But the email barrage finally wore me down and I figured I would give this whole short-term apartment thing a try. I’ve written about them briefly in the past, but I figured it might be time to devote a full blog post to the subject.

I went in thinking that this type of accommodation wasn’t for me but that it could be useful to other people. My personal tastes don’t really fit this accommodation style. While having a nice apartment to relax in is great, I like hostels and would prefer to stay in one.

However, I’d personally feel like a bad travel writer if I didn’t try things that might help my readers travel better, even if it isn’t for me. After trying out a few companies, I can tell you that short-term rentals are still not for me – but they could definitely be a good alternative for other people.

How do they work?
These apartment rental sites list people’s apartments for rent. Instead of paying money for a hostel or hotel, you stay in someone’s apartment. The booking process is like booking any other type of accommodation. You go online, find a place you like, create an account, and book a place. After you are verified as not being an axe murderer, they connect you with the apartment’s owner (see safety below) and you now have a furnished apartment to stay in.

As an added bonus, most of the apartments listed on these sites are in highly local communities away from tourist centers, allowing you to get a feel for the local rhythm of life and eat at shops not catering to tourists.

The major apartment rental operators are Roomorama, Wimdu, 9flats, Home Away, and Airbnb.

The differences between the companies are pretty negligible. They all offer essentially the same product, but each puts their own twist on it. Airbnb has the best US inventory, Wimdu has a good European inventory, and 9flats is strong in Spain and Germany. Home Away has one of the biggest inventories of all.

If I were planning a trip, I would look at all the sites before I booked a place. (Unless you have a strong affinity for one company.)

Who is this for?
In all honesty, not me. I tried out this style of travel and it’s not a way I would usually choose to travel. However, while it may not be for me, I think these apartment rentals are good for business travelers, families, couples, groups, or anyone who is spending a long time in a place and can’t afford a week at the Hilton, but doesn’t want to spend a week in a hostel either.

Apartment rentals represent this in-between space between hostel and hotel. If you are traveling on business and want the comforts of home, you probably aren’t going to stay in a hostel. But maybe hotels are too expensive or too impersonal for you. A rented apartment, therefore, would be the perfect compromise.

If you want to travel the world but aren’t into the hostel scene and can’t afford hotels, this might be for you. A rental will be a lot quieter and more relaxing than a hostel. You’ll also be able to cook your own food, helping keep costs down on your long trip.

If you are traveling with a big group or a family, this is definitely for you. Squeezing a bunch of people into these apartments will work out to be much cheaper on a cost per person basis than dorm rooms in a hostel or a hotel room.

If you are looking to spend any extended amount of time in a city, these apartments are worth considering. The longer you stay in a place, the less you want to be in a place made for tourists. You want something that feels like home, a place that taps into the local pulse of the city. And this style of accommodation provides that.

There is definitely a specific niche this type of accommodation serves. I’m not it, though. I still enjoy hostels and Couchsurfing because I like interacting with travelers and locals. I’m more suited for that.

That being said, a few weeks from now, I’ll be going to London. I’ll be spending considerable time there catching up on work, meeting my friends, and going to a conference. I’m considering using one of these companies while there because I’m not looking to be in the “travel scene” then – I’m looking to just relax, rest, catch up with friends, and work. It’s in this setting that I would use this type of accommodation. Outside of that, I’d trade the homey feeling of a rented apartment for the lively social atmosphere of a hostel any day. And I think if you are a backpacker, you’re better off in the hostel too.

How much are they?
Prices vary of course, but in general the rooms on these sites are about half the cost of a hotel room. They aren’t as good of a bargain as a hostel, but offer way better value for money than a hotel.

Are they safe?
All these companies claim that they verify both buyer and seller to ensure no one ends up robbing anyone else. But a few months ago, an AirBnb homeowner got her place robbed and vandalized by her renter. They even cut through her wall to get her valuables. So sometimes, this doesn’t work.

