REMINDER: Send in your HUHO submissions to feministe@gmail.com by TOMORROW for the March 1st round-up. Now, my contribution:
I’ve been trying to think of something to contribute to Lauren’s brilliant project, and have been having a hell of a time. It’s been a little distressing to realize that I don’t really know how to do much of anything. I don’t know how to cook anything except for easy pasta and my (only) specialty, steak au poivre, but I stole that recipe from the Barefoot Contessa (and even my favorite pasta recipe came from that simple cooking guy from the NYTimes). I can’t build anything that doesn’t come with very simple instructions, or even change a tire. I’m not a good bargain-hunter, I suck at saving money, and I don’t grow my own vegetables. I would probably die if stranded on a desert island. I can’t knit my own scarves or make my own clothes or even hem my own pants. I don’t know HTML, or how to create a website, or how to do anything other than hit “publish” on the blog or “send” in my email account. I can do my own make-up and I know how to buy a well-fitting bra, but given the past accusations/assumptions that I’m the Barbie Feminist, I’ll steer clear of those. Essentially, I discovered, I’m useless.
But after an extremely helpful conversation with the project creator herself, I have an idea (or rather, she gave me an idea): How to travel on the cheap. I’ve been a few places over the past couple years, and have managed to do it all while being perpetually broke. So I do have tips. Many tips. And they are below the fold.
1. Why are you going? Consider living, working, researching or studying for a longer stretch of time.
Most people will probably travel simply to see other places, but if you have some free time and few ties to the place you live now, moving to another country to work/study/research can save you money — and you might even make some. Fulbrights are a great way to move abroad for a year or two if you’re interested in doing research, and the Institute for International Education has other programs that may be of interest to students just graduating from college or grad school, or people looking to take a break from their careers and do something adventurous (and in many cases, career-related). While these are popular student options, there’s definitely no age limit — one of my dad’s colleagues just returned from a Fulbright to Vietnam (or Cambodia? I don’t remember). There are other types of international research opportunities as well. A google search will turn up lots of options.
If doing research isn’t your thing, consider teaching English. A few of my friends from high school and college are doing this right now, in places from Barcelona to Japan. Fluency in the langauge of the country you’d like to teach in isn’t always required, but it helps — and in some countries (like France) it’s a necessity to get a visa. However, many Asian countries are looking for English-language instructors and don’t require much of anything in the way of fluency in their language. Many programs also require some sort of certification, but the process isn’t too difficult. However, it can require a financial investment. You’ll probably also have to pay for your own plane ticket to wherever you teach. There are several langauge programs out there; again, a google search brings up lots of possibilities.
Another option is to be an au pair. I did the au pair thing two summers ago, and lived with a wonderful family in beautiful Sardinia for three months. The general deal is that you work for about 55 euros a week, which isn’t much (although it varies slightly from country to country), but the family provides room and board. You work six days a week, and have one day off. Schedules vary widely from family to family; the family I worked for really only had me looking after their daughter for 3-4 hours a day, and a little longer on weekends — while we cruised around the island on their sail boat, so no complaints here. Many families, though, will expect full eight-hour days, or longer. To find an au pair position, just google it. Keep in mind that most families are looking for female au pairs; however, some specifically request males, especially if they have boys.
The danger in au pairing is that in many countries, it’s not particularly regulated. Further, being a domestic worker anywhere poses its risks. There’s no sure-fire way to make sure that you don’t end up in a bad situation, but there are a few things you can do to sort through the various families who will contact you (and au pairs are highly in demand — many families surely will contact you, especially if you have childcare experience). First, ask for a picture (or multiple pictures) of their family, and be willing to send one of yourself. Ask exactly what they expect of you, and figure out what you expect from them. Talk about the family’s schedule — what time the kids wake up, when they eat, if you’ll be expected to drive them anywhere, when they go to bed, etc. Get a good idea of exactly what your daily routine will look like in their home, and evaluate whether or not that works for you. Ask about housework, and how much they expect you to do. Do they expect you to clean up after yourself and after any mess the child/children make in your care, or are they looking for a two-in-one babysitter and maid? Talk to them on the phone at least once or twice, and if it’s a two-parent household, ask to speak with both parents. If you agree to work for them, draw up an agreement about your salary, hours worked per week, day/s off, duties, etc. If they’ve had previous au pairs, ask if you can contact them. I didn’t ask my family for references, but it’s certainly acceptable to — and be willing to provide your own references if asked. It’s a mutual exchange of trust, so be willing to put yourself out there to the same degree that you’re asking the family to. And if anything seems off or creepy, don’t second-guess yourself: cut off contact and don’t feel guilty about it. Google the full names of both parents and see what comes up. And keep someone notified of exactly where you’ll be and who you’ll be staying with — parents, a close friend, etc.
