How Can You Afford it?! (AKA - The Art of Funding Your Travel...)

MikeW splashing out on his bargain trip to Budapest at the Szechenyi Baths (source - author)

I have been getting myself a bit of a reputation, these past few years, among my friends, family and work colleagues.  The gadabout, the one flush with cash and the line everyone says (or variants of)..."you're always going on holiday!"  Granted, I do take a fair few trips here and there, particularly in the last three years.  Last year alone, I visited 7 countries and this year I have taken trips to 4 countries and with 2 more on the horizon before the year is out.  So, how do I do it?  Am I, perhaps, rolling in money...unfortunately not.  Do I have family to fund my trips?  Apart from a contribution to the 'Ice Cream Fund' or giving me money for my birthday and Christmas presents to put towards the costs of my trips, my family do not bankroll these adventures.  Are you selling your body, MikeW?!  Alas, what I would get for that would not get me the bus fare into Leeds!

What follows are a series of tips to help you save and build up some funds for your trips; whether that means blowing it all on one big trip to a long haul destination or doing what I have been doing these past couple of years, taking a series of short haul trips throughout Europe.  We live in tough economic climes and, as a budget traveller, I like to ensure I get the best value and make my money go further so I can get more from my trips and get to go on more trips too.

1. Cut Back!
One of the biggest ways I save money is by not going out every weekend partying, drinking, dining out or on expensive leisure activities such as attending football matches, owning and buying games for a Playstation of XBox.  For some people, this is a deal-breaker and I understand that.  However, I think a balance can be found.  Please do not misunderstand me, I like to think I have a fairly good social life, but to think I could save £50 from a night out on the tiles over the period of a month, would leave me with a hefty £200 to put towards flights, accommodation and spending money on my travels.  Can you economise elsewhere in your life?  For example, by finding a cheaper contract for your mobile or satellite television package.  Giving up a 20 a day cigarette habit would leave you with approximately £200 to spend per month.  Assuming you work 20 or so days a month and buy a £2 coffee every day, why not walk past Starbucks and save yourself £40 per month/£480 per year that you could put towards a trip abroad.

I find Martin Lewis's fantastic Money Saving Expert website a brilliant source of information, but particularly like his 'Demotivator' tool to help you reduce your spending!

2. eBay
Prior to my big backpacking trip to Australia and New Zealand, in 2005, I got into (by chance) buying and selling books on eBay, the Internet auction site.  I never made big bucks, but made enough in about 4 months to pay for my flights to Australia and New Zealand on Singapore Airlines.  So, hunt round your house, and get selling what you do not need or want anymore.  Remember the motto - 'Someone's trash is another's treasure'!  I recommend eBay and Gumtree as great places to offload your things.  Who needs stuff anyway?!  I firmly believe a fulfilled and fulfilling life is one filled with family and friends, not belongings.

3. Budget Airlines
You may not like the idea, especially if you like a bit of luxury when you travel, but one of the best ways to save money is to fly with one of the many budget airlines.  Ryanair, easyJet and the many others that dominate the European flight routes offer cheap and cheerful flights to a comprehensive range of destinations.  And when flying with these airlines, my recommendation is also that you travel light or you will face a number of charges for your luggage that the person taking a city break can easily avoid through some careful and clever packing.  My previous post on baggage (No Baggage!  Dare You Travel This Light?!) simply highlights how easy it is to travel with very few things.  By flying with a budget airline and timing your flight purchase right, some real bargains are to be had.  For example, my return flight to Krakow from Leeds Bradford Airport with Ryanair, last October, during the school holidays was a rather reasonable £29!  Budapest during the 2012 Easter holidays, a 'stonking' £52 return from Manchester.

4. Staying with friends
On 3 of my trips last year I stayed with friends.  Coincidentally, friends I had met on my travels previously in Australia and New Zealand.  I have extolled the virtues of staying with friends before from the viewpoint of having a local guide on hand to show you the best sights, bars and local dimension to your destination; but, these people can also (kindly) offer you somewhere free to stay.  I always make a point of taking a gift or buying dinner one night to thank the hosts, as I am extremely grateful (and humbled) that they let me stay in their homes and treat me as one of their own.  I too have done the same for the very same friends on their visits to me, here in Leeds!  If you do not have this option, I recommend staying in hostels or sharing the cost of accommodation with friends by renting an apartment.

