Everybody dreams about travelling, visiting new places and finding adventures. However, all too often we find excuses for why travelling is not for us. The biggest excuse it a lack of money and the belief that travelling to another country is too expensive. It is all too easy to produce pretexts for not doing something we would love to do.
So, to make life easier for all of us, let me provide you with some ways to travel almost for free. Usually, during traveling, the biggest expenses are to do with transportation and accommodation. Other expenses we tend to worry about, are meals. Of course, we have to eat – so it’s quite tough to avoid transport and food costs. However, you can avoid all other costs – if you are smart!
Of course, there are people who avoid all costs, but most of us will probably do not plan on hitchhiking and only sleeping in tents. So to be realistic, I want to provide some tips regarding how to minimize and/or avoid other costs.
How to avoid the expenses connected with renting a room?
The best option to avoid spending money on accommodation is to become a guest in somebody’s flat or house. This is easy if we have a big network of family and friends around the world. If this is the case, we can simply visit them! But some of us of us are so lucky. If you are in the latter group, do not give up! Because you can use the CouchSurfing community. Upon joining, which you can do for free, you have the possibility to host people from all over the word and be hosted by others. It is a great way to meet new people, to gain a lot of new experiences and knowledge about different cultures and traditions.
How does it work? Very easily!
You just need to create the profile on the CouchSurfing website with some information about yourself and a picture. Then if somebody will ask you for a couch, you can host that person if available. If not, it is also ok. If you need a couch during your trip, you can send a request to people who live in the place where you are planning to go. If they accept you, you will have a place to stay for free. I am part of this project and I think it is a really great idea. Just please do not use this only as a way to save money. Think about it as a movement to share and exchange experiences, ideas, and to learn about different people living in different countries.
Another way to avoid expenses connected with renting a room and even food?
Have you ever heard about Help Exchange (HelpX)? This is a website where companies from all over the world post volunteer opportunities. What you need to do is to find a project that suits you in any country in the world. You then need to apply to this project and await an answer. A lot of companies exchange help, usually 5 days per week, for free accommodation and sometimes meals. It is a really great deal, especially if you have multiple weeks available and if you want to know more about real life in the place you are going. Helpx gives you the possibility to learn new skills and to better know the culture and traditions of the places you visit. It is also important to note that you will recieve all of this for doing just part-time work.
I did two volunteer projects thanks to HelpX. Both of them were connected to tourism and were wonderful. Thanks to volunteering I had the possibility to travel and even got free accommodation and breakfast! I also got to meet wonderful people, make new friends, and learn a lot about Peru and the rules of running a company in the tourism industry.
Platforms such as Workaway and Wwoof, also operate in the same way as HelpX. The registration fee for Workaway costs 23 Euros per year. The costs for accessing HelpX are similar. I did not volunteer with the WorkAway website, but I like its design, and in the future, I am going to search for volunteer projects on it.
Summary
If you have never tried the aforementioned platforms, you must! You may find that you love such communities, and it could become your new way of traveling!
I wish you many great (cheap) trips ahead. 🙂