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Page. Money and How to Spend It
Money. Take as much of this good stuff as you can possibly lay your hands on. Use it with care, and spend it with joy. Use your money with care; make it count. You can spend too little money and you can also spend too much money. Either way could compromise the enjoyment of your trip.
Budget travelers to Western Europe and Japan are really missing out on important parts of the culture if they cannot afford more than youth hostels, camp grounds, and self-catering at the supermarket. They may also miss many fascinating cultural, culinary, and theatrical experiences that they cannot afford, and that is a shame.
But in the Third World, you are really missing out on the culture itself if you ensconce yourself in western-style tourist hotels and restaurants. The most exciting parts of the culture -- what you really came to see -- are most available when you travel cheaply, eat the local food, and live among the local people. Some of the most exciting entertainment is absolutely free, and the few splurges you have to make will be small and greatly worthwhile. But you will still find rock-bottom travelers who feel they cannot afford three dollars to see an authentic Balinese dance show, after traveling half way around the world to get there!
Too Little Money
Spending too little money can cause problems. You may stretch out your trip by an extra two months, but you will spend your time undernourished, vulnerable to illness, living in uncomfortable, unhealthy and insect-ridden accommodation, eating poor food, and spending a large amount of your time trying to save more money.
You will also miss out on a number of genuinely special and unique cultural experiences (which many people travel around the globe just to see) because you "just cannot afford" to put up $5 or $20 to experience them. You are spending very little, but it is greatly wasted because you are not enjoying yourself or getting much out of your cultural experience. If the main purpose of your trip is to save money, then stay home. Please!
Traveling on a Shoestring
I have warned you against the perils of spending too little money. To be honest, most of us old Road Warriors started out traveling just like this, literally on a shoestring, because it seemed like fun and because we really didn't have much money. I can't say that I regret having had that experience of grubbing by on the barest necessities, but then, I survived, more or less.
Those travel experiences taught me my first, and perhaps most important lesson from the Road: What I can and cannot live without. It is one of the most important lessons that anyone can learn in their life. It encompasses not only material goods, but things like friendship, moral support, creativity, security, stability, music, love, stimulating conversation, sex, sleep, and hot water. In those halcyon days of the hippie travelers, we plumbed the depths of budget traveling until we knew exactly -- to the ounce and to the teardrop -- what we could and could not live without.
Personally, I would never travel like that again, and I cannot recommend it to other people. After six months, I came back with hepatitis, 30 pounds (2 stone or 15 kilos) underweight, and the hollow-eyed stare of a dog whose day is done. But, ...well, yes, it was one hell of a trip! -RJ
Too Much Money
You can also spend too much money. The obvious problem here is that your money is soon gone and you must return home early. But even if you have a boundless quantity of money, you should still spend it with care and make it count.
Money is very useful on a trip, but it does not necessarily buy a more interesting or happier trip, it just allows you to stay in the Hilton while you drown your sorrows. There are good specific reasons for spending less money. They usually have something to do with bringing you closer to the people and the culture you are there to experience. Apparent wealth also makes you a prime target of robbery, and driving around in your own car in many countries is an invitation to robbers.
Mode of Transport
Avoid flying whenever you can stand it. I find flying a very disorienting experience, compared to the long drawn-out continuity of watching entire continents pass before your eyes over weeks or months of surface travel. You also miss a lot of interesting countryside on those long, long bus rides.
I feel much more insecure dropping into a new country's capital by airplane than schlepping across the border on foot and working my way slowly toward the cities. When you hit an airport you are in a brand new, busy, bustling environment. Besides the usual number of sneak thieves, you will have to deal with persuasive and overcharging taxi and hotel touts. You need to figure out transport into the city and find your hotel. It may be late, very late. Without having any experience with the local money, language, prices, or standards of crime and behavior, you are dropped into a teeming metropolitan area. There are plenty of times when you have to do it. I prefer to keep them to a minimum.
Mind you, you can still have similar problems at land borders. No transportation, or only exorbitant taxi drivers. You don't always cross over into a small quiet town, but land borders are quite often a cinch. You generally have much more choice about when you arrive. You walk across the border with lots of local people and just follow them to the local bus. You arrive in a small town or provincial center which is much less threatening than a big city. I like to hang around in the first passably pleasant town I come to, long enough to acclimatize myself to the local customs, money, prices, food, and systems of dealing with hotels, cafes, and transportation. I try out a few phrases on the locals, and also get a feeling for the level of precautions I need to take. The city will be much worse.
Sometimes flying make sense, but if you find yourself heading for the airport too often, especially on local routes, consider that you may just be getting tired of the travel experience altogether.
Accommodation
I usually stay in the type of hotels where travelers stay; and they are always cheap. In some areas these are pretty grotty places, and I could probably afford and appreciate better. But I find that when I stay in a nicer hotel, I seldom meet anybody! On the other hand, staying at a traveler's hostel is the best way to meet other travelers, share their company, and get the information you need about the places you will be going next. When I am about to head into unknown territory, I cannot afford to stay in a nice hotel, because I need the help and camaraderie of fellow travelers, who are staying across town.