5. Keep Costs Low
Staying in budget accommodation will dramatically reduce your trip costs, so take advantage of the places offered on HostelBookers and HostelWorld.  If you have a student card or an International Student Identity Card (ISIC) it can be used to get free or reduced entry into many of the best museums and art galleries in the world, as well as many other sights and attractions in the places you visit.  Try not to use taxis or public transport wherever possible; walking will not only keep you fit, you will see more of your destination and it is completely and utterly free.  Please, however, do not compromise safety to save a Euro or two by walking through an area that may present itself as dangerous or unsafe.  When eating out, make your lunches using bread and fillings from the local markets and supermarkets.  These are almost always cheaper than buying lunch.  Also, ask for recommendations for places to eat.  One big advantage of staying in a hostel, especially one where the staff are friendly and helpful is that they will sit with you for 5 minutes and, using a map of the destination, highlight all the places to eat and drink that offer the best value.

You too could marvel at the historic sights of Tallinn in Estonia (source - author)

6. Travel Savvy and Combine Trips
Taking a two centre trip can often save the plucky traveller a fair bit of cash.  Rather than take two separate trips to places combine your trips together into one big trip.  For example, last year I visited both Riga in Latvia and Vilnius in Lithuania, flying into the former and out of the latter and connecting myself between them via a rather luxurious and cheap coach journey.  Or, you might find, a day trip is viable to another destination that interests you.  This May, I visited Tallinn in Estonia, but managed to squeeze in a day trip to Helsinki in Finland.  Having been shocked by the prices of everything in Finland's Nordic neighbour, Sweden in the previous month, I made sure I took all the food I needed with me for the day and only spent money on my boat journey across and a couple of coffees throughout the day.  Taking the trip separately would have involved an expensive hostel in the city and rely on me purchasing my foods and drinks there.

So, there you go!  Not a comprehensive list, but one that I hope will save you money and allow your cash to go much further.  It has worked for me and provides me with the opportunity to travel more and maximise my adventures.  Please let me know how you save for trips and add your tips to the comments section below!

Happy budget busting travel!

Travel - One of Life's Great Teachers...

Something I learnt travelling...Slovenia is beautiful!  The sun setting over the gorgeous Lake Bohinj.

Travelling as an activity is a hugely satisfying leisure pursuit that can result in you seeing, tasting and experiencing much of what the World has to offer.  What has surprised me the most about travel, is how much I have got out of the act of travelling.

There is a danger this is going to sound like a CV or job application, but the things I have been lucky enough to learn on my travels have proved very useful in interviews for academic courses and in the hunt for jobs.  Presenting yourself at an interview to strangers, is no different to presenting yourself to the strangers you meet when you travel.  The only difference is you are probably wearing flip flops and a massive grin on your face during the latter scenario!  Travel, and especially solo travel, requires you to be confident enough to talk to complete strangers about yourself in an interesting way without being overbearing or intensely annoying.  Closely linked to this is the ability to listen to other people.  The number of times I have been involved in conversations where people are happy to talk about themselves for hours on end without taking much (if any) interest in your thoughts or background infuriates me.  And, to be honest, travel has taught me that these are the kind of people to avoid in all aspects of life.  However, do not let this stop you from reaching out...striking up a conversation with a random person can be a useful tool, in the right circumstances.  In work situations, I have successfully applied this principle, and have found myself talking to people who some of my colleagues were too afraid to engage with for fear of their status in the organisation, for example.  The trick is to listen.  I may make the mistake of assuming that life and work is like the rather flat/equal structure that exists amongst travellers, but I enjoy it and feel like I have gained a lot from it.

Travel has helped me realise I can enjoy my own company and get a lot done.  The time I get to be alone to think (often in a beautiful location) is a real luxury these days.  Without the distraction of other people, travelling solo (in particular) can allow you to really appreciate your destination; watching the people come and go, take in other cultures and also take pleasure in the scenery that lay before you as you look across the horizon.

Trust that intuition!  It is usually right.  Having put myself and having been put into a number of exciting and hair-raising situations, always go with your intuition.  Travel has acted as a useful training ground for my intuition, allowing me to make some great friends, avoid some not so great people, get involved in some great activities and stay away from some not so great travel diversions.  Judging the quality of a hostel at 20 paces or the best place to eat in the backstreets of Vilnius has proved so useful in everyday life.  The idea that I can use my experiences to forge a positive future, based on my judgement was a fantastic revelation.  I know...obvious for most people, but for me, knowing that I could decide what I wanted to do based on a number of factors was an eye-opener. 

