How to Stay on Budget While Travelling?

Are you travelling on a budget? Don’t worry, you’re not alone and most of the travellers do. Backpackers is what they call themselves. They are the travel experts if I was to be asked. They travel the longest from a month and most over half year travelling, from US to Europe, they’re tracking land to Mediterranean, Southeast Asia, Australia, and some of them travelling to some countries or places not common to some travellers.

These are the list of Backpackers way to stay on their budget:

1. Travel by Land. Choose the local transport if you can handle it. Its a lot cheaper than tourist buses, and sometimes tourist buses is not as comfortable as it may sound, yet its always dearer than local transportation.
2. Do Bookings by Yourself. Don’t just rely on agencies to do everything for you, it may be convenient but you will be saving few bucks by doing it yourself. Just always canvas prices and keep a map or your lonelyplanet book at hand. (ex. Transportation Arrangements, Tours, Hotels/Guesthouses, etc…).
3. Stay in Guesthouse. Rather than staying in a luxury hotels and resorts, stay in a guesthouse. Though take note that some areas do offer unbelievable prices for hotels with all the luxuries for the price of a guesthouse.
4. Pair Up with Other Travellers. If travelling alone, pair up with other travellers travelling alone to share the costs, but make sure they are nice person, and always secure your valuables even though.
5. Use Fan instead Aircon Room. You can save more when you don’t use airconditioner, specially in places that aren’t really that hot. I recommend this for beach towns. Cities may have unbearable heat, but its up to you if you can handle it, why not?
6. Eat with Street Foods. There are decent streetfoods everywhere, you just have to be good at locating them. Some will try to mark it up, but be sure to be familiar with the local prices to avoid scams.
7. Locate the Nearest Market or Supermarket. This is where the real local prices are, they may not speak English but a little sign language will get you the best deals without haggling.
8. Haggle. You should learn to haggle to get the best price, specially in Southeast Asia, anything is most likely marked up to make room for haggling. Vietnam is the best place for haggling aside from Thailand.
9. Handwash Your Own Clothes. Save up in washing your own clothes. Buy a small pack of detergent from the market and wash your clothes yourself, rather than paying your guesthouse to do the laundry for you. They charge differently depending what town you are in.
10. Walk. Spare some bucks walking around the town or place you are in instead of getting a local transport for short distances like tuktuks, cyclos, motorbikes, jeepneys, etc…It is one way to get to know better the culture of the place.