Creative ways to travel?
 

Doen anyone have an interesting story about how they raised the money they needed to travel? Remember the episode of "I Love Lucy" where Lucy and Ethel wanted to go to Europe and they had to raise their own money? And they made up the "Ladies overseas aid" and it ended up being a real charity?

I thought this would be an interesting topic to bring up. I am currently going through some stuff I no longer need and am considering selling on Ebay for some extra travel cash!

home or hospitality exchange is definitely reducing the cost of travel !

Frankly, I think one of the best "ideas" was the one recently posted by the friend of the man who had inherited over $400,000 and the poster was going to get a free trip to Spain if he could help the man with the money figure out whether or not to convert it to Euros or some such..and was asking for advice about that here!
I'm applaud and thank you for NOT advertising your goods for sale on this board unlike the poster with the tickets to "Chicago" they're trying to unload.

Cole:

Sure, give E-Bay a try. We haven't gone that route yet, but my teenage son makes quite a bit of money selling used books on Amazon.com.

Hi Cole,

I usually pay for my travels through internet fraud. If you send me your credit card details I'll tell you how I do it. :S-

Jim

JJBhoy - that's not even funny. Very sick humor.

JonJon: While I dont agree with using this board to advertise in general, I dont think there's anything wrong with the poster who cant use their "Chicago" tickets putting it on this board. They're not trying to make a profit on these tickets and what better place to find someone who could use them than on a website where travel lovers read, research, and plan their trips?

Sorry Madison - a flippant remark I should have thought twice about.

Jim

I thought J's comment was funny - flippant, but funny. Obviously meant as a joke.

For people who derive all or part of their income from self-employment, I've considered this strategy (although I've not had the opportunity to implement it).

Scout around for a cheap conference somewhat related to one's work in an interesting city. Sign up. Attend. Hopefully it will be one that only involves partial days. Then move on from there to other interesting places. In consultation with your accountant, determine how much of a tax writeoff you can make. I haven't gotten to this last step yet, because I haven't found the right conference yet. Of course if the conference is too expensive, it defeats the purpose.

Back to the subject: When we were much younger, I used to decide how much was needed for an upcoming trip, then divided the amount by the 10 months we had until the trip. Every month I put a tenth of the money in a savings account. Voila . . . at the end of ten months, we had the money.

I really liked the idea of selling used books on Amazon.com but I can't bear to part with a book. I always wondered where all those used books came from.

SalB, I feel the same way about parting with books. However, as a used bookstore owner in my neighborhood said, if they didn't do that, how would you get your books?

From what I read in the papers, you can pay for cross border travel by carrying B.C. bud south and crack north.

This money is then used to buy guns to ship to Afganistan to exchange for heroin which is shipped to the Usa for sale.

Quite convoluted. I have not looked into it.

I think I will stick to pack lunches and driving old cars.

WillTravel, You buy new ones, of course. Actually, I'll buy almost any book. My husband and I are completely addicted . . . to the tune of over 4000 books. I'm not kidding. We had to add a room to our house. There are a lot of used ones but mostly new.

I was complaining one day, and a friend cheerfully pointed out that my husband could have much worse vices. I think she was right!!