Traveling over the past six months and living in Santiago, I have come to the realization that exploring the area that you live in is extremely important. Whether you visit another country or the museum in your local town learning more about the area you live in is something that we all can and should do.
For example if you live in Minnesota, the Minnesota Historical Society has great places to visit all year round. These places are normally pretty cheap to visit and they are a great way to learn about the history in Minnesota. We have national, state, and regional parks in our state that are beautiful and are often overlooked as a possible travel destination. Who needs to go to Napa Valley in California or the Champagne Region of France to do a wine tour when you can do your own wine tour in the bluffs of southeastern Minnesota? There are so many things that you can do and they can be as long as a week, weekend, or even a day and cost little to nothing.
I have learned during this trip that there are many, many ways to cut costs and increase savings to make travel in the United States or even in other countries more affordable and thus more possible. Some of them include looking into cruises. Often cruises are cheap ways to see the world. Sometimes you can find 4 day cruises for 500 dollars and the awesome thing is that it includes almost everything--- food, entertainment, etc. Another item is travel for longer periods of time and less often.
It would be better to save your vacation and your money and take that one month long dream trip to visit Angor Watt in Cambodia. Often times the most expensive part of your trip is your airfare to the other country. Thus if you can find the time spending less money on one ticket and more time in the other country is a great idea, because you will save money in the long run. The Europeans I have met do this. They take a month or two off and visit Argentina and Chile and really experience the country and the culture. Where as many of the Americans I meet are in Chile for 2 weeks rushing to see everything they can. If you can do it, longer trips less often are definitely the way to go.
Another idea is to look into a Round the World Ticket (RWT). Yeah it sounds like it is for the rich and famous, but often times RWT's are cheaper then flights to one destination and back. Thus, if you have the month for the trip of your dreams you can spend $2,000 on a RWT and spend one week in Sydney, Australia; one week in Beijing, China; and finish your trip up with one week in Rome, Italy before returning home. Instead if you visited these three destinations distinctly, your airfare could cost you more then $6,000!!! That is a considerable savings.
If you want to travel on budget and save a lot of money... I mean a bulk of money--- the best bet is to stay in Hostels. Use websites like www.hostelworld.com to find rooms for as cheap as $5.00 a night (usually in poorer countries and for dorms). However, hostels often times have private rooms as well with private bathrooms. Thus the hostel becomes more like a bed and breakfast. These rooms obviously are more expensive --- sometimes $25.00, but at the same time they can still be considerably cheaper then staying at that Hilton or Best Western.
The main goal I want to make clear in this blog is that exploring your world doesn't have to be hard or expensive, with the proper time and planning, you really can do it on a budget and still have a great time. Even if you don't feel comfortable flying to Africa or Europe for a month, just find things in your hometown or state. I feel like Americans need to get up and get going when it comes to seeing their own country and the world. It doesn't have to be hard and it will be extremely rewarding.
Just be careful as they say you can get the travel bug... or the itch to see more and do more, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing! =)
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