Big deal!  So what!  Who cares?!  Having seen many different places, cultures and experiencing a fair few things during my travels, my sense of perspective has improved massively.  When things get stressful at work, I sometimes have to remind myself that I do have a sense of perspective, but it is the things that I have seen on my travels that helps me remember that in the grand scheme of things nothing really matters.  That deadline...yes, it is important, but so what?!  If it is a day late, it is inconvenient, but ultimately no-one died and there are far more important things to worry about in life.  Having seen the way that people live, work and what they have experienced, I am always mindful to count my blessings.  My first trip turned me into a right hippy.  I backpacked without any desire for all the possessions I owned back in the UK.  After about two weeks of travelling, I could have easily given them up for my backpack full of clothes and a couple of good paperbacks.  Stupidly idealistic and probably quite impractical, but what I took from that was the realisation that the 'stuff' we work so stupidly hard to accumulate to fill our homes is pretty worthless - 'mo money, mo problems' and all that!  What I did miss were my family and friends.  So, travel changed my perspective regarding where my priorities lie.  Before that first big trip, the accumulation of financial wealth and belongings was my main objective in life.  And, after that trip, I know that the only things that really matter are not fulfilling someone else's targets at work or generating cash for me to spend on a huge state-of-the-art flat screen TV or on the repayments for a new BMW, but family and the people around you.  Success, for me, is not measured in material wealth, but by the relationships you cultivate and maintain with the people around you.  Maybe this came to the fore during my trips, as travelling is a very people-centric activity that really helps you understand your fellow man.  Ultimately though, this aspect of discovery I have made on my travels is of greatest importance to me.

So, travel...the great educator!  You don't believe me?!  Well, all I can say is go find out for yourself, you may be surprised what you learn.

Please feel free to comment below on any things that travel has taught you.  I would love to hear your views on this!

USA...Tick! France...Tick! Azerbaijan...erm...

Location, Location, Location!

On a recent flight, I was surrounded by a party heading to Slovenia to...erm, party.  One of the group, exclaimed to the others a few minutes after we took off, "when we land, this will be my 50th country!  And, all before my 30th birthday too!"  The milestone birthday, it turns out, was being celebrated in Slovenia, so the girl in question made it to her target by a whisker!  This little story got me thinking...do we travel to put a notch on our proverbial hostel bedpost or is this just a satisfying byproduct of a wide and varied travel diet?  For those of you that were wondering, I have made it to 24 countries - so long as you count Monaco and the Vatican City as independent states.  I think that is pretty impressive for someone who has never taken a gap year that wends through a number of South East Asian and South American countries or is that flush with cash.

Some people take this tick-listing of countries visited to an extreme.  Take, for example, Kashi Sammadar, who has visited all of the countries of the World.  Or even our own Queen Elizabeth II who has visited 116 countries to date.  You can compare your travels to Liz's on this BBC News website - 'Have you been where the Queen's been?'

Though, sad to admit it, I quite like seeing where and how many places I have visited.  I love updating my travel map on Facebook; putting virtual pins into a map to highlight the cities and countries I have trampled with my size nines.  I look at the gaps on the map and think, 'I really must visit ... or ...'.  I do this, not to ensure I fill in those gaps, but help me think about the places I would like to travel to, not the ones I feel I should visit simply to pin on my map.  My travels this year have included four new countries and hopefully, a fifth before the year is out.  I realised looking at my map, I had not really seen much of Eastern Europe, but for a short break to Prague a few years back.  So, when I saw the flights to Hungary, Latvia and Slovenia at a reasonable price, I jumped at the chance to see these countries and cultures that had previously been virgin territory for me.

As for the girl at the start of the post, she may have achieved her 50 countries mostly via travel through her work commitments.  For all I know, she could have been a pilot or stewardess; jetting all over the world on a daily basis.  She might be filthy rich, with a purse deep enough to allow her the opportunity to travel lots and see a whole host of countries.  It is easy to become cynical about such people - mocking their approach to travel.  Besides, we all enjoy travel for different reasons.  Either way, we all have something in common...we like to travel.  Therefore, I am always in admiration for those people that are lucky enough to visit so many places.  They make me want to travel more as I reason with myself, 'if they can do it, so can I!'  I often fail to remember that they may have more time or cash at their disposal, but still the desire to travel remains.  So, look to your tick-listers as inspiration, a source of ideas for future destinations and most of all enjoy the experience of travel, seeing it not simply as a chance to 'tick' another place off on a list of places you have travelled to.

The Glorious Free Tour...

