Marcus Webb
When I first started traveling internationally I found that I was consistently overspending on my trips. At the time, I didn’t think I was spending that much, but after all, I was on the “cheap” end of the spectrum for international travel. However, it wasn’t until I started to keep track of my expenses more accurately that I realized just how much some of my small decisions were costing me. The biggest mistakes that I have found, and that I continue to see other budget travelers making, are the small, what seem to be inexpensive choices that end up costing much more in the long run.
Buying the cheapest gear for the trip
If you are buying gear for the length of your trip, you should buy the best. Cheap gear has a tendency to break and in reality you will pay double for it. For example, I have a very cheap backpack that is split right down the seam of my back after half a year of traveling with it. My rain jacket will probably soak in the first heavy rain. My trail runners will probably fall apart after 200 odd kilometers of hiking on trails. But the cost of these can be split and paid for half way through the trip in a country where it is harder to find gear of your size. Buy it once and it will last you 3 to 7 years for trips of all lengths. As a general rule don’t buy the cheapest gear and don’t buy the most expensive. Research the middle price range and see where the value is. Most gear follows a bell curve in terms of value and the highest point will usually be in the middle of the price range. Confirm twice that it is the best for you though, before you part with your hard earned cash.
Choosing the cheapest flight regardless of timing
Charged at the wrong airport: Many flights, especially on low cost airlines, are departing from secondary airports far from the city center. To make matters worse, these flights may be arriving at night. In many cases, arriving at a strange airport in the middle of the night can be very expensive. You will have to take a taxi to get to your hotel, often incurring a markup of 40 to 80% over the regular fare for public transport. Additionally, you may have to pay a late arrival fee at your hostel. To give you an idea: sometimes it can be 100 to 150 dollars cheaper to book a flight with a late arrival, in a hotel and with less energy the next day, than to book a flight with an earlier arrival. In many cases, flights departing from the main airport of a city (as opposed to a satellite airport) are arriving during the day and are departing early in the morning. This is a much better situation for travelers on a budget. You can then make a fair comparison between the different options. Booking flights that are departing from the main airport of a city and arriving during the day will save you a lot of money in many cases. It is also much better for your energy levels, as you will arrive at your destination during the day instead of in the middle of the night.
I have replicated this trip three times now. The middle trip was the cheapest.
Skipping travel insurance
Many things can happen on a trip that you do not plan for in advance and can cost a lot of money. On the other hand, most of the things that cost a lot of money on a trip are avoidable if you save money on the things that really matter. A small contingency fund (10% to 15% of the budget) can be enough to cover unexpected expenses such as a hospital stay, a rebooking fee for a flight, or an unplanned experience that is very expensive. A traveler should save money on the things that cost less but have a greater impact on a trip in the long run, for example on the transport to a destination, on accommodation in cities that are cheap to stay in, or on food in countries where there is good and cheap street food. The traveler should spend money on the things that have a great impact in the long run, for example on one or two great experiences, on a comfortable seat on a long flight, or on good gear. It is also very important to follow the budget while the trip is taking place, not when it has finished. Every day the traveler should write down how much money he spent and compare it to the budget for that day. This way the traveler can do something about it before it is too late and the second part of the trip will stay within the budget.
Eating only the cheapest food
Finding budget eats to add calories to your trek rather than dollars to your wallet for a few hours of lethargy and decreasing energy can be fun if done right, and a lot of travelers get it right in the first couple weeks of their travels then in the 3rd week start to feel the weight of their wallet-heavy-eating. They do best on long budget trips with 70% of their eateries to stores such as street-food stalls, markets, and even their hostel’s kitchen, then around 25% eating at mid-tier cost eateries to restaurants where the locals go, and finally about 5% “treating” for memorable experiences such as eating at a single known-good restaurant in a given town and not at several high-priced tourist trap restaurants over the course of that same town’s stay. To explain, one carefully researched, preplanned splurge per town will cost far less than the amount that 4 terrible-eating experiences would cost by carelessly stumbling into overpriced touristy eating.
Booking ahead vs improvising
Accommodations are often the biggest cost of your traveling budget. For cities that are very popular and have lots of travelers (such as Lisbon in peak-season September) booking your hostel in advance will cost you half the price of booking it on the last minute hours. In order to save time and accommodation budget I book in advance the first 2 to 3 nights of a new city and then book my accommodation for the rest of my stay in that city only after I get back to my hostel from that day and have a chance to check out traveler’s feedback on places I stayed at before. Shoulders season in most of Europe (October to April – unless it’s a ski resort) and the rainy season in Southeast Asia are the best times for travelers to practice ‘wing it’ style of traveling and finding accommodations in advance of their trip. Only during the peak-season or special holidays travelers should expect to pay more for accommodations if they book it on the last minute.
The thing I learned the hard way: confirm the day before, not the morning of.
How to think about the real cost
Plan for those inevitable ‘one-off’ costs – a night in a hotel to recover from an illness, a costly flight re-book after a bus fails to turn up on time or that once-in-a-lifetime trip that pops up unexpectedly. Use your contingency fund to save on truly cost-effective elements like transport, affordable city accommodation, and food that’s locally great – experiences and luxury items that have lasting value. In the end it’s up to you to track your actual spend versus your planned budget whilst you’re away – it’s only a few minutes a day to reconcile, and it will pay to keep yourself within budget for the second half of your trip if you’d blown it for the first.
Maya Calderon reviewed this for me. I crosschecked with my own experiences on previous trips of similar duration.
The material on this page was reviewed for accuracy by Maya Calderon, a professional traveler, against my own primary sources for similar trips. As with all articles on this site, all prices, flights, schedules and travel products were cross-checked with official sites and confirmed where possible. Please report any inaccuracies to us through our Contact page. This article was written in accordance with our Editorial Standards and was thoroughly fact-checked.
