Budget travel

Consider where you're going in the first place, especially if you are going to stay a longer time, or are considering travelling far. A "staycation" of day trips around your home area might be a viable alternative. Low-income countries and places that can be easily accessed (overland) are usually better if you are on a tight budget – but in some low-income countries getting the comfort and safety you are used to is anything but cheap. Also – especially if you're flying – getting to a developing country can be considerably more expensive than to a popular tourist destination with more demand and more competition. On the other hand, if you would like to go to a relatively expensive destination such as Norway or Greenland, be prepared to spend: although you can avoid many costs, trying to avoid everything expensive can ruin a visit to such regions.

Currency exchange rates in both your home country and destination countries can change rapidly. If you have the opportunity, choose a time and place where you get more of the local currency.

Within the same country, small towns usually have cheaper accommodation, dining and services than large cities and resorts. In a small town, though, you might be more dependent on a car or other personal transportation, and there probably won't be a suburb or back street with cheaper options.

The timing of the journey is also decisive; transportation and accommodation are expensive during major holidays and a destination's main tourist season, as well as during high-attendance events such as major sporting matches and conventions. For instance, a ski resort might offer bargains in summertime; even without snow, hiking can be enjoyable. Seasonality also matters for associated costs: if you travel to a place where winter is the low-cost off-season, you might find yourself spending more on winter clothes, snow tires, and other cold-weather needs than you will save on the direct travel expenses.

Travellers who are retired or on a long-term leave are less time-dependent, and can find cheaper dates than full-time workers on a short vacation at fixed dates. Mid-week can be cheaper than weekends (or the other way round where business travel outweighs tourism). Local holidays can spike prices.

Overtourism is an issue at some famous destinations, inflating prices for accommodation, food and souvenirs, as well as causing a worse experience for visitors, dissatisfaction among the locals, and destruction of the cultural and natural environment. If you go to an over-touristed destination, it is more important than ever to avoid the high season, weekends, and holidays. Also, try to prepare so that you get the most out of the visit. Sometimes there are similar sites that just haven't got as much publicity, which you can enjoy without the overtourism problems. Overtourism can turn venues, districts and sometimes whole cities into overpriced and less genuine #Tourist traps (see below).

Travelling slowly can reduce costs. Staying in the same location or region a longer time (several days to several months) reduces transportation costs and gives you time to determine the cheapest places to stay, eat and visit. You can usually also negotiate lower rates for extended stays. Generally, a slow mode of transport allows you to cover a smaller area, but instead of wasting time on getting somewhere (or waiting at an airport), you can use every minute to experience the place where you are at the moment.

Compare all modes of transport and plan your routes strategically. The shortest way isn't always the cheapest way, and if you can include an interesting (perhaps little known) intermediate destination or leave one with an expensive (or time consuming) connection to the next time, all the better.

The way the locals travel is often cheaper than the way the tourists travel.

Many carriers have a discount for categories of travellers, such as youths, students, seniors, soldiers, veterans, or clients of welfare programs. They might need a certificate, and sometimes only a local one counts. Sometimes the discount applies also to foreigners, but they want something they can recognise as the needed certificate. An International Student Card (ISIC) may be recognised even if ordinary cards from your country are not.

Many art galleries, museums and other attractions are free, and major sights in cities are virtually always free to see from the outside. Of those that require an entry fee, some have discounted or free days at least once a month, or a time after which admission is discounted or free. Some museums and tourist attractions has cheaper fees if you come on weekdays or in off-season. Tourist information offices will sometimes be able to tell you about these. In some countries you get a discount if you are a national of that country. Students and elderly people also often get discounts, but a need to prove this status may apply. In Finland there is the Museokortti card, which at a moderate price offers free entrance to most museums all round the country for a week or all the year – a real bargain if you like such venues.

Some national parks and hiking trails charge an entrance fee, but the fee is often lower for hikers, cyclists or skiers, than for visitors with a car. There may be year passes for national parks in a country, which can be worth considering if you'd like to visit several parks. Also, it's possible that a lower or no fee is charged off-season (though remember that the weather may be really awful then).

Religious buildings (churches, mosques etc) are often free to visit (for prayer or otherwise). Visiting for concerts still usually requires a fee, as do religious museum buildings. They might request or expect a gratuity from visitors.

