No Sweat Baby Gear

Plan Your Budget Backpacking Trip

Where to go

The world is an wonderfulplace. There are magnificent rivers, spectacular mountains, pulsating cities and wonderful people. Choosing where to go can be quite tricky. Here are some suggestions on how to decide:

* Check out material which gives an overview of the highlights of the world e.g. books like 1,000 Places to See Before You Die by Patricia Schultz (ISBN: 0761104844) or The Travel Book by Lonely Planet (ISBN: 1741046297). There are also cool sites on the Internet giving advice such as Hillman Wonders of the World or the new 7 wonders of the world where you can get inspired.

* Get some travel literature describing travelers experiences such as Led by Destiny by Kinga Freespirit, a Polish girl who hitchhiked around the world for five years.

* Many people create on-line travelogues. Surf the web to get inspiration.

* Participate in travel discussion groups on the Internet

* Talk to other travellers, ask your friends if they know anyone who has been where you plan to go.

* Check out the web sites of tour operators to find out what their itinerary is

* Check out official travel and tourist offices web sites.

* Compare the cost of different destinations if you are traveling on a budget. The Big Mac Index gives a rough indication of the cost in different countries.

* Buy a guidebook covering a whole region (e.g. South East Asia) and compare the countries.

* Check out Unesco World Heritage Sites

* Rent or buy some travel DVDs

* Check out the current political situation by visiting your country´s Government travel recommendations. You can also look at the travel recommendations of other countries (e.g. U.S. Department of State: and U.K. Foreign & Commonwealth Office).

When to go

There are usually low and high seasons in tourist destinations. Traveling during low season may be more quiet; it may be easier and cheaper to find accommodations. On the other hand if you want to do excursions such as rafting it may be harder to find operators since there are usually a minimum number of participants needed and it may be hard to gather enough people if you travel alone.

The weather also influences your decision. Find out what the weather will be like when you are planning to go, it may not be the best idea to go during typhoon season or there may be a mosquito invasion or freezing cold some time of the year. Some problems are man made such as the burning of forests in northern Indonesia which creates a horrible haze in Malaysia in October.

Festivals and the like can make finding a place to stay and traveling around difficult. The end of Ramadan usually means that it is very difficult to travel and that prices for transportation go up in certain countries.

Who to go with

Traveling with someone else can be a great experience. You share some wonderful (and some not so wonderful) experiences which you later can recall and relive together years after.

An advantage of traveling with someone is that you can share the burden of doing the things you do not enjoy (such as handling touts, finding accommodations, getting tickets and cooking). You can split the workload by burden: one person is responsible for buying tickets and the other for finding accommodations. You can also split the burden by day or week (you do all the stuff today, I will do it tomorrow).

When you travel with luggage it can be convenient to leave the backpacks with one person while the other buys tickets, looks for accommodations, etc. If you stay in private rooms instead of in a dorm it is often cheaper to get a double room than two singles so there are economic aspects to traveling with someone else as well. You can wash clothes together, buy and prepare food together, split costs for taxis, etc.

There are also advantages to traveling alone: when you travel alone you tend to meet more people, especially locals. If only one of you speaks the local language it may soon become tedious to have to translate everything. Traveling alone you also do not have to compromise on what to do – you can choose the stuff that you are really interested in. Choose your travel partner carefully. You can really get on each others nerves when you are tired, hungry and dirty. Make sure that it is a person you get along with. The most important criteria is probably to choose someone with the same sense of humor as you. Having somewhat similar budgets and priorities (e.g. party, culture, beach, mountain trekking) also helps.

You do not have to do everything together even if you are travel partners. In fact, it may even be necessary to split up and do other things in order not to want to wring each others necks. Split for a few hours, days or weeks and then meet up again along the way. If you travel in a cheap destination you can also consider staying in separate accommodations a few nights to get some privacy. If things do not work out and you have pointed out what is not working but your travel partner still refuses to change consider dumping him/her. Should he/she be allowed to ruin your trip? Even if you travel alone you will run into loads of other people. In fact traveling alone you will probably encounter a lot more people than if you traveled with someone. Some of the coolest people we have traveled with are people we hooked up with along the road while traveling solo.

You will not be alone.

About the Author

The above article is based on information in the Backpacker´s toolbox. The Backpacker’s Toolbox contains checklists, templates, FAQs and practical advice (and a few bad jokes) to make your backpacking experience as smooth as possible.

Peter Siljerud is an experienced world traveller and co-author of the Backpacker’s toolbox. He regularly contributes to Hello Backpacker - practical advice for new and experienced backpackers for all trip stages:
Get inspired / Plan your trip / Advice on the road / Tips when back home

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