But since then, all companies have added more security, insurance, and verification procedures to the process to ensure that this never happens again. There is risk in everything, but overall, I feel all of these companies are safe to use and the risk of something bad happening is minimal.

I especially like their growing reliance on user profiles. This is one thing I love about Couchsurfing and it’s a great form of verification. It really helps you figure out who is good and trustworthy.

At this moment, my travel style doesn’t really lend itself to using these services. I might reconsider it if I was in a city for more than 3 nights and wanted to get away from everything, but probably would not rent an apartment on a regular basis while traveling. But that’s just me.

However, I can see the value in this type of accommodation for certain travelers. If you aren’t into hostels but can’t afford a hotel every night, a short-term apartment rental is something you may want to consider, especially if you are looking for a place that feels more like a home.

Editor’s Note: This post was in part brought to you by Wimdu, whose constant prodding drove me to finally pursue looking into this accommodation type. They are one of the bigger companies and have a large inventory that is especially good if you are traveling Europe.

Most travel hacking is about using miles and rewards to get free flights or accommodation. True travel hackers accumulate points and status like a badge of honor. Need to take 16 flights in 30 days to get a certain elite mileage status? No problem. Get triple miles on a new route? No problem, I’ll fly it tomorrow. Sign up for this card, fill out this form, or enter this contest to get 5,000 hotel points? Easy. These travelers remind me of that scene in “Up in the Air”, where the main character says, “I don’t do anything if it doesn’t benefit my mileage account.”

However, for me, travel hacking is more than that. It is about bringing costs as close to zero as possible. Since only the die-hards really want to spend hours and hours putting together mileage routes that might get them 100 extra miles or reading the fine print to find a loophole they can exploit, I’ve put together this guide for the casual traveler who still wants to travel cheap, but who might not have the time nor the desire to be a black-belt-level travel ninja:

How to Hack to A Flight

Since flights are usually the first thing people research when they travel, I thought I’d deal with this subject first. Searching for a cheap flight is easier said than done these days. I recommend signing up for Airfarewatchdog so you can stay alert to cheap flight deals in your area. Flexibility is key to finding cheap flights, as deals are sometimes around for only a few hours. A day can mean the difference of hundreds of dollars. But if you need flights on a certain date, then you need to work the system a bit.

Let’s look at an example. Say I am flying from New York City to London. This is a popular route, and is served by a lot of airlines. I picked the date October 17th with a return date of October 27th.

Step 1: Use a site like Kayak as your baseline. They search multiple websites at once so you can see prices across the board. Moreover, I also like how they let you search a few days before and after your selected date. In the US, I also like Travelocity, but there are tons of good aggregators around the world.

Kayak returned these results for flying from New York to London:

Step 2: Cross check with other, more global aggregators like Skyscanner or Momondo to see what they come up with. These two are my favorite as they tend to search a wider range of booking sites as well as discount airline carriers. I never book a flight without checking these sites first. (Another good one is Mobissimo.)

Skyscanner results:

Momondo results:

Step 3: Find the lowest fare and head to that airline’s website to see if it is less. Sometimes airlines price tickets less on their own websites than they do on aggregators as a way to entice people to book directly. As we see above, the lowest fare is $592.19 USD on a low-cost airline called Mandarin Airlines (actually, when you click the link it sends you to Astraeus Airline) with Iceland Express next at $676 USD. I couldn’t find a booking form on Astraeus (they are a charter operation partially owned by Iceland Air) but checking on the Iceland Express website, we see the price is the same:

Step 4: Next, check the airline’s foreign website to see if the price is cheaper in another currency. (i.e. britishairways.co.uk instead of britishairways.com) Depending on your currency, you might be able to take advantage of the exchange rate and book in another currency while getting charged in your own currency, thereby saving money. On our example, this doesn’t work because we are going from the United States to England and the English Pound is worth more than the US dollar. Additionally, the Iceland Krona is not worth less than a dollar. However, if we were going the reverse way, this would work. I’ve used this method when flying to New Zealand since their currency is worth less than the US currency.