Free public events include ceremonial guards, parades, public concerts, and some street performances. Most cities have an official tourist website with information about these.

Tourist information centres are usually run by the public sector, and provide gratis advice, as well as a wide range of activities. Well-visited cities might have private "tourist information" offices which are an expensive middleman for activity booking.

Getting advice at the hotel can be a gamble. The staff usually knows the city well, but might have a touting scheme for a tourist trap.

Gambling is set up so that the house wins in the long run. Still, casinos in places such as Nevada offer food, drinks and entertainment to guests at large discounts (for a reason: you need significant self-control not to lose also on these, by spending more at the table). In less glamorous destinations you may be allowed to gamble with smaller sums, limiting the amount of money you'll likely lose.

Before digital cameras, travel photography including film and development used to be a major part of the budget. Today, however, phone cameras are usually sufficient for all but the serious photographer. Even a cheap (new or used) compact digital camera can provide zooming and some other features absent in regular phone cameras, and are a good option if you travel without a smartphone. A used or cheap camera is also less likely to be stolen or mark you as a "rich foreigner", which can be an advantage over whipping out a €500 smartphone in downtown Mogadishu. Travel writing and urban sketching are cheap options to eternalise travel memories.

Outdoor life experiences such as hiking can be done for free in some national parks and nature reserves, depending on which country you visit. While few places have a general right to access, a relevant government agency could inform where visitors can go, and which fees and permits would be needed. If you are further from the city than you usually live, you have a good chance to look up for some casual astronomy with the naked eye or binoculars. The main cost for outdoor life is the equipment, at least for difficult destinations in cold weather and arid regions. As usual, compare prices before you buy expensive things. In many cases, second-hand equipment and your own casual clothes can be useful.

Countries have different payment systems. In a highly connected country, an international debit card is a good option for major purchases. For some uses a credit card can be better. In cash-dominated countries such as Japan, you need to research where to get the best exchange rate, and get out an adequate sum of money. Some places have no or small fixed costs and are thus better for small sums, while other may give better rates. Banknotes from an exchange office might be redeemed without a fee, if you have the receipt.

Some places, such as border towns and resorts, accept both the local currency, and a foreign hard currency such as US dollars or euros. In most cases, foreign currency rates are inflated.

In the case where more than one currency is involved or you can choose between different packing sizes, you may need to do some arithmetic to find out the cheapest option, or what you pay for more convenient packing. In simple cases and for cheap products, you can round the figures and do the maths in your head, for more complicated cases a calculator, such as a mobile phone calculator app (or paper and pencil), may be needed.

For different packing sizes, many countries require that the price is given also per some basic unit, such as per kg. This helps in most cases, but sometimes the unit given is less relevant.

Tourists often have the option of duty-free shopping, on certain terms. This can be at airports and on ships, or in normal shops with tourists a significant clientèle. Usually the duty-free goods are expensive to begin with, and many of them are the same around the world. If you do want to buy these, they are heavily taxed where you live, and the absence of taxes and duties really shows in the prices, some of them may be good deals. Otherwise, feel free to take advantage of what is cheap in normal local shops instead.

Legacy department stores have notoriously expensive goods, but many of them have affordable souvenirs.

Retail prices differ a lot between countries. If you find travel equipment, clothes, electronics or other commodities much cheaper than at home, you would buy them anyway and, for electronics, they conform to the same standards as at home, you might save a lot; in a few cases a shopping journey might give you a net earning. You can buy things for a friend at home, and split the savings.

If you need a timepiece, a generic wrist watch is often the cheapest choice. Some models have an alarm clock. It is an acceptable cost if lost or broken, and less likely to mark you as a victim of crime or scams than a luxury watch, and does not create trouble at customs checkpoints as a pirated watch might do.

However, you risk damaging or losing things, or paying customs duties or overweight fees. Repairs and refunds for products bought abroad can be difficult. Packing and carrying excess baggage takes effort in itself, and it may be more difficult to assess features and quality away from home. If the price difference is only marginal, trying to save money on cheap purchases is not worth the effort.

