Do you have a wishlist that includes paragliding in New Zealand, skydiving in Spain, horse racing in Mongolia, glacier trekking in Iceland, trekking in Nepal, deep sea diving in Fiji and sandboarding in Dubai? Don't put off your dreams until you win the lottery!
Here's the recipe for the perfect adventure on a budget.
Cheapest tickets
- The cost of the ticket is an important component of the budget. Ask any seasoned traveller for a ton of tips and tricks that can cut your airfare in half.
- Use search engines to find the cheapest ticket and book your flight as early as possible: the closer your booking is to your departure date, the more you pay. Fares go up dramatically for bookings from Friday to Sunday, so check back on weekdays. Different systems give different results depending on which part of the world you travel to, so use several to compare prices.
- When searching for flights, use the incognito function in your browser so that websites will not be able to store cookies to track search queries for a specific flight and increase the offered fares.
- Many search engines ignore local or regional low-cost airlines such as Adria Airways or Aurora, so finding great deals can be a bit of a quest. Airlines in Europe and the United States offer student discounts.
- If you are not afraid of surprises, choose your destination based on the available tickets, and not vice versa. Use Kayak Explore or similar to find the cheapest destinations from your city for a specific month.
- Don't underestimate the savings from participating in the airline loyalty program. Spending on a mileage credit card will help you get free flights and enjoy the comfort of lounges around the world.
Luggage Master
What could be worse than a kilometer to shove a heavy suitcase over the cobblestones and climb the stairs in a hostel or Airbnb? Baggage fee is a quarter of the cost of a plane ticket. Be smarter: travel light with carry-on luggage to avoid unnecessary baggage fees.
The key to lightweight luggage is functional clothing in solid neutral colors that can be combined to create looks suitable for different occasions. The same rules apply to footwear: Bring comfortable walking shoes, hiking shoes for hiking, and a pair of days off if you plan on hanging out.
Give up what you can buy for a penny on the spot: the overpayment for the overweight will gobble up the benefits with giblets. Don't overload your suitcase - there are laundry facilities in hostels and hotels.
Off-season travel
Instead of traveling during the busy summer months or the holiday season, slide your trip into the mid-season. You will be greeted by affordable accommodations with more flexibility for booking, reasonable prices for tours, car rentals and activities. Lower prices, fewer crowds. Sounds great?
For example, Iceland receives most tourists in the summer: its most famous attractions are overcrowded, prices for hotels and tours are very high, and the Blue Lagoon is packed with tourists like a bank of sprats. On the other hand, a visit in February means winter is dying and you have enough daylight to explore the country. Guest houses and hostels are tearing the veins for tourists, and popular activities such as hiking on glaciers and descending to geysers and volcanoes are more available.
Book with local companies
Adrenaline tours and generally everything is always more profitable to take from the locals. Buying from an international operator, you pay hundreds of resellers, which should cover the costs of management, marketing and product placement, administration costs and super profits.
Upon arrival, you will understand that the tour is in any case operated by a local operator, and clients of different companies will sit in the same bus, despite the fact that the cost of the service differs significantly.
Paying locals is more profitable - it is more affordable and more useful for the local economy, since all the money goes directly to the business owner and guides. This is a more responsible choice. An example is trekking and homestay with ethnic tribes in the terraced rice paddies of Sapa in Vietnam. When ordering from a Moscow or St. Petersburg tour operator, it will cost at least $ 1,500. But if you go to Sapa and talk to the locals in the market there, you can find a room for twenty a night. Just eat in a restaurant and buy bottled water.
Discard platitudes
If your budget is tight, get creative and go beyond the obvious. Do you want to jump with a parachute? Perfectly! Head to the Costa Brava in Spain, not Dubai, for half the price skydiving - and save 275 dead American raccoons.
If you are interested, but cannot afford a flight to Africa and an expensive Maasai Mara safari in Kenya, which will cost $ 300 per day, consider cheaper options in India - it will cost $ 90 per day. If a ski trip to France is too expensive, go to Georgia, where you can ski twice as long for less money: if a night in the ski resort of Chamonix in France costs $ 425, a suite in a hotel somewhere in Georgian Svaneti will set the price in fifty dollars.
Work, internship or volunteering
A sophomore is unlikely to like the idea of spending a ton of money to scuba dive in the Galapagos Islands or go dog sledding in Lapland. But studying is not a reason to give up adventure. The decisions are obvious: find an exchange job, apply for an internship, or offer your services to a non-profit organization to trade skills and experience for adventure. Do you like skiing? Volunteer at a ski resort in New Zealand to help the old ladies crawl out onto the terrace and hang out on the slope in the evening. Do you like huskies? There are farms where they are bred - at the same time you can ride. A talented photographer costs nothing to take a photo tour for tourists in the Salar de Uyuni salt marshes in Bolivia (and then sell the photos on the stock).
