii, Italy

Lisbon, Portugal

Morocco

Cambodia

Indonesia

Indonesia

Indonesia

Thailand

Malaysia

Singapore

Australia

New Zealand

Photo gallery