Plan shopping for one of your last days on the destination. You will know more available shops and their price levels, and how much money you can spare. Retailers frequented by the locals are usually cheaper than shops in hotels, resorts, and airports.

Bargaining can save money; in some countries, it is expected.

Commercial services can be cheap in low-income countries, including hairdressing, hygiene and body care, spa treatments, clothing and shoe repairs, etc.

In many places in Western Europe, and possibly also in other parts of the world, you can find give-away shops, shops where you can take things you want for free (as long as you don't take too much), and where you can leave stuff you don't need anymore. Flea markets run by charities sometimes have perfectly good items for ridiculous prices.

BookCrossing is a book exchange network. Books are travelling through the world, looking for people to read them! You might have encountered books with BookCrossing stickers already, but on the website you can look for places to find them. There are also exchange shelves not part of the network, where you can leave books you no longer need or take ones you find interesting, e.g. at some libraries, student union offices and accommodations. In Australia and New Zealand, there may be local "community cupboards" or "street libraries" where you can donate or take what you need.

Mass-produced souvenirs differ a lot in price. Prefer items that will be useful on the journey or back home, such as souvenir clothing. While handicraft items from low-income countries are usually worth their price, those made in high-income countries are rather expensive.

The cheapest places to buy food are usually traditional markets, supermarkets and street vendors. In expensive countries traditional markets may be relatively expensive, while supermarkets may be relatively expensive in some cheap countries. Markets and street vendors may be less regulated than fixed indoor venues, so some care is needed.

In some cities there are very cheap restaurants in squats, usually selling vegetarian or vegan food for the price of the ingredients; for example Germany's Volksküchen. Some countries also have heavily subsidized university restaurants sometimes open to foreign students as well. Germany for instance has Mensas, offering famously tasteless (but in modern times more often than not surprisingly edible) small-sized meals for €2-3 (for non-students a substantially higher price may be charged, making the fast food chains cheaper, but e.g. in Finland also the outsider price is great value); in large cities, there are also restaurants run by immigrants offering food for €4-6; restaurants offering German cuisine tend to be cheaper in districts with a high unemployment rate and in rural areas. As with hotels one of the most important things for a restaurant is its location, and if you dine in an out of the way location with low property values this may be reflected in the price.

Hotel restaurants, and other restaurants with a captive market (theme parks, museums, etc) might be overpriced. If you have the chance, compare price to a local restaurant.

Self-catering, buying your own ingredients and preparing your own meals, is a great way to stay on a budget. Many hostels provide kitchens where you can cook your meals. When camping, outdoor cooking comes in handy.

For restaurants, avoid eating in the main tourist thoroughfares, including airports, resorts, international hotels, business districts, and famous landmarks. If you get into the side streets and back alleys, you'll find cheaper restaurants that often serve tastier, more authentic meals. In some places, though, there are few restaurants outside those thoroughfares – and sometimes they are too authentic for your taste. The ratio of locals to tourists generally correlates well with an eatery's value vs. cost. Pricing information at restaurants vary between countries; the check can get inflated by side orders, taxes and tips.

Food in airports can be notoriously overpriced due to the captive audience. Buy or prepare some food to bring with you to the airport: sandwiches, fruit, nuts, and energy bars generally travel well, or a more substantive meal in a small container. For a lightweight but not very healthy option, you could bring a cup of instant noodles – some airports provide free hot water. Remember that large containers of liquids or gels can't usually be brought through security, but you can carry an empty water bottle and refill it after security, as there are often free water dispensers. Check whether there are import restrictions on the food you intend to bring. Chain fast food stores at an airport usually have the same price as elsewhere in the country.

Some hotels provide a breakfast buffet at no extra charge. If you let the breakfast be your main meal, you can eat lighter the rest of the day.

Many restaurants have a lunch menu cheaper than their dinner menu, or with beverages and other side orders included with the main dish.

Fine dining is usually the most expensive food. With good research, you might be able to find similar dishes in a more casual restaurant.

Many supermarkets have pre-mixed salads, pre-rolled burritos, or similar. While they are usually cheaper than at restaurants or street stalls, they still charge a huge premium over the basic ingredients. If you can prepare your own meals, do so. Also away from kitchen facilities, you can eat food you prepared and packed yourself (but be careful with food getting spoiled in hot weather). Have suitable bottles, boxes and cutlery, so that you do not have to buy food by the portion. A knife will come in handy for cutting fruit and bread (but carrying one may be regulated).