Step 5: Check alternative routes. Most major airports have expensive fees and taxes that can add a lot of money to the price of a ticket. I like to check other big airports and then see if taking a discount flight to my final destination is cheaper. This is especially good in Europe since they have so many airlines. For our example, maybe flying to Dublin is cheaper, and then I can just take a quick Ryanair flight over to London. (Turns out, in our example, it isn’t.)

Step 6: Check the airport’s carriers. One thing I do quite a bit is to go to the airport’s website and see what airlines fly into it. Sometimes you find small carriers that are not listed on aggregators or other search engines. This is sort of my last double check to make sure I checked all possible airlines. After all, I don’t want to find out later that there was an airline that offered a cheap flight but wasn’t listed on an aggregator. (Not all airlines appear are on flight search engines.)

After I do all that checking and work, I then compare the prices of each search and see what is cheapest. I might look at a few more websites and search for a lot of deals if I’ve found big differences between the numbers. Moreover, it is also good to play around with the dates of your trip. Sometimes leaving a few days before or after can make a big difference in price. In our example, it didn’t really make a huge difference when I looked at it. Most of the major airlines were much higher than what we found during that period:

So our $593 USD flight to London on Astraeus airline looks to be the best deal and is more than $200 USD cheaper than most of the major airlines and $100 USD cheaper than Iceland Express. Notice that Astreaus only appeared on 1 booking site and that booking site was not US-based. That’s why it is so important to check multiple sites from all over the world, because not all sites check all airlines. All this work took me about 45 minutes.

Note to Critics: While much of the above is pretty common sense “shopping around,” many people don’t know about these overseas websites or that you can book on an airline’s foreign website. So while $200 USD isn’t a huge savings, I write for a beginner audience and you would be surprised at how few people know about this sort of stuff. I think of my parents whenever I write a post. They are very, very unsavvy travelers so I am writing for their level of knowledge. That way I don’t assume too much about what people know and don’t know.

The second way to fly is to use frequent flier miles to fly for free. And this is where the real “travel hacking” comes into play. And that means earning airline points and miles any way possible. This is the preferred method of travel hackers. There are plenty of ways to get thousands of miles without ever setting foot on a plane, but you have to be willing to put the time and energy into it. However, I found the work to be worth the thousands of dollars in free flights. Here are the major ways to get lots of free miles besides actually flying:

Sign up for a branded airline credit card: Whether you love Delta, fly United and the Star Alliance, live and breathe Jetblue, or are hooked on Oneworld, all U.S. carriers have a branded travel credit card that gives you 25,000-30,000 points when you sign up and make one purchase. That’s a free economy ticket right there. Airline credit cards are the best way to kick start your mileage balance. I’ve used these cards to collect over 500,000 frequent flier miles. (Here’re my tips on looking for a good one.)

Watch out for special promotions: I sign up for all the airline mailing lists. I always watch out for special 2-for-1 mile deals. Or when they have special card offers to earn extra miles. Last year, British Airways offered a card that gave you 100,000 miles just for signing up. That was a first class ticket home. American Airlines just gave me 1,000 miles for watching a demo on their new shopping toolbar. I once got 5,000 miles for joining Netflix. Marriott is giving away Silver status, and Delta recently gave away miles for watching a video about Bose headphones. Promotions help. It’s how I fly business class for free most of the time.

Sign up for a non-airline credit card: Sign up for a non-airline credit card like a Starwood American Express card and you can get 10,000 sign-up points. When you convert 20,000 points into miles, you get a 5,000-mile bonus. I highly recommend signing up for this card too but signing up for any “points” card like the AMEX travel card or a Capital One card will do. Afterwards, you can transfer your sign-up bonus points to the airline you use and redeem them for flights.