If I am out in the bush where there are no travelers, there is usually little choice but basic accommodation anyway. Occasionally I just get tired of the constant travelers atmosphere, especially in countries where every place you go is a travelers hangout. So sometimes I seek out instead a hotel where local salesmen might stay. This is not necessarily more expensive than a traveler's hotel, but it does have the "local" atmosphere that takes me back to the days when there were no travelers' hotels.
Of course it is still possible to meet up with the travelers. You can see them on the streets, and eat in the travelers' cafes, but much of the contact, and the camaraderie comes from staying under the same roof, or even in the same room.
Traveling by car in the Third World is like watching it on video. You really get a feel for a country when you travel by public transport.
Check
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under Glimpses of the Road,
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Make Your Money Count
If you do have some extra money, you should select specific instances when it can be put to the best possible uses to make your trip more enjoyable and memorable. For example, you may decide to take an airplane to avoid repeating a long and arduous land journey, buy good seats at the Viennese Opera, splurge on a once-in-a-lifetime wildlife safari, go to the superb cultural dance shows in Ubud, Bali every night of the week, or just pay triple your usual budget to enjoy staying in a nice hotel with hot water for two days, when you really need the lift.
Unfortunately, if you start staying in very nice hotels and eating in tourist-class restaurants too often, you will develop tastes that are counterproductive to having an adventurous (or a long) trip. Save these splurges up for the special occasions that they are; the more you indulge in them, the more you will only find them lacking in some aspect, "compared to home". This is the road to an overly indulgent trip (which is not that much different from a package tour), and an early return. Make such splurges a big occasion, not an everyday one, then go back to the local life.
Some backpackers travel on much more than a shoestring and can afford some special adventures that others cannot. Although something of a splurge, camping safaris, island tours on small boats, hiring a car and driver to isolated areas of anthropological or scenic interest, can all be quite rough traveling. These will normally be much cheaper to arrange after you arrive; you should also have the opportunity to do research on various local companies, the gear they use, and the nature of the trip of itself. After speaking with a few people who have just returned from such a trip, you will know much better, and may decide that it is not really of such interest to you after all.
Although you may find times when you fall back on them, spending your extra money on airplane tickets, luxury class train compartments, and private taxi rides to the next city, do not greatly increase your appreciation or exposure to the local cultures.
Yes it is possible to get work overseas as a means to finance your international travel plans. The main reasons for doing this are: 1.) to make money for traveling, 2.) to rest up from travel without blowing all your money; 3.) to immerse yourself in a culture by living in it; and 4.) just to work.
I am not going to spend much time discussing these possibilities, except to reference a few books, and tell you that most of the work you will be able to find will be in more developed countries. When you do manage to land a job in less developed countries, the amount of money you can save will be very small, because your salary will be very small. The most common types of non-agricultural work that travelers find are teaching English, women hostessing in bars, and occasionally as a proofreader at a local English-language newspaper. You might also get part-time work in a restaurant, hotel, or travel business that caters to foreign tourists. In addition, there is occasional casual work for foreign models and film extras, which you may even hear about at a hostel. Travelers sometimes find jobs teaching English in Japan, Taiwan, Indonesia, Korea, Mexico, Peru, Argentina, and Spain, but it could certainly happen in other places where English is not commonly spoken.
"Environmental Vacations", by Stephanie Ocko, describes what working on some short-term voluntary projects is like, and lists organizations (mainly in the US) that do work abroad. "International Jobs -- Where They Are and How to Get Them", by Eric Kocher is a resource book full of many many places to write about all kinds of different overseas jobs.
For a completely different kind of holiday, check out "Volunteer Vacations", by Bill McMillon, or "The International Directory of Voluntary Work", by David Woodworth. They give contacts for a number of organizations that want specialized volunteers to go into communities (sometimes for reasonably short periods of time), to provide some kind of aid or assistance to the local people. This is much akin to living in a country, but can sometimes be taken on as a shorter project, and is almost always completely at your own expense. You will get to know one aspect of a country much better than any traveler can. "The Peace Corps and More", by Medea Benjamin, ("114 Ways to Work, Study, and Travel in the Third World") is a source book for voluntary organizations in the US and "Volunteer Work", by Hilary Sewell is a similar source book listing organizations in the UK, some of which have overseas projects.
"Work Your Way Around the World", by Susan Griffith has a great deal of information about the types of work -- both casual and longer term -- that are available in many countries around the world, and places where you can inquire when you arrive. Much of this work is agricultural, and basically, you could stay and work on a farm for a month or two, paying your expenses, perhaps saving a small amount, and having a great local experience. Don't expect to be able to compete with local laborers in developing countries; this is mostly in developed countries that you may pass through. "Teaching English Abroad", also by Susan Griffith, will give you an idea of what is possible, and many places to contact if you would like to try and arrange something ahead of time.
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