Traveling without money or traveling at minimal cost is quite possible. This is verified by the great experience of many students. To be honest, any of your trips will require some money, because all the blessings of our civilization have some monetary equivalent in one or another currency. However, it is extremely important to understand that travel expenses can be reduced to some minimum that can be quite easily obtained or earned anywhere.
It is possible to extract the necessary funds both before the trip and during your journey. The most optimal and most often used option is to make money before the trip. Earning during the trip itself is difficult and requires certain mental costs, language proficiency, ability to negotiate and sociability.
How to reduce costs while traveling?
1. Transport
The most basic way to reduce transport costs is to use hitchhiking. It is the cheapest way to travel across the country. In many ways, it may not be a convenient and comfortable way of movement but it greatly reduces your costs.
If you need to use air travel then there are ways to find cheap air tickets. Many companies often arrange various promotions, layout promotional fares, making substantial discounts on their flights. You can find special services for monitoring such actions on the Internet. You should subscribe to them and follow the layout of messages. This is inconvenient when you have limited dates but if you are looking for tickets in advance, you can quite easily stumble upon a direction suitable for you and buy a cheap ticket.
There are cheap bus companies selling their tickets via the Internet as well. They can also be purchased much cheaper if purchased in advance. There are such companies in the USA and Europe, and there are many more in Asia.
2. Overnight stay
To get an apartment for an overnight stay you can use many well-known services such as CouchSurfing, where you are looking for people in a particular region, and you can spend the night or stay for a while. These people also often play the role of guide for you, showing the city, and telling valuable information about it.
If you do not have the ability or desire to use Couchsurfing, then you can sleep in a tent and there is nothing wrong with that. Putting a tent in the center of any city, of course, is not the best idea, but if you stop in front of the city in advance, even on the highway, you can easily find a place to sleep. This is the same tourism as if you went hiking in the mountains.
However, if you need comfort, and you cannot use Couchsurfing, you can find cheap guesthouses or hostels on hotel booking sites, like booking.com. The minimum price for hostels in Europe and Asia is $ 4-5 per night. It is still spending but you can earn some money while traveling by freelancing or selling your writing pieces to companies like Pro-Papers if you are good enough and have a great passion in writing essay.
Another option is to spend the night in a monastery, both Christian and some other (for example, Buddhist).
3. Nutrition
You can buy cheap food in large retail chains, like American Walmart or French Auchan. In such stores most often there are locally produced products from this distribution network. There is no brand markup on it and therefore it is much cheaper. Use it and avoid additional spending in such expensive countries like Norway and the USA.
In various religious institutions, temples, monasteries are often free dining. For example, many people like eating in a Sikh temple – in India or some other country. In Buddhist monasteries, orthodox charity canteens, etc.
Taking food with you and carrying it in your backpack is another great idea. If you are traveling to expensive countries, you can stock up on food from home. If you have the necessary utensils, a gas burner, a stove-stove, you can cook very cheap food by your own instead of spending money on the purchase of ready-made dishes, even if in cheap public catering. Cooking yourself will be cheaper.