Abstaining from alcoholic beverages is good for your health and your wallet in more ways than one, since intoxication might cause poor judgement and reckless spending.

A good drink does not always need to be expensive, though. In general, the cheapest beverages are found in supermarkets and dive bars, and the costliest ones in captive markets, including resorts, hotel bars, airports, and nightclubs. In Japan, you can buy an alcoholic drink from a convenience store and drink it out the front or in a nearby park. The locals call this practice vendo. Visitors who enjoy strong beverages should consider bringing alcohol from a low-cost country, or duty-free shopping – which may not be that cheap – within legal limits.

In places where alcohol is heavily taxed, such as the Nordic countries, there is hardly such a thing as a cheap drink, but a drink in a night club will be yet more expensive.

Many bars and nightclubs have happy hour offers for the early night. While some nightlife venues take hefty cover charges just to let you through the door, others offer free entrance, or free entrance during the first hours. When it comes to finding a good party without spending a fortune, local know-how might be more valuable than ever.

Water is another concern. While tap water is safe and subject to stricter standards than bottled water in much of the European Union, this is sadly not the case worldwide. Even in rich and developed countries like the USA high profile cases of unsafe tap water have occurred.

If you have to buy bottled water, buy in the quantity that's cheapest per liter, in the local supermarket. Usually that's the biggest containers (which means you also reduce waste). Then, at your accommodation, fill the smaller bottles you brought (or got locally when buying the last round) and carry those. Opt for the cheapest brand (among those you trust, if that's an issue) – do a blind taste test if you aren't convinced cheap water can have adequate taste. You could also boil your water (where this is sufficient treatment) and use it to refill bottles.

On the road you should mostly carry at least as much water as you'll need for the day, and refill from a safe source whenever possible. You don't want to be caught without water in a place where a bottle costs ten times the usual price – or water is not available at all.

Camping is an obvious choice for cheap accommodation, and it's often the closest accommodation to lots of natural attractions. This will mean burdening yourself with whatever camping equipment is necessary to protect you from the weather at your destination. Also, many popular sites like national parks limit camping to particular spots and often have you pay for a site. This is still almost always cheaper than hostels, except in very very popular camping spots. Don't try to set up a campsite in the city. Including parks and beaches. There are inspectors who roam these places and will give you a fine that at the very least won't be worth the savings compared to a hostel.

Consider the cost of travel to the sights you want to see, if you're staying outside town (or anywhere in a big city). You could stop where there is cheap accommodation (camping or otherwise) and continue to the destination only in the morning. This is usually easy to do if you travel by foot, bike or car. Using buses you have to be more careful; if there is a stop where you want to sleep, with the city in reach by local bus, possibly with a 24-hour ticket available, this works perfectly, but if you find no place to camp where you got off you may have a problem.

Sweden, Norway, Iceland and Finland have the right to access principle allowing you to camp wild on most undeveloped land. This is also the case in Oman. Similar but more restricted rights exist in many other countries. In Japan you can participate in the nojuku tradition.

You could sleep in your car. Although also illegal in many areas, if you have a van or similar-style vehicle with limited rear windows, it is often easy to get away with.

The objective of hospitality exchange networks is to meet new, and local, people. It can be a great way to get a free place to stay the night, but besides that it's a fun and easy way to get acquainted with an area, city or culture. Active users of online hospitality exchange networks also tend to have broadband connections, which you can use while you are staying there.

If you have friends in the area, they might welcome you for a night or two. With today's travel speeds you might very well have a dense enough network of friends to avoid other lodging most nights. You should be sensitive, though, not to abuse their hospitality. In general visiting friends and family has become an ever more popular reason for travel in the last few decades and there is no reason not to make the visits a mutual thing – them staying at your place and you at theirs. Just remember – after three days fish and guests start to stink.

You can stay in hostels or guesthouses, usually the cheapest type of commercial tourist accommodation. Many hostels offer cheap one- to four-person rooms, but the cheapest of all are dorms shared by up to twenty people: you'll usually be given a key to the room and left to choose a bunk bed. Dorms are a great way to meet fellow travellers. There are some international hostel associations, members of which get discounts at participating hostels. Linen is included in most regions, though not everywhere.

