Sue_xx_yy

OP: Some Fodorites here, they agonize over which $1000 per night hotel to choose. $1000! Some Fodorites don't know they're born. I remember the last trip we took, we slept in hostels for € 15 a night. A little shabby, perhaps, and sometimes when it rained the water came in the roof, but so what? We got to know our fellow hutmates - locals, every one - by taking turns sleeping under the leak.

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(Reply from poster #2): A hostel with a leaky roof for € 15, that’s extravagant. On our last trip, we slept under an old tarpaulin sheet slung over the rafters of old railway stations for € 5 a night. The tallest of our children had to hang onto it with their bare hands, 'case it blew away in the wind. But we all had fun!

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(reply from poster #3):Rafters, now there's an example of taking your needs and habits with you to Europe. When we travel we keep our accomodation budget to € 1 a night by staying in places with no rooves at all, and when it rains we keep it out with some authentic local bits of sack, held up with authentic local twigs.

Sue_xx_yy

Twigs, what are you thinking, we'd never insult the local culture that way, nor spend so much. You can get by without twigs! We had our smallest kids hold up the roof with their bare hands. My, but that was a great trip.

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(reply from poster #2): And we only drank a Coke every other day while we were on holiday. Without ice!

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(reply from poster #3): Coke without ice – silly extravagance. We drank our beer warm. And no North American brew ever passed our lips – it was strictly local all the way, for € 1 apiece.

Sue_xx_yy

You mean you both BOUGHT beverages? Our budget called for carrying a desalination kit, so’s we could get drinking water straight out of the Mediterranean for no charge at all. That was a great trip. I remember a typical meal, we bartered for it by trading cans and plastic bottles we'd pick up on the street. It was.....

nytraveler

It's better when the Pythons do it -I think it's their accents!

Sue_xx_yy

The PYTHONS - thank you nytraveler, I have been racking my brains --- thought it was older than that (i.e, Beyond the Fringe, maybe, or even an old recording of Flanders and Swan.....)


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<b> Some Budget Travel Myths (contributions solicited) </b>

* Save the money on elevators where a fee is requested and take the stairs. After all, stairs are rare in Europe and you may never get another chance....

* Never set aside money for emergency cabs. As a neophyte it is important for you to learn not to make mistakes in public transportation, including the one that put you in Poggibonsi on a spring Sunday afternoon, waiting for the bus to San Gimignano.

Any others?

PatrickLondon

Save all that fretting about those oh-so-expensive binoculars: just bring a couple of cardboard toilet-roll tubes and squint.

Dukey

I was going to say soem Fodorites cannot seem to realize that everybody travels differently and one way isn't necessarily &quot;better&quot; than the other but hey..whatever you wish to rave about....

ira

In order to save money, we go in the off-off Winter season.

We stay in very cheap hostels.

In order to meet the weight restrictions, we don't bring shoes.

Although we have to walk over two miles in the snow, uphill each way, we have fun.

JulieVikmanis

Great post. We've been lucky enough to be able to travel pretty much as we've liked and I've enjoyed experiences at both ends of the budget spectrum. My personal feeling is that each makes you appreciate the other more. What I do find annoying (apparently as the gifted humorist who posted this does) is the snobbish reaction of those who travel on a budget basis and malign those who don't.

One of my first trip reports on which I worked at length included prices of hotels and meals since I'd observed that that's frequently the first question asked of the trip reporter. I was immediately roundly criticized for flaunting my affluence. Hardly. I was just trying to provide information. And why is that any different than providing information about where you can duck into a toilet in a swank hotel and use the facilities while catching a glimpse of the glamour for free? Or informing folks about where you can find the cheapest and best street food in a town?

Thanks Sue for making your point so cleverly. Excess in anything, even in cheap travel, can get carried too far.

mcnyc

PatrickLondon

willit

I just stick pictures of famous places to the ends of the cardboard tubes, sit in front of a radiator, and pretend I'm actually travelling!

suze

I stomp my own grapes then make my own wine to save money in Europe.

basingstoke2

Sleep on a bench with a sign that describes you as Performance Art. Have a hat on the ground to collect any donations and enhance the effect.

Fountains are for bathing. They are also another good place to pick up change while you bathe.

If Hemingway could catch pigeons in Luxembourg gardens for dinner, then so can you.

artstuff

For FREE accomodations, check out the following website:

www.sleepinginairports.net

Robyn &gt;-

Travelnut

I pack light.
I wear all my clothes onto the plane, then just discard a layer as I go. (I am sure the housekeepers are so grateful for my castoffs).

On the minus side, I have not perfected this method, as I don't want to take all the layers off to remove that closest to my body. On the plus side, no one leans on me on the flight home.

suze

Don't wash your clothes when you travel. You can save a lot of money not buying soap &amp; going to a laundry matt.

Sue_xx_yy

Dukey, Dukey, Dukey! Come now! Surely you can't mean to suggest we can't ever laugh at ourselves. When I asked for penny wise, pound foolish examples, I was drawing from my wealth - or should it be, the poverty - of my own foolish experience.

Regarding 'rules' for budgets, I really did, on my first trip to Rome, decide to save 500 lire - I think it was about 50 cents - by climbing all of the stairs to the top of St. Peter's instead of taking the elevator that takes you at least part of the way. (Even though my knees were a lot younger at the time, they did not thank me. I play racquet sports - in other words, I have more enjoyable ways to put my knees out....)

Also early in my travel days, I counted dots in the ceiling tiles in a railway station as I lay on the floor. Sometime around dot number 469....or was it 468....I came to a stunning realization: [airfare divided by (n days travel * 8 hours sightseeing/people-watching time per day) plus (average per diem, divided by 8)] = cost of time per hour. Given that I am going to be near-comotose from sleep deprivation on the following morn, I have just spent.... !! ...to count dots in tiles.

More recently -- okay, I guess 2000 is now 8 years ago -- we really did get caught on a Sunday afternoon, waiting for the bus from Poggibonsi to San G. When up, like the spider to Miss Muffett, came a taxi driver to point to the schedule on a nearby lamppost that revealed we would be waiting for most of the afternoon.

He grinned when he took our 20 something 000 lire. We grinned when we saw the towers of San Gimignano, where we were only spending one night.

Point is, while the idea of rules appeals to me (hey, I am the certified anal compulsive who once tried to compute a travel algorithm for time spent on the road) - sometimes, rules ought to be broken, especially budget rules. Now we have a budget category, &quot;Insanity Prevention&quot; - a reserve of funds to be dipped into when necessary, and spent without a backward glance. Best 'rule' we ever devised....

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Patrick London - now shoot, why didn't I think of that. Do those cardboard tubes come with film (which I understand is going cheap these days....) That way I can save on a camera....

Any other confessions?

bdjtbenson

The best way to enjoy gourmet food at a budget price is to hang out behind the fancy restaurants at closing time. Sometimes you can even intercept the food before it goes in the trash can. Even if you can't, it's dark in the alley anyway and the extra stuff adds to the aroma.

You can also visit gardens and find the freshest escargot anywhere.