Take the AA challenge: If you are taking a long trip, go with American Airlines. By paying $300, you can take the 10,000 point challenge. If you accumulate 10,000 points in 3 months, you get 1 year platinum status, which gives you get automatic upgrades into business class as well as lounge access. They do not advertise this on their website, however. You must call customer service and ask to take the challenge.

Do a mileage run: If you are only a few thousand miles away from some form of elite status, you can do what the travel ninjas call a “mileage run.” This means you find cheap fares or special bonus mileage offers and take that flight. It can be a weekend getaway, a week away, or an afternoon jaunt. I’ve known people to fly around the country in 1 day simply to get a huge cache of bonus miles. Yes, you spend a bit of money on the flight, but having that elite status for a year will be well worth it.

Buy miles: This isn’t actually a way to get a free flight but it’s a good way to get a cheap business class flight. Many airlines run special offers where you can get 100% bonus on any miles you buy for up to 100,000 miles. This usually costs around $1,300 USD. However, that amount of miles is enough to go business class somewhere in the world so you essentially get a business class ticket at an economy class price.

Note: You will have to sign up for airline frequent flier programs in order to be eligible to redeem miles.

Note #2: Most travel hackers sign up for lots of credit cards as they have the largest one time bonuses (think 30,000-50,000 miles). If you aren’t comfortable doing that, it will take longer to accumulate miles. Opening credit cards don’t necessarily hurt your credit. It’s not opening them that is a problem. However, if you are opening and closing card every month, then you’ll have a problem and I don’t recommend “churning” cards. However, opening a few cards per year is not going to ruin your credit.

Some good sites worth following for more travel hacking deals:

• Travel Hacking Cartel
• Flyer Talk
• One mile at a time
• Boarding Area

How to Hack Your Accommodation

Outside of flights, accommodation is usually the next big travel expense. Luckily, it’s quite easy to get free or cheap accommodation.

Hotel Deals: Getting a sweet deal on a hotel is actually really easy, especially if you are in the United States. Simply head over to Priceline or Hotwire and bid on rooms. When you know your dates, just head to Better Bidding first to see what similar people bid on and won at. Use that as your baseline. I used this method to get a hotel room in Times Square, New York during Christmas for $85 USD per night. (That is a huge bargain!)

And, just like with airlines, many hotel branded credit cards offer huge sign-up bonuses, which can get you lots of points to redeem for free accommodation. There are also non-credit card promotions that can get you some points, too.

Stay with Locals, Stay for Free: Use Couchsurfing or similar sites like Global Freeloaders, and Hospitality Club (who merged with another site called Servas) to find a local who is willing to host you during your visit to their city. You’ll get a free place to stay (sometimes a bed, a couch, or an air mattress), a local who can help show you around, and the chance to learn a bit about the local culture. It’s a much better way to learn about a city than staying at a hotel. I am a particular fan of Couchsurfing and have used it often.

Work for Your Accommodation: Many hostels around the world will let you work there in exchange for free room and board. All you do is clean a few hours in the morning, and you get the rest of the day to yourself. Hostels are usually thought of as places for singles to party but there are variety of hostels out there for all people and all ages. Don’t be afraid to look into this just because you “aren’t in college anymore.”

House-sit: If working for a hostel isn’t your idea of a good time, then consider house-sitting. In exchange for watching and cleaning someone’s home while they are away, you’ll get a place to stay in the area you are visiting. Good house-sitting sites include:

• Mind My House
• House Carers
• Luxury House Sitting

Go Camp in a Garden: The concept is simple: people offer their gardens for you to camp in. You can search for suitable sites by place, and they range from the basic “here’s a spot for the night” to the more glamorous that offer full access to the house. The offerings are mostly in the UK. There are a few spots dotting the rest of the world, but most locations are in the British Isles. It’s growing in popularity around Europe. Check it out at: Camp in my Garden.

