How to Travel the World for Free (or at least for cheap)

Tim Patterson over at The Travelers Notebook has written a post on how to travel the world for next to nothing. His advice mostly falls into philosophy-of-travel type advice, but includes a few concrete tips too.

Here’s a summary of his points, paraphrased by yours truly:

1. Enjoy the simple things. This is good life advice in general, but for those with a passion for dressing flash and painting the town red in posh urban areas this won’t mean a whole lot.

2. Don’t consume more than you need. See above.

3. Travel slowly. This is a great point. When you travel slower, you spend less money on transport — plus you have time to discover the bargains in each destination. Not everyone has several months to kill on holiday, but you could try limiting yourself to a one- or two- destination week instead of trying to do, say, a hair-raising dash to check off all the items from your itinerary.

4. Leave your stuff and obligations at home. Unless you want to keep your job and apartment and therefore have to keep paying rent.

5. Leverage the power of a social network. Tim suggests CouchSurfing and WWOOF you get yourself free digs. Ladies, you might want to travel with a partner or carry some mace.

6. Barter your skill or get a job.

7. Get out of the city. Excellent advice. Cities tend to be expensive, dirty and dangerous.

8. Get a job that lets you travel. Unfortunately, most of those jobs suck.

9. Go with the flow.