The Ljubljana Free Tour - MikeW in the middle on the front row! (Source - The Ljubljana Free Tour)

 

Free!  My favourite price!  The old saying goes, "there's no such thing as a free lunch", but I disagree when it comes to one 'free' aspect of travel and it is one of my top tips for the solo traveller.  Whenever I am in a place that has one on offer, I always take the free tour.  I've free toured in a number of cities including Lisbon, Budapest, Riga, Vilnius and most recently, last week, in Ljubljana.  And, what a treat these tours are.  The concept is pretty straightforward: a person in their early twenties (often an inhabitant of the place) will have advertised a meeting point somewhere in the city, at a set time everyday, usually via a leaflet or poster in the hostels and tourist information offices.  They will walk you and a group of other fact-hungry tourists around their fair city all for nothing, nada, nowt!  OK, OK...before you all scream, "Mike, you're wrong...it's not free!"...the tour is not completely free as the tour guide will explain to you at some point on your walk round the city.  They work on a tip based system, whereby you pay what you think the tour was worth.  So, in theory you could pay nothing for an abysmal tour and thus, get yourself a free tour, but if you are paying nothing, it is probably safe to assume the tour was a waste of time or you are just one tight-fisted git!

I like the free tour for a number of reasons.  First of all, you get to meet a local; someone who is always very passionate about their city and their country; happy to share many interesting facts and stories about its people, buildings and culture.  I have learnt some fascinating things from these free tours.  The quality of the guides varies.  The tours where I have laughed heartily, learnt lots about the place and felt like the guide was genuinely interested in our experience have been fantastic.  The tours where the guide has been very serious or a little eccentric, making the tour all about themselves, I have found less interesting and have tipped accordingly.  Secondly, free tours are really useful in helping you get your bearings; allowing you to see the highlights of a city in a short space of time, but then give you the opportunity to decide what you want to visit again and see in more detail.

Free tours are a great way to meet other like-minded travellers.  Free tourers are usually backpackers, probably travelling solo (and on a budget) just like your good self.  On the tour in Ljubljana, I was able to meet a great girl who me and a fellow traveller, from my room in the hostel, spent the day exploring the city with and dined with in the evening.  Further than that, the people on the free tour might become future travel buddies...an Aussie girl I befriended on the free tour in Riga I am travelling to Krakow with in October.

So, take the free tour...learn about the place you are visiting, soak up the culture and meet people!

Latvia and Lithuania...Conquered!

A shot of the tower in Cathedral Square, Vilnius

I am back on British soil!  Well, I've been back a week and a bit now and from a really cool trip to Latvia and Lithuania!  Both Riga and Vilnius, although similar cities; having an historical centre along with a great expanse of green, forest land surrounding both capitals, were great fun.  I highly recommend a visit to both.  The fears I expressed in my last post were completely unfounded (as I had predicted) and I managed to meet some cool people as part of my explorations somewhere new to me!  Once again, the trepidation I felt prior to my trip was completely unnecessary.

Me and the view from the top of the Latvian Academy of Sciences, Riga

Favourite bits, you ask?  In Riga, I enjoyed the views from the Academy of Sciences (AKA Stalin's Birthday Cake).  It was so strange visiting a tourist attraction, in a capital city, where I was the only person there, but for a couple of giggling Latvian girls.  I also loved creating some impromptu art at Galeria Darbnīcā - www.grafikaskola.lv, where I was helped by two patient ladies who put up with my wavering artistic temperament during the hour and a half I spent at their workshop.  In Vilnius, the main highlight for me was heading out for the afternoon to Trakai; a castle on an island in Lake Galvė - www.trakai.lt.  Overall, a top trip!

Butterflies...

Riga in Latvia 

(copyright - www.flightsaustralia.com.au)

So, tomorrow I head off on a 6 day trip through Latvia and Lithuania.  I've got my Lats and Litas, my passport is out and the holdall I'm stuffing full of clothes sits on my bed open, like a basking shark ready to swallow its prey...in this case, my socks and underwear.  But something is bothering me.  I know this feeling; I've had it before...I get it on every trip I've ever taken alone to a foreign land.  It's the one where my stomach is turning knots at the thought of arriving in a country where not one single person knows me, where I fear I'll be wandering aimlessly bored out of my skull wishing I was back in sunny Leeds.  Looking back, every time I have had this feeling, the trip itself has smashed any notions of fear about the solo travel experience out of the water.  I've yet to travel on my own somewhere and not meet fantastic people.  I've always tried to be brave enough to throw myself into social situations where I can try to make friends and sample the place I am visiting to its fullest (see my post 'My First Time...').  So, I'll be looking for the free tours on offer, the chance to get to know the people in my hostel and most of all enjoy myself as I explore exciting and interesting places I have never visited before.  So, here goes...Riga and Vilnius, I embrace you and all that you have...I'm sure you'll look after me!

By the way, if anyone has any last minute Latvia and Lithuania tips they are very muchly appreciated.