Chances are you will be contacted by a creep or two. I had a single dad of two boys contact me, who made numerous comments about how pretty my picture was. Nothing he said was too out of line, but I was uncomfortable enough to cut off contact. Also remember that if something soudns too good to be true, it probably is. I was contacted by a family who claimed to live between Nairobi and Paris, and who wanted me to live with them in their complex in Kenya for three months before flying me to Paris with them for the rest of the year — where I’d have my own apartment, and would be paid $200 a week. I was pretty psyched, until I googled the name of the woman who emailed me — and found a couple of postings on au pair message boards saying that the woman was a con artist, and would ask for money to get you a visa, then would disappear and take you for hundreds of dollars. So be careful, but keep in mind that the majority of people looking for au pairs are normal, nice parents who are interested in their children having a cross-cultural experience. Take a few simple precautions, and you should be fine.
2. How are you getting there?
Transportation can suck up a lot of your budget. If you’re willing to go a little bit out of your way or put up with a little discomfort, though, you can save a lot.
First, consider traveling in the off-season. This doesn’t work if you want to escape to a tropical destination in January, but if you’re looking to see Western Europe, winter is a beautiful time to be in London, Paris, Florence, Venice, etc — it’s cold, but incredibly charming. Some of my favorite memories from Western European cities were in mid-December, when the streets were all strung with white lights and it was perfect weather to enjoy thick Italian hot chocolate. It’s a lot cheaper to fly into most European cities between September and March than it is from May to August.
Second, be flexible with your city of entry, especially if you’re looking to see more than one place. Want to go to Paris? Check the prices of tickets to London — you can get to Paris by train in less than three hours. Flights into London tend to be fairly well-priced, since it’s a major hub city — but also check the prices to Madrid, Rome, Paris, etc, depending on what region you’re headed to. When flying outside of Europe, focus on major cities for the lowest prices. Also consider some of the discount airlines in Europe. EasyJet and RyanAir are good ones, and both have a ton of flights from London to cities all over Europe. The only catch is that RyanAir flights almost never leave from major airports — in London they leave from Luton, Gatwick or Stansted, so you’d probably have to trek over there from Heathrow. But there’s an easy bus that takes you between Heathrow and the others, so it’s definitely doable. Just be sure to give yourself enough time to get from place to place.
Also, check flight/train combinations — for example, a flight directly to Paris may be pricey, but a flight to London and then a quick train trip across the water could save you hundreds. Ditto for Rome and smaller Italian cities — when I flew back from Florence, I took the train to Rome for my flight instead of paying an extra $400 to leave directly from the Florence airport. As another example, it’s generally pretty pricey to fly into Florence, but if you can get a well-priced ticket to London, you can save hundreds by flying RyanAir to Pisa and taking the train to Florence. It leaves from the Pisa airport, and goes directly to the main Florence train station. Check guidebooks and go online to find other city-specific tricks like this. Online travel boards have a wealth of little tips like this from people who travel often.
