Cheapest ways to travel

Traveling is an essential to all of us and form part of our life. Every year we plan for 1 or 2 short trip spanning like 8 days. These kind of trip always book at travel agency and have tour guide. However these trips always regards as flower viewing from horseback. We can’t really touch down to the country most genuine faces and touch in-depth to their customs and cultures.

New traveling trend now is traveling by our own. We plan our travel routes ourselves, and no need to rush for the next destination. We can stay longer at the places we feel like, before move on to next destination.

For in-depth traveling, it always takes longer time, and is more money spending. To travel on this way, we need to know how to save the money along the journey so that our money worth for every penny we spend and allow us travel longer and reach more destinations.  Cost of travel mainly comes from 3 basic requirements; accommodation, transportation, and foods. Here list down few methods for cheapest ways to travel.

Stay

Couch Surfing

Couch surfing is a popular way to find free accommodations in a destination by arranging to sleep on a local's house owner. One of the most popular couch surfing networks is CouchSurfing.com, where citizens of the world meet and arrange couch stays with other travelers. Sleeping in the home of a stranger naturally raises issues of safety, so the review for the host is important. 

Home Exchange

Swapping your house with someone else is a good way to find a comfortable yet free accommodation for your trip. Home exchange participants typically stay in each other's house at the same time, or they may even stay as guests in each other's homes. There are various websites that provide online classifieds for owners to advertise (homeexchange.com, homexchangevacation.com or homebase-hols.com). Check the review and chat on the phone with the home exchange partner is important to avoid your house being in evil use.

House-sit

Laboring to exchange for free accommodation is another good way. You can help owner to clean the house or cutting the courtyard grass in exchange for free accommodation.

If you are looking to house-sit, check out these online boards websites at www.housecarers.com, www.mindmyhouse.com for postings in different countries to advertise your services.

Hostel

Hostel is the cheapest accommodation. In hostel, we share room with different travelers from different countries.  Hostel room are different based on this room type like 2 bedroom type, 4 bedroom type, 6 bedroom type and other. Remember to take care of your personal belongings, or keep value belongs in the locker.

Transportation

Budget airline

Budget airline are essential for long distance travel. Europe and USA have mature and cheap budget airlines, and Asian budget airlines are mushrooming recent years. Sometimes we can spot for a free ticket for a short distance flight, just paid for the taxes and fuel surcharge. Ex:  Malaysia budget airline Airasia. 

Hitchhiking

Hitchhiking is popular especially Europe. Just show your thumb up at the roadside. Some drivers will stop and ask you where you go and they will give you a free ride if going to same destination. Consider your personal safety before hitchhiking.

Public transportation

Use public transportation instead of using cab. If really need a cab, try to share the cab with other people and make sure the fee is counting based on meter. Southeast Asia countries’ cab drivers especially don’t like to use meter when taking foreigners. They can take you take a big round for a short distance location.

Book early in advance, buy weekly pass

Book 1 month in advance for bus ticket or train ticket can be half price for the actual day ticket prices especially at Europe countries like United Kingdom. Plan your plan and book early. Buy weekly pass for your train services and bus services. It will definitely save a lot.

Bicycle

If you are tough enough, bicycle is a good option to travel around with zero transport cost. You will able to make a lot of same interest friends along the bicycle trip. Use Craiglist or Gumtree to buy or sell the bicycle when you moving away.

Foods

Eat the local food. This is the best way to enjoy local authentic food and it is cheapest. Never eat at restaurant.

Groupon and other deal sites

Best way to find hidden gems at awesome deals. You can find many dining and drinking options at very attractive and cheap price, saving up to 70% at Groupon and other popular deal sites.

Other ways for cheap travel

Volunteer 

Participant in the charity organizations to provide volunteer job like help to build houses for typhoon victims in Phillipine or build school in China or teaching in China rural area. Most volunteer organizations may help you out with room and board and flights. Some organizations that request for volunteering jobs may require a significant commitment of time as well as specialized skills and experience. 