WWOOFing: One of the most popular ways people get free accommodation is to work for it. World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) is a global organization that connects travelers, foodies, agriculturalists, or anyone really that wants to work on organic farms that need laborers. In exchange for working on the farm a few hours a day, you get your meals provided and a place to stay. Sometimes I’ve heard of people getting paid if they stay long-term, but generally they don’t. I think this is most popular in New Zealand and Australia, but you can find farms anywhere in the world. (For example, I had friends work in a winery in Argentina.)

Visit WWOOF for more information.

How to Hack Attractions

Flights and rooms are your biggest budget busters, but cutting down on the cost of attractions is also essential as we move toward the goal of “the no cost trip.”

City Tourist Cards: City tourist cards, while costing money, offer unbelievable savings for those who want an attraction-heavy vacation. If you plan on seeing lots of museums, attractions, and historical sites, you’d be foolish not to get one of these discount cards. As a general rule, they will save you about 50% off the cost of what seeing the attractions individually would have cost.

Find the Free Days: Most museums have special discount times or free nights. Before you go anywhere, make sure you look on the museum’s website to find out if they offer free visiting hours. Even famous museums like the Louvre and the Guggenheim offer free entrance at certain times. If I don’t have a tourist card, I always look up the museums I want to visit to see if I can get in for free.

Don’t forget that many attractions offer military and student discounts, so make sure your carry that kind of identification around! If you don’t have one or aren’t a student or in the military, next time you are in anywhere in Asia, pick one up. You can get them made for you really cheap. Just saying.

How to Hack Food

To learn ways on how to save on food, you can visit my article on how to eat cheap around the world. However, here are some of my favorite tips:

Outdoor Vendors: Small stands that sell hot dogs, sausages, sandwiches, and the like are great places to get a cheap and quick meal. While in Sweden, I lived off these types of vendors — I could get a sausage for about $4 USD. In Amsterdam, FEBO and their croquettes kept my stomach full. In Costa Rica, the empanada seller filled me up for a dollar. These quick and inexpensive meals won’t win any Michelin stars, but they will keep you full without emptying your wallet.

Street Food: In most places around the world (and especially in Asia), the streets are lined with little food stalls and areas where food is cooked openly on the street. You grab a plate, sit down in a little plastic chair, and enjoy a delicious meal. Street food is some of the best food in the world. Meals at street stalls (different from street vendors, who have a bit more permanent set up) cost less than a dollar most of the time, and are a great way to really experience the local cuisine. Many places — like Thailand, for example — wouldn’t be the same if the street food disappeared.

Lunch Specials: Many restaurants, especially in Europe, offer lunch specials where items on the dinner menu are offered at a huge discount. You can get an amazing afternoon meal for a fraction of the cost you’d pay for the same meal in the evening. I usually tend to eat my “nice” meal during lunch because lunch specials and plates of the day are about 30-40% off what I might pay at dinner.

Buffets: While they don’t always serve the best meals, buffets offer great value for your money, especially since they are all-you-can-eat. You can fill up on one meal for the entire day. (Well, I can’t, but I can fill up for most of the day and avoid snacking.) Buffets are a good economical choice, and give you the most food for your buck. They typically cost around $15 USD.

How to Hack Transportation

Lastly, let’s cover transportation and getting from point A to point B on the cheap:

Get a Tourist Card: Besides offering discounts on attractions, city tourist cards include free local transportation. You can’t get much better than that. This is also another reason why I like city tourist cards – free buses, ferries, trams, and trains.

If you don’t want to do that, just walk: Your two feet are the cheapest way to get anywhere. (Though not always the fastest.)

Car share: Sharing a ride is a great way to lower costs. Finding someone going your way to help with gas costs or driving can go a long way to greatly reducing how much you spend on transportation. These sites are good for finding car shares:

• Gumtree
• Craigslist

Travel forums are also good places to look for travel buddies, as are bulletin boards in any hostel.

Get Paid to Drive: In North America, there are a lot of companies that will pay you to drive someone’s car from point A to point B. Maybe they are moving, or the car was bought online – who knows, but you are essentially a car courier. They give you the car, a date to get it to the destination, and gas money. It’s great for long-distance travel. In Canada, hittheroad.ca is the major national company. It’s hard to find a national company in the US, but this website provides a good directory of cars on the move: Autodriveaway.

