lumière des étoiles

travelin fools and such
2003-12-08 11:10 p.m.

It's all set, then - we leave New York just after XMAS for London and then get back a few days after the new year. Yay, it's been forever since I've been in another city to experience a New Year's Eve party, and though I've technically been to England five or six times by now, it's mostly been all traveling through. It's been five years or so since I spent a month and a half there studying and trying to understand that wonderful British sense of humor.

You know the one, or you do if you've been; you make new friends, and you have a great time talking and laughing together - then someone asks you a question about something American and you all laugh, but then say "Wait, are you making fun of me?" and then half laugh again but still wonder.

Ah, those lost in translation jokes. Aren't they fun? We'll be traveling about a lot. For sure, I will review every place we go to here on my site - that is, after all, part of the reason I started it. Steve's never been to Stonehenge, and I haven't been to Bath since I was 19. Might be fun to go back, though we're also trying to get into Wales too, because I like castles. There's some bigguns there.

So here we circle back, now, to that age old question that gets hurled our way upon the announcing of our travel plans: how can we afford this? Undoubtedly, someone will ask - two people already did, one of whom said "You guys hop the oceans like I go out to dinner", either meaning that it is with some frequency, or it is inconsequential to us. Both, I'm proud to say, are true, but traveling on the cheap really isn't so hard.

I guess the trick is staying with friends - I joked to my mom that I'm creating an "international hotel chain" of friends, but really I've just been fortunate enough to have people I know living all over the place, from Brazil to the UK. We'll be staying with Steve's friend at their family place - which has been recently likened to the Weasely's of Harry Potter. I can't wait.

Other than relations and friends, here are a few things I put together, somewhat because I was bored, as the ferocious snow storms in our area immobilized us, and somewhat because it is an obligation to share the wealth once you possess it, as my friend Marcy used to say.

Travel: You can do it too

So where do you wanna go? You could do like Steve and I do, and pick a region, locate a currency converter like this one, and then decide how much per day you can allow yourself. Can you actually afford to go to the country you wanted to? Or can you go somewhere similar (for now) but a bit cheaper instead ('till you're a grown-up and stuff and can afford such luxury)? Switzerland is nice but off the hook expensive; you can get those same beautiful Alps and that same great chocolate in the North of Italy for half the price of your daily Swiss budget. You can REALLY do like Steve and I do and find the places no one seems to want to go to (well what do they know?) and live LARGE on $20/day. In Ghana, our nice hotel room (nice=running water, inside the building, locking doors, a fan, and perhaps even an air conditioner) would never cost us more than $5/night, and food would be considerably less. We could have stayed there all year, never worked, and still not have run out of money. Get to those countries while their economies are relatively stable enough to ensure security and civil rest. That doesn't tend to last too long in the Third World, as governments turn over faster than you can say "Idi Amin".

A good place to start any investigation into budget travel is Lonely Planet. The guidebooks are good, the best, no-nonsense on the market, in fact (though I don't like the way they cram together all of "West Africa" in to one encyclopedic volume). The website is better, and more specifically The Thorn Tree. Here, you can rely on the infinite wisdom of seasoned travelers, and even pick up extensive advice from locals on everything from a good beer to a safe way to store your pack for the day to the most inexpensive and safest places to eat. I live on this board - feel free to stop by and say hi (to ariadnes_legacy). Pay no attention to the sniveling anti-American Australian football hooligans who give you a hard time. They're nice guys, and harmless. I found a $35/night B&B on Paros through the Thorn Tree - and we got that rate in mid-July. It really is worth the time it takes to sift through all the crap or to wait for someone to respond to your question.

And with that out of the way, some suggestions that range from safe and smart to probably pretty foolish.

Always check state dept. travel warnings, especially lately. What is the November 17 terrorist organization? What is the quality of road-side assistance in your favored destination? Will you have to bring your own medical tubing, or will that be provided for you in a nice, clean, nearly 20th century medical facility? The state department's "consular info sheet" can tell you all you ever wanted to know about country - fun stuff like avoiding political demonstrations and being wary of Nigerian business men who need your "help" with a company proposition, and practical stuff like whether or not you'll need a visa and departure/arrival tax. Besides, it is empowering to know what's going on all over the world, and if you're a nerd like me you'll look up "Mozambique" and "Tajikistan" for fun when you're tooling around the net.

