Long Term Travel Advice I

Background:

I would not consider myself a hardcore backpacker; when I spent 9 months traveling, I did not set out to travel on $25 per day, or any such nonsense; but, I did try to budget about $100 per day, for 2 people. However, that $100 budget was awfully tight and was impossible to maintain in Europe, that budget barely held-up in New Zealand, but went quite far in South East Asia. Also, I think that budget was unrealistic for my age; if I were 19, I could probably accept some deprivation, but at 33, a quiet, comfortable place to sleep is a requirement.

First, long term travel is actually hard work in the sense that you are always planning the immediate future and have to learn and figure things out in a country where you don't speak the language (and in South East Asia, cannot even decipher the language). Also, if you are on a budget, you can't really just sit back in your hotel or hostel if you wanted to rest and kick back; after all, those places are not the best places; they serve there purpose of providing a bed, but you would not want to hang out and linger (at least not always). Thus, you are always figuring out where to eat, what to do to pass time, and how to get to your next destination. Although it sounds romantic and adventurous to "let the wind take you where it will," the practicalities of travel/living can ware on you.

Some tips:

1. You need to factor in what I term "admin days". Admin days are when you spend time doing laundry, arranging travel to and lodging at your next destination, shopping for necessities, etc. If you are traveling on a whim, like we did, Admin days can sometimes occupy the entire day. Aside from our arrival and departure cities for any particular country, we had no plan as to where we were going to go in that country.

2. Don't pack white clothing, or at least don't pack whites that will absorb color. This tip, I think, is fairly obvious, but given a limited budget and the practicalities of doing laundry, you want to do as few loads as possible.

3. Build in a "vacation from traveling". If you are going to be gone for more than 6 weeks, go to a location where you can spend an extended period of time to give yourself a break from the rigors of travel. Our first destination was New Zealand, we moved from place to place about every 3-4 days; that schedule gets tiring and we were in New Zealand for 2 months. By the time we hit Southeast Asia, our average stay in any particular location was 6-7 days, and we lodged 12 days on Tioman Malaysia, and nearly 3 weeks on Phuket, Thailand to simply take a break from moving around. We did the same thing in Italy, we lodged nearly 3 weeks in Molveno, Italy out of a 2 month trip to Italy. One nice thing about spending that amount of time in one location is that you really get a better sense of the area, the people, the culture, and the lifestyle.

4. Again, although it can seem romantic to just show-up in a location without any ideas, a guide book is helpful to get your barrings. Unless you speak the language, getting things figured out can be daunting. Note: more people spoke English in Southeast Asia than in Greece or Italy.

5. Touts: relying on touts is country specific. I would never rely on touts in an Asian country, it is just too risky. However, the touts in Greece were actually quite reliable. Some of my best stays and deals in Greece were as a result of touts. Just be sure to negotiate, ask questions and don't be afraid to say no.

As I think of more nuggets of knowledge, I will post.