While no trip may ever come close to 0, reaching for the goal is what’s important as it keeps you looking for creative ways to travel. If you can take the “normal” cost of a trip and cut 50-75% off it, to me, you’ve travel hacked. Travel hacking is more than being just a mileage and points junkie — it is about finding ways to travel first class on an economy class budget.

Food is such an integral part of so many cultures that to skip out on meals when you travel is to miss a huge part of traveling. I’m always disappointed when I meet travelers who cook all their meals in a hostel kitchen. Why come to Italy and not have pasta? No sushi in Japan? Avoiding steak in Argentina? Skipping paella in Spain? You’re crazy.

But many travelers have a valid concern when it comes to food — eating out all the time is expensive.  Imagine if you ate out every day — your food budget would be astronomical.

As a “backpacker,” people often assume that I, like other backpackers, cook all my meals and thus get around this predicament. However, I don’t actually cook very often. I’m lazy and I hate poorly equipped hostel kitchens. Thus I have just learned how to balance eating 99% of my meals out with saving money. It takes a bit of clever thinking, but it is possible.

Budget-Friendly Places to Eat

Buffets – While they don’t always serve the best meals, buffets offer great value for your money, especially since they are all-you-can-eat. You can fill up on one meal for the entire day. (Well, I can’t, but I can fill up for most of the day and avoid snacking.) Buffets are a good economical choice, and give you the most food for your buck. They typically cost around $15 USD.

Outdoor Vendors – Small stands that sell hot dogs, sausages, sandwiches, and the like are great places to get a cheap and quick meal. While in Sweden, I lived off these types of vendors — I could get a sausage for about $4 USD. In Amsterdam, FEBO and their croquettes kept my stomach full. In Costa Rica, the empanada seller filled me up for a dollar. These quick and inexpensive meals won’t win any Michelin stars, but they will keep you full without emptying your wallet.

Street Food – In most places around the world (and especially in Asia), the streets are lined with little food stalls and areas where food is cooked openly on the street. You grab a plate, sit down in a little plastic chair, and enjoy a delicious meal. Street food is some of the best food in the world. Meals at street stalls (different from street vendors, who have a bit more permanent set up) cost less than a dollar most of the time, and are a great way to really experience the local cuisine. Many places — like Thailand, for example — wouldn’t be the same if the street food disappeared.

Fast Food – Fast food isn’t the best for you, but it is another option if you want a cheap meal in expensive parts of the world. For only about 5 dollars (more in expensive countries like Norway, home of the 15 dollar Whopper), you can get a filling (and hugely caloric) meal. Moreover, the local dollar menu will save you even more. Sure, it’s not the greatest food and I am going to skip the philosophical debate about traveling around the world only to eat McDonalds to say that it’s cheap and is just another way help you rein in your spending. (However, note, in Asia fast food is actually more expensive than the local food.)

Go Local – Sure, sometimes I’m sick of Greek food. Other times, I can’t eat any more Thai food and just want a burger. And that’s OK. We live in a globalized world — eat what you want. However, the non-local food is almost always more expensive than the local cuisine. For example, in Greece a gyro is 2.50 Euro, but a pizza is 6 Euros. In Vietnam, a bowl of pho is less than a dollar but a burger is about 3 times as much. Go local and you will save.

Other Ways to Save

Lunch Specials – Many restaurants, especially in Europe, offer lunch specials where items on the dinner menu are offered at a huge discount. You can get an amazing afternoon meal for a fraction of the cost you’d pay for the same meal in the evening. I usually tend to eat my “nice” meal during lunch because lunch specials and plates of the day are about 30-40% off what I might pay at dinner.

No Soda – I may splurge once in a while on a Coke, but I hardly ever buy soda because it is so expensive. At $2 dollars a pop, two or three a day can really add up over the course of a long-term trip.