Likewise, always check the CDC's travel page to find out what vaccinations are not only required for entry/exit, but whether or not you should, for example, avoid farms on your visit because of outbreaks of livestock diseases. I would just like to say that I don't know nothin about no hoof and mouth disease, and neither does my mom, and neither one of us went any where near any farms to pet the pretty horsies while we were in Ireland last spring. Amen.

The CDC can inform you of seasonal Malaria conditions, keep people informed of when and where things like SARS happen, and can help you understand why they do funny things at airports like make you wash your shoes sometimes. Oh, and about Malaria, please, please understand that any anti-malarial drug with a quinolone base to it, such as Lariam, the most popular, has an extensive possibility of disturbing psychological side effects. Uh-uh, no way, not fun. There are alternatives - Malarone and Doxycycline, that are just as effective but more expensive. Your sanity is priceless, believe me.

On to the fun stuff, are you a member of the International Youth Hostel Association? There's no reason you shouldn't be - you do not have to be a student, nor a "youth" to reap the benefits that other countries bestow upon their children. So our country doesn't exactly view travel as something which should be absolutely affordable. Other countries do! And they'll offer you really nice, clean and dry places to sleep that are often right in the middle of everything you want to see. Sometimes private or "family" rooms are available for a higher price, sometimes not. Sometimes there's running water, sometimes not. But saving money all week by only spending $7/night on your accommodations means one hell of a weekend stay at the Athens Hilton, that's for sure.

Yearly memberships, even for adults, are beyond cheap, and the $250 "lifetime" membership fee, which hasn't changed its price in years, is more than a bargain. Besides, this is the place to make friends and all that jazz - if you're missing the drama-fests your friends propagate all year long when your home, you can go get a wee taste again from the multi-European crew hanging out at the hostel. Always guaranteed to be good drinking buddies, always guaranteed to have at least one foxy Spanish guy. Or girl, if you like.

If $7/night is too much for you to spend, would you consider free? Only for the nervy and those with an adventurous spirit is Global Freeloaders, a world-wide network of people who do an exchange of beds, shall we say. I've heard some excellent things and some not so excellent things about traveling this way. I will say this: the world is not as scary as the news would like us to think. I will also say this, however: be extremely careful if traveling alone (which you wouldn't do anyway, cause that's just not a super idea); you'd be better off sensing things out first rather than just assuming all of this freeloading will work out.

A kind of an in-between that isn't half bad is the subject matter of the man in seat sixty-one. "He" can teach you all about traveling by (and even sleeping on - in that paid for way - ) rail or ship, something that within Europe is often cheaper and more fun than flying about. There's that whole meeting people thing to be had, again, when you're stuck with 'em on a ship for the long haul. Could be good, could be eh - you'll never know 'till you try.

If you're kind of stuck at that "I can't leave for more than two weeks" job right now, then be smart about when you take the weeks, and start searching things by using the key words "low season". The vast difference in prices between low and high season is enough to make a teacher's (ahem) head spin, especially if there is nothing she can do to coordinate she and her husbands' schedules around more than a five day period until the end of June. A friend just passed this offer my way which serves as a great example: renting a whole house in Tuscany for only $250 Euros for the WEEK is nothing. Sigh. If only it wasn't $750/wk in June.

Coming soon: secrets of cheap and free air travel both transatlantic and within europe. For now, I have to go to bed. I'm tired and a bit bummed out - my friends Sam and Amy won't be able to make our party this saturday, then proceeded to invite us to a party next saturday, which would be great if we didn't already agree to go to another party same day, same time.

Stupid holiday parties. And I swear, nothing goes on all year long. Within the month of december, though, I tell ya. Someone might actually think we're cool and have friends.

'night,

TALK TO ME!