RyanAir can be a great way to get from London to just about wherever else you want to go, if you’re willing to get to one of the minor airports — just perusing the website today, you can get from London (Stansted) to Sardinia, Pisa (Florence), Valencia, Pyrenees, Rome, Marakkesh, Dublin, Milan, Fez, Barcelona, Murcia, Stockholm, Seville, St. Tropez, Berlin, Genoa, Marseille, Oslo, Pula, Venice, Bratislava, Krakow, Brussels, and dozens of other cities for less then $2 before taxes, if you’re flexible with the dates (with taxes it’ll climb up to $15-20, but it’s still very, very reasonable). Even if your dates are a little less flexible, it’s easy to find round-trip airfare on RyanAir between London and lots of other cities for under $100.
Third, and most obviously, price around. You don’t need a travel agent anymore to get the best deals. If you know exactly where you want to go, do a direct search on the major discount websites (I usually have the best luck with Orbitz or CheapTickets), and if you’re a student try STA travel. They’re especially good if you want to enter into one city and leave from another. I did this a few years ago, flying into Madrid from New York and out of Rome to Seattle a few months later, and STA was by far the cheapest for multi-city travel — and one of the only travel companies that offered such flexibility.
If you aren’t sure where you want to go, pick a general region (i.e., “Europe” or “the Middle East”), look up a map, and check the flight prices to the major cities. Figuring out which cities are the cheapest to fly into can be an easy way to determine where to go, or which route to take. The discount European airlines are expanding more and more into Eastern Europe and even North Africa, so keep those in mind even if you’re going on a less conventional trip.
Fourth, be flexible in your transportation. In Western Europe trains are usually the easiest way to go, but many Eastern European cities don’t have train stations, or have very unreliable lines. Traveling by bus tends to be more efficient and less expensive in many parts of the world. The downside is that traveling by bus isn’t usually as comfortable as traveling by train — but that’s definitely not always the rule. Being trapped on an old train in the middle of August in Southern France, during a summer when hundreds of Europeans die because of the intense heat, when the train is so crowded that there isn’t even room to stand in the aisles, and the local police are having to deliver bottles of water so that the passengers don’t get dehydrated and die — as one older man already had to be removed by emergency workers — then maybe a bus is more comfortable (yes, I was on this train. An adorable little French girl made me fan out of paper). So buses certainly aren’t all bad. And lots of them drive overnight, so you can save money by combining accomodations and transportation in one. Some areas that aren’t accessible by train can be extremely difficult to get to via bus — Albania, for example. Latin America also tends to be fairly accessible by bus. You might want to consider renting a car if you’re going to be doing lots of off-the-beaten-path traveling. The chain rental car agencies often have deals where you can pick the car up in one city and drop it in another, which can be helpful if you don’t want to be driving in circles. Keep in mind that traveling, especially in developing nations, can be a little… rough. Keep your options open, and be ready to toss organization out the window. If you really need to get somewhere and there just isn’t a bus leaving when you need it to — or leaving at all — you can try asking a local to drive you (this isn’t necessarily the safest option, and works better if you’re traveling with a friend, but I’ve done it a few times with great success). It’ll probably cost you more than a bus ticket, but it’ll get you where you need to go. I did this with a friend in Egypt to get from Dahab to Mt. Sinai, and it worked out pretty well — our driver even got us past the Egyptian police by hiding me under a blanket and having my friend pretend to be asleep while they searched our bags for contraband (and, I suspect, discovered my vibrator in there). So traveling with locals can be beneficial, but be sure to agree on an exact price ahead of time — and remember that a lot of people will try and take you for all you’re worth. Don’t be afraid to bargain. Don’t be afraid to assert yourself.
As mentioned above, combine your transportation with your accomodations when you’re traveling longer distances (especially if the trip is more than 8 hours). Sleeping on a bus isn’t particularly comfortable, but it’ll save you from killing an entire day traveling, and it’ll save you hotel/hostel money. Overnight trains usually have sleeper cars; so do overnight ferries. Pack your own pillow, or rest your head on a folded-up sweatshirt, and it’s really not too bad.
