Recently we’ve been getting a decent amount of emails from readers asking for travel tips and advice. The number one question we constantly receive is “how do you afford to travel?” which really translates to “how can I afford to travel?”
Well, listen up because we’re about to divulge our best budget travel tip. This simple tip will not only save you a ton of money, but will actually bring you a more authentic travel experience. Okay, I’m starting to sound like one of those pop up ads that promises you can melt belly fat with one weird trick. But seriously, if there’s one secret that has saved us from wasting our money while backpacking, it’s this: live like a local.
Too simple? Hear me out.
Even the cheapest countries can be expensive to travel in if you live like a tourist. Restaurants, hostels, tour companies will take advantage of any opportunity to gauge the price up at the sight of a gringo.
Living like a local not only means saving a ton of money, but truly experiencing a country, as well. So how do you live like a local? Try eating at a hole in the wall restaurant and ordering whatever delicacy is featured on the menu (or more likely, hastily described to you by the ladies behind the counter). Find a friendly local who will offer you a spare bed/couch/ space of floor to crash on. Ask that friendly local where he buys his beer and then sneak that beer in a water bottle so you can drink with his friends on the steps of the main plaza. While you’re drinking like a local, your backpacker counterparts will be spending 3 times as much on overpriced shooters at the gringo bar. Suckas.
{ enjoy some vending machine beer! }
Living like a local is not for everyone. It takes guts and a sense of adventure. You might have to wake up at 4 am just share a seat in the back of a pickup squeezed in between a chicken and a curious toddler. Of course you could be kicking back in an air-conditioned van, but then you’d be $30 short and wouldn’t have met Pedro, your friendly new local tour guide.
Living like a local means traveling authentically. This is where that whole tourist vs traveler idea comes into play. There’s nothing wrong with taking a vacation, spending your days lounging by the resort pool drinking margaritas, but you’re not really seeing the country. Unless you’re taking advantage of a strong currency exchange, why bother traveling across the world to do something you can do in your own backyard?
Not that there’s anything wrong with a vacation. Everyone needs a few days poolside. But traveling, real authentic, living like a local traveling, is so much more than that. It’s not all beautiful white sands and pristine rainforest. It’s smoggy gritty, moto-taxi filled streets, people yelling in different languages, stomach churning food and harsh realities.
Living like a local means not shying away from those parts of a country that make you feel uncomfortable and squirm in your seat. It means examining those parts head on and experiencing them wholly because visiting somewhere as a foreigner means taking that place as a whole, with its good and bad.
So if you’ve got the guts, give it a try. Skip that party hostel and try Couchsurfing instead. Eat the street food, no matter what you’ve been warned. Hop on a local bus, even if you don’t speak the language. Pedro is waiting!
