One of the great things about traveling is that you don’t have to pay rent when you do it. Because of this simple fact, often traveling can be much cheaper than staying in one location for a prolonged period of time.
For you renters out there, think about your monthly expenses. Which one is most painful on your wallet? As long as you don’t have a Gucci habit, I’m guessing I know the answer: Rent.
Now I know what some of you are thinking–Wait, staying in hotels is waaaay more expensive than renting a place! Even campgrounds can be pricey. How can traveling be cheaper than renting?
Thanks to the internet, it’s very easy (and fun!) to travel today without paying for accommodation. If you like to meet people, learn first-hand information about a place, save money, and can tolerate seeing the occasional constellation of toothpaste spray on someone else’s bathroom mirror, your cheap dream trip is just around the corner. Oh yeah, if you like camping it also makes things much easier, but it’s not a necessity.
Here’s how I’ve avoided paying for a single night of accommodation for the past nine weeks and had a blast doing it:
1. I travel with a small backpacking tent. It weighs just over two pounds. (I’ve read about some travelers who travel with tent hammocks like these. Same idea–light shelter.) When I fancy stopping or when the sun starts to drop, I start looking for a good stealth camp site.
What makes a good stealth site for a weary traveler? A flat grassy area that is well-hidden. Something with a water source. Something not next to train tracks (too loud in the middle of the night!) Some of my favorite spots so far have been behind churches or libraries in the U.S. because usually these areas are landscaped and covered in soft grass, have outdoor water spigots nearby, and are safe and quiet because of their lack of foot traffic at night.
In Mexico and America, I’ve done a lot of camping in farmer’s fields. These are good spots if you, like me, enjoy traveling with a water bag/container of some sort. They’re quiet, fragrant, and often flat.
Either way, it’s best to ask a farmer/pastor/librarian for permission if possible. Often, however, the best stealth sites are people-free by their nature so this is impossible.
2. I use sites like Couchsurfing and HospitalityClub (and Warmshowers for cyclists) to find other travelers who are willing to host me as I travel. These on-line networks are free to use and are AMAZING! Couchsurfing and Warmshowers have changed my trip for the better and have allowed me to meet local people in the areas I visit.
How I use these sites: Many hosts are in cities. When I stay with a host, I’ll send out requests for my next stop down the road, often four or five days away. During this time, as I ride, the hosts will get back to me (usually I email three or four hosts just in case one or two don’t check their email in time) and I often have enough time to send back a confirmation email before I arrive in a place. Alternating between four or five nights camping and one or two nights inside thanks to hosts seems to work well for me. If camping ain’t your thing though, no worries. My host in Veracruz just told me about a guy she hosted who is on a four year trip around the world and is staying entirely with Couchsurfing hosts. If you take buses/trains, it’s very easy to bounce from city to city, host to host.
3. I have faith in my fellow humans! I know having faith in people, trusting that a goodness exists in people, is hard for us to do, especially with the abundance of fear-fueled media that is ever seeking us out. But please, for the sake of the way we think about each other, the way we treat each other, try to be positive and have faith in others.
Most people are like you. Most people want nothing but to connect with other people. Sure, there is a small minority who exists in the world who does not feel this way. Sure, those people add an element of danger to life. But planes crash from time to time yet we continue to fly. Guns misfire yet people still hunt. Candles tip into curtains. Heart valves burst. Many things in life are unpredictable and potentially dangerous. An infinite number of things are beyond our control. That’s no reason to hole up in a locked room and hide from it all, to deprive yourself of experience.
Through a combination of having faith in the goodness of people and reading the references people have on their profiles in on-line hosting communities (every time I stay with a host, we both write references for each other that anyone surfing the net can read–these references allow you to see who is a good host and who is not) you can be fairly confident meeting and staying with new people while traveling.
Do I condone sleeping anywhere and throwing caution completely to the wind? No, of course not. What I do advise is using common sense and the tools available to us to free ourselves from the smothering illusion that travel is expensive. It’s not. It can be if you want it to be, but travel is not inherently expensive.
The star stories of foreign skies and the spices of distant lands are always waiting for all of us. Don’t let money get in the way by holding you back.
Posted in Inspiration, Preparation