3. Where are you staying?
Accomodations can also be very expensive, especially in places like London, Italy and France. But it’s possible to find low-cost accomodations by staying in hostels and discount hotels. There are several websites where you can book hostels and hotels in advance — HostelWorld has always been my favorite because it lists hostels, hotels and pensions, and allows users to rate them according to things like location, cleanliness, staff, etc. If you’re looking for a hostel, think about what you want. What’s more important to you? Location? A good social scene? Cleanliness? Privacy? Security? Lots of youth travelers seek out hostels that have reputations for being lots of fun; personally, I like quieter places that are centrally located and clean. Figure out what you want, and select accordingly. Also, don’t rule out budget hotels just because you’re traveling on the cheap. These can be as well-priced as hostels in some cities (Nice, for example), especially if you’re traveling with another person. HostelWorld has a pretty good listing of budget hotels, so it’s also worth looking at if you’re traveling with a family and the prices on Expedia are looking too high.
Another good option for families or groups, especially if you’re staying in one place for an extended period of time (i.e., more than three days), is to rent a flat. These definitely aren’t super cheap, but they can be more economical than staying in a hotel, and since they usually have kitchens you can save money on food by cooking for yourself — especially desirable if you’re in a place that’s not known for its culinary heritage, and you won’t be missing much if you eat at home. Also consider flat exchanges — you stay in someone’s apartment/house for a while, and they come stay in yours. This is a lot easier if you live in a place that tourists will want to go. Google is your best friend for exchanges and flat rentals. CraigsList also has a home-exchange section.
Finally, be congnizant of the local accomodation customs of the places you’re traveling. Dubrovnik (Croatia), for example, doesn’t have hostels, and the custom is to rent a room from a little old lady. Some very religious countries may frown on an unrelated opposite-sex couple rooming together. This information should be in your guidebook, or online.
4. What do you want to do?
The key to seeing everything you want to see and not spending a fortune is prioritizing and researching ahead of time. Figure out what’s in the place you’re headed before you get there. Think about what’s most interesting to you, instead of wedding yourself to what the major attractions are. Be realistic about your time schedule — you might be able to see all of Bologna in a day, but you aren’t going to see all of Istanbul. Investing in a good guide book can be helpful, especially for the information it gives about getting to and from places. I usually like Lonely Planet guides, but they’re more reliable for Europe than for other places (the Egypt guide, for example, has a whole lot of flaws). There are also tons of online resources — the Lonely Planet website has a forum where travelers can share information, and googling a specific question can be helpful, especially when you’re trying to make tricky connections. As an example, this summer I was working in Athens, and took a three-week trip to Turkey and Eastern Europe. Getting back to Athens, it turns out, isn’t easy, and it seemed like it was going to really throw a wrench in my route. According to my guidebook, there was no way to get from Dubrovnik to Athens, unless I went through Belgrade — which would mean about 20 hours of bus travel. I googled “travel Dubrovnik to Athens,” and found some information about a bus to Macedonia, and then a transfer to a train to Greece. None of that was in my guidebook, but it worked out wonderfully. So again, the internet is your best friend — people love to travel, and they love to give out tips about what they’ve done and seen; there are also online travel forums where you can post questions and readers will answer. Utilize that.
Also take into account what you’re interested in, and what’s worth investing in. Is it worth an extra $10 to go to the very top of the Eiffel Tower, or are you ok with only going halfway up, where you get pretty much the same views? Don’t go to the major tourist destinations just because you feel like you should. If you have no interest in seeing a really old arena but you love art, skip the inside of the Colisseum and go to the Sistine Chapel instead.
Decide which kinds of activities are most important to you. What do you love about traveling? Seeing the major tourist sites? Exploring churches, mosques, temples and places of worship? Walking aimlessly and exploring the city by foot? Taking long hikes and seeing the natural beauty of a place? Eating and drinking well? Going out and experiencing the nightlife?
Once you decide what’s most important to you, you can budget accordingly. Of course, this will vary from city to city. When I travel, I’m usually more interested in getting up early and walking around all day instead of staying out till 4am; but if I’m in a city that’s famous for its nightlife, like Madrid or Belgrade, then I’m going to make sure that I experience it. Additionally, I love to eat well, but I’m going to budget more for my food in countries/cities with great culinary traditions than in places where I don’t find the food particularly compelling. I might eat out most nights in Florence, but make myself sandwiches for lunch and dinner when I’m in Bosnia.