Refill Water Bottles – Water might not be as expensive as soda, but buying a bottle or three a day can add up. As you walk around and sightsee, you need to stay hydrated. But buying a bottle of water is not only environmentally wasteful — it also makes foolish budget travel sense. Assuming each bottle is about 75 cents and you buy 3 a day, over the course of a month you well spend $67.50! That’s a lot of money spent on water. (Plus, in some parts of the world, bottled water costs a lot more than that!) Carry a refillable bottle of water with you instead and just use the tap water.

Don’t Snack – A gelato here, a gelato there. A soda. A candy bar. An ice cream. A small pastry. It all adds up. Since the price is so small (“it’s only a Euro!”), we don’t think of snacking as having a big impact on our budget. But buying snacks a few times a day will slowly add up and throw your budget out of whack. It’s not something many travelers think of but snacking really does add up over the long term. Avoid snacks and stick to big, filling meals instead.

Cooking – I don’t cook a lot on the road as I don’t like hostel kitchens. They never have everything I need, and I hate traveling with a portable kitchen so I can have all the ingredients I want. Yet, when I am in one place for a while (or if I’m Couchsurfing), I cook a few meals. Cooking is one of the best ways to keep your travel costs down, and supermarkets are also great places to go to see what the local people eat. The only place where cooking your own meals isn’t the most economical option is Asia, where the street food is usually cheaper.

Picnic – Another good self-cook method is to picnic. This is something I do a lot for lunch. I usually head to a local food market, pick up a bunch of food, and go picnic in the park. Not only am I saving money (sandwiches aren’t expensive!), but it affords me a good chance to watch the locals scurry about their daily lives.

Tourism Cards – Most people think of tourist cards like the iAmsterdam card or the VisitOslo pass as just a way to save money on transportation and attractions. But these cards also offer discounts at many restaurants. Typically, discounts are around 15-25%, but sometimes lunch specials can be up to 50% off.

For me, I love a nice restaurant. I don’t mind paying money for a good meal with a nice glass of wine. But doing that EVERY meal is simply too expensive for me. I’m not Bill Gates. But by using the tips above, I can afford to keep my costs down while still being able to afford a quality meal every so often. 

And that’s what is really important — finding the right balance between cheap (maybe unappealing) meals and really nice dinners. Your wallet and your stomach will thank you.

Banking Overseas

The first thing you should do is set up a checking account at a major bank. ALWAYS PICK A MAJOR BANK! Why? Most major banks have partnership agreements with counterparts overseas that allow for free ATM withdrawals. People don’t usually factor banking fees into their trip expenses, but those fees can take a big bite out of your budget. Let’s think about it. If you’re traveling for a year, you will probably take out money from an ATM twice a week. Every time you make a withdrawal, it typically costs $5 USD in fees. That’s $520 USD per year. Even if you only use the ATM half the time, that’s still $260 USD per year. Why give banks money you need for travel? By picking a major bank and using partner ATMs, you can avoid those fees.

Below is a list of major banks that have ATM partnerships where you can avoid fees:

• Bank of America (United States)
• Barclays (England, Wales, Spain, Portugal, Gibraltar and certain countries in Africa)
• BNP Paribas (France, Ukraine)
• China Construction Bank (China)
• Deutsche Bank (Germany, Poland, Czech Republic, Spain, Portugal and Italy)
• Santander Serfin (Mexico)
• Scotiabank (Canada, Caribbean, Peru, Chile and Mexico)
• Westpac (Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, Vanuatu, Cook Islands, Samoa, Tonga, Papua New Guinea, and Solomon Islands)
• ABSA (South Africa)
• UkrSibbank (Ukraine)

I recommend that you pick a global bank that has branches around the world.  I use HSBC for most of my international banking. (My secondary ATM card is with Bank of America.) HSBC has ATMs all over the world. Using those ATMs means I don’t have to pay those fees. As of September 2011, HSBC has raised their fee to $2.50 USD per ATM transaction. That doesn’t make them such a good bargain anymore. While they also have ATM agreements with some of the above-mentioned banks, I can’t say I would recommend them over any other big US bank. If you are a US resident, try the following two companies: Capital One, where you can get money market account with an ATM card. They offer unlimited ATM withdrawals and no foreign transaction fees. Additionally, Charles Schwab (as many readers pointed out) reimburses you for all out of network ATM fees (for up to 9 USD), which means they have no transaction fees, though, as with all banks, you will still pay a conversion fee.