 WWOOF it up

World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms is an international network of organic farmers who from time to time offer opportunities for volunteers to join them. Contact the WWOOF office in the country you wish to travel.  A small membership fee is required to gives you access to lists of member farms in that country. Check it out at see www.wwoof.org.

 Organize a group tour

Most time we can get cheaper price if we purchase or book in big amount of quantity. We can negotiate with the sellers to bargain the prices especially hotels and flight tickets.

Haggle

Haggle is important especially at Asian countries. Many thing or services can be bargain and cut to half price and even more if you are good to bargain. Water sport activities at Phuket can bargain up to 70%. 

Work short term job

If you’re looking to stay a little longer, then consider picking up some short-term work overseas. Many countries provides short term jobs for foreigner like picking fruit at farm, become nanny at Denmark among others.

Why We Travel

Where do you go this year? When is your this year trip? How is your trip? These questions always ring around our circle. It becomes talking point for all of us when we are with friends, colleagues and customers. It shows how important the travel to us and the level of travel mindset penetration into our life.

Travel brings a lot of benefits for us. Whenever we travel, we are accessing to a new place with new unknown lying front of us. We travel to open our hearts and eyes, and learn more and new things about the world. 

Reduces Stress

Travel has been known for the best way to reduces stress. Always we can hear that you are so stress recently, why not take a break and travel out. In the journey of travel, we would tend to forget every matter that troubling us, as we are encompass with all new exciting awaiting us along the journey: a smiles from foreigner, a culture shock of destination, a never ever tasted foods, and a different landscape of lifestyle. You will be constantly surprised at the flavors the world has to offer, and how other people from other countries live their life.

Memory-Making

Wake up, eat, work, sleep become our routine after we step out to society to work. Our life become less attractive and tends to dull. This is when the needs of travel kick in to spark our life, to make some ever lasting memory in our life. That is where we can tell our grandson in future that the footsteps’ we had travelled, the story of this memory-making journey.

Get Outside Comfort Zone

Do you ever think of how to face it if you are alone at somewhere you are strange to like at China Beijing? You don't know how to speak Chinese language and total in the lost? Travel bring you get outside your comfort zone, stepping into an unknown place, and learn to independence, and forcing you to facing the challenges ahead.  

Learning & Education

Our world is full of fascinating things, worth learning cultures and living environments, the beauty of the nature and a lot. A lot of things we are unable to see and experience it from our own country due to different reasons and geographical condition. Once stepping out to travel to these countries, we will open our eyes and embraces to local differences, learning their experiences from all aspects in the life, ranging from cultures and customs, living environments and lifestyle, to the mother nature like natural landscape that sculpture the beauty of mountains and rivers, plants and animals, winters seasons or equatorial season to the believes of religions. Seeing the world provides a source of education absolutely impossible to gain in the school, teaching you things like economy, politics, history, geography and sociology.

Meet New People

On the road along the journey, we meet with new people and socialize with them. We learn from them, about their country and their perspectives. We will learn how they see their own country and how they socialize with other people and feel to foreigner. Some of their perspective can be very valuable to build our characteristics, broaden the length and width of our eyesight and magnanimity.

Discover Yourself

When you travel more and more, you will gain more insight to this world, creating new perspective way of viewing this world and the meaning to the life. You will value your life more; discover yourself and finding what is more important to fulfill first, what you want and what you want to bring to the society.

Travel is the best way to discover ourselves, the truth of inner oneself. Travel is the best way to communicate to our own soul, finding the source of energy from inner hearts, and brighten our wisdom not just knowledge.

Appreciating Home

Always complain home not well enough? Go to travel. Go to feel the challenges of outside world on the ways of travel, and you will feel the best of comfort zone in the home. You will feel how good, how warm and how comfortable the home is, and you will appreciate it, keep it, maintain it and sustain it.