Especially when traveling long distances it can be very convenient to already have a place to crash, but only book a hotel or hostel for one or two nights – spend the first day at the destination to shop around for cheaper accommodations (which often don't have a web presence). Also, for long term stays: Most web sites don't offer any discounts but when asking at the reception very good deals can be had (sometimes 30% of list prices when staying for a month). However, when travelling during peak season, having reservations for the entirety of your stay can work out both cheaper and easier. Once almost all hotels are booked out and only a handful of rooms remain in a city, the bargaining advantage turns decisively against you and if you don't speak the language and don't know your way around town this becomes even more pronounced.

If you have a long distance train or bus pass, you can often sleep on a train or bus. Ferry passages of suitable length sometimes have affordable cabins (or other places where sleeping is possible) – sleep on board instead of searching for accommodation when you arrive. While bunks usually require paying extra, they are often much cheaper than a hotel.

The most straightforward way to earn money on the road is obviously to find some work. This is more easily done through contacts, and as a matter of fact hitchhiking may come very handy here. Contacting expatriates may also provide opportunities. In most countries of the world, working with a tourist visa is prohibited, and can result in arrest or permanent deportation. In most developed countries (such as the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand), the enforcement of this is high.

Obvious jobs for travellers include harvesting, teaching English and waiting at restaurants or bars in tourist areas.

Wwoofing is a term for working 5 hours or so a day on a farm in exchange for lodging and food: it stands for World-Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. See wwoof.org.

If you have a talent for music or other performance arts, you can go busking (performing in public for tips). These activities are however prohibited or regulated in many places.

If you are travelling in your home country then working is usually straightforward, and may have no more paperwork complications than working at home. If you are travelling abroad, then things can be more complicated, and you may need a work visa, which may need to be applied for months before you leave home. If you are a citizen of the European Union you can work in any country of the EU without any need for visas or permits, but language and qualification certificates may be issues.

Conservation organisations sometimes want volunteers to spend some time, maybe one week, helping on their projects in exchange for accommodation and maybe food or travel. This can give you a cheaper time away than a normal trip and may give "behind the scenes" access to places that would be hard to access otherwise.

Before signing up, research what is being offered, and how much of what sort of work is required. General research on the organisation and what is being conserved is also useful – learn to recognise some of the birds in a nature reserve, or some of the history of an old building. A two-night weekend trip may be intense working on both Saturday and Sunday, while a two-week trip is more likely to allow time off each day. If you are joining a project in a foreign country, volunteering may be considered work, or may be permitted on a tourist visa.

As part of your research you should make sure the offer is not a scam or otherwise ill advised. Is the project effective in what it is trying to accomplish? How is the local community involved? There are lots of good organisations, make sure you choose one of them.

Don't get thrifty when it comes to health. Paying to see a doctor in the first instance can prevent a lengthy stay in hospital if your illness progressed. And as always, if you can't afford travel insurance, you can't afford to travel.

Fees for mobile telephones and Internet connections can be hefty, especially when you are in a foreign country. If you are in a foreign country with plenty of Wi-Fi hotspots, you might do well without mobile Internet. Inside the European Union there should be no roaming charges, but there is often fine print regarding territories such as the Channel Islands, which have a special status and may or may not be included in the "roaming free" area, depending on your provider (and Finnish providers have an exception, with free roaming in EU depending on the contract). In other countries, notably Mexico or the US, you may even be charged roaming even if you do not cross any international borders, simply for being in a different "zone" of the same country.

If for some reason you cannot or don't want to use voice over IP services (some countries block them), there are apps and SIM card providers that specialize in giving migrants the possibility to call home. Those will usually have better rates than the mainstream providers and often be available as a prepaid plan.

Many discounts for senior citizens are available to people as young as 55, or even younger people in welfare programs.

Youths and students can also get discounts. If you have a student card, bring it with you. If you forgot to bring it, just ask if you can get the discount. The worst they can say is 'no'.

Minimum budget travel, for radical advice which forfeits comfort, time, and predictability

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