Eating and drinking is a good area to save money in, since the assumption is that you have to constantly eat out when you travel. You do have to buy your food, but you can do pretty well in most countries without spending a lot. A baguette and some soft cheese in France makes for a satisfying (and delicious) lunch on the cheap. Lots of places (New York included) also have very cheap food sold on the street. While it can be a little scary to eat street food in countries where the hygenic standards are assumed to be lower than they are in the U.S., it can be a tasty, affordable and surprisingly safe option. In majority-Muslim countries, street meat will be Halal, which protects it from many of the problems commonly associated with street food. To be safe, you might want to avoid anything that may have been washed in unclean water. Anything you can peel is probably going to be fine. And I wouldn’t eat seafood sold on the street. But I’ve eaten food off the street in Mexico, Cairo, Istanbul, Athens, New York and elsewhere, and have never once had a problem. If you have a very sensitive stomach, you might want to be careful, but in my experience, American assumptions about uncleanliness are often incorrect and insulting. Yes, drinking a big glass of unclean tap water is probably a bad idea. Eating a skewer of meat cooked on an outdoor grill is probably not going to hurt you any more than eating the same thing in an American restaurant would. So leave the Purell at home, be a little adventurous, and save some cash at the same time.
Further, in countries like Italy you can get a great meal at smaller family-owned restaurants for an affordable price if you stick to something like pasta and house wine. Food will typically be better and more affordable outside of tourist districts. If you’re a big foodie like me, it might be worth it to invest in one pricier meal at a highly-recommended restaurant, and stick to the grocery store for the rest of your visit.
5. Connect with other travelers
Even if you’re traveling by yourself, you’re never really alone. Other travelers can be your greatest assets when it comes to your schedule, what to see, where to eat, where to go, and how to save money. If you’re by yourself, consider staying in hostels so that you can exchange ideas and make friends with the other people there. Hostels do tend to be youth-oriented, but there are some family-friendly places along the way. Other people have often done exactly what you’re headed off to do, and they can be a wealth of information, especially if you’re flexible. This summer, a fellow traveler convinced me that I just had to take a day-long detour to Sarajevo, and it was my favorite place I saw during my three-week trip.
Other travelers can also help you out when the going gets tough. My flight into Dubrovnik was delayed five hours, and by the time the plane landed, it was 2am — which meant that my initial plan of showing up and then finding somewhere to stay was pretty much destroyed. Plan B was to stay in the airport, but it became quickly apparent that the airport, which had no benches, no real terminals, and only a baggage claim, wasn’t an option. Luckily, I had been sitting next to a nice Australian girl on the plane, and she offered to let me stay with her and her friends in their flat — I ended up sleeping on their couch for three days after I couldn’t find a single open room.
Which brings me to my final tip: Be a good traveler. Be good to other travelers. Travel karma is important, and if you’re able to share what you have, do it. I can’t count the number of other people who have made my trips that much easier and that much more enjoyable simply because they were kind: The Australian girls who let me stay with them, the mother/adult daughter in Rome who bought lunch for my friend and I when they realized that we were backpackers, the nargileh cafe owner in Istanbul who let my travel buddy and I smoke in his cafe for free all day and then took us to his friend’s house for dinner, the hostel owner in Belgrade who bought me a birthday cake and took everyone in the hostel out to celebrate after he saw my passport, the American men who worked for the Kosovo police force and who treated me to a meal and great conversation in Skopje. the Egyptian guy who held my hand and helped me run across the street in Cairo’s Tahrir Square (if you’ve been, you understand why I was terrified of crossing myself), all the people who shared food and drinks in hostels and on trains, all the people who gave directions and shared tips.
Other travelers make a big difference. If you’re traveling, share what you have and do what you can for other people. HUHO, if you will. It might not save you money in the moment, but I guarantnee it’ll pay off.