Note: You should also create a second checking account. This is important because you’ll need a backup in case your primary account card gets stolen or lost while you travel.

Making Money with Your Money
You want your money to work for you. You have just saved an enormous amount of money for your trip. Don’t let it sit in a checking account where it will collect 0% interest. You have a pile of cash. Do something with it! Even though interest rates on savings and money market accounts are fairly low (1.5%), some extra money is better than none. Here are a few companies that offer good rates for US residents:

Emigrant Direct
E*Trade
ING Direct
VirtualBank
Discover Bank

By putting your money into one of these accounts, you can actually earn money while you travel. How much you earn will depend on how often you take money out and what you start with but I typically make an extra $100 USD per year. It’s not a lot money but it helps.

Note: Australia and New Zealand have high interest rates. If you are a resident of there, take advantage of those rates to make even more money while you travel overseas.

Minimizing the Exchange Rate “Penalty”

You’ll never able to fully avoid the exchange rate unless you somehow use magic to turn your bank account into local currency everywhere you go. However, there are ways to reduce the amount you lose in conversion:

Use a Credit Card – Credit companies get the best rates. Using a credit card will get you an exchange rate closest to what the banks get.

Use an ATM Card – ATM machines offer the best exchange rate after credit cards. They aren’t as good as credit cards since banks take a little more off the top but it’s much better than exchanging cash.

Withdraw A Lot – If the exchange rate has moved in your favor, withdraw more than you need. That way when the exchange rate changes you’ll have scored yourself some extra money. This also helps reduce ATM fees since you won’t be going every few days. You have to be O.K. carrying cash though.

Don’t Change Money at Airports – Never ever exchange money at airports! You will always find awful rates and high fees. If you have to exchange cash, do it in town rather than at the airport. Moreover, NEVER exchange with Travelex. Their rates are worse than anybody else I’ve seen.

Get Travel Rewards

Travel credit cards are crucial to reducing your costs and making your life easier. These credit cards can get you free stuff, cheap flights, and money. There are many travel credit cards out there that offer different kinds of rewards, from general points programs to hotel and airline cards. You probably already use a credit card, so if you like to travel, you should consider getting a travel rewards credit card.

Most travel credit cards offer bonuses of 30,000 points/miles for signing up. I use a Citi AAdvantage card because I belong to their frequent flier program. Buy getting free stuff, you can reduce your overall expenses. A free flight is worth more than the fees you may pay. Cashback can help cover the cost of the fees. I put everything on my card and last year I only spent $300 USD on fees but that was well below the free flight I got to Europe and the nights at the Hilton. In the end, I saved money.

However, Chase, Capital One, and Discover credit cards have no foreign transaction fee when using these cards overseas. If you get one of those cards, you can avoid the fees and get rewards.

Below are some sites where you can find good travel credit cards. These fees can be substantial and I’ve gotten free business class tickets from them.

http://www.creditcards.com/airline-miles.php (US)
http://www.creditcardfinder.com.au/travel-rewards-credit-cards (Australia)
http://uk.creditcards.com/travel.php (UK)
http://www.rewardscanada.ca/topcreditcard2009.html (Canada)

Bank fees can add up to some serious money over the course of a long trip. If you want to save money, you need to be proactive when it comes to banking and currency exchanges. I see too many travelers vist the ATM all the time without paying attention to the latest exchange rates. You’re on the losing end that way. Be smart and bank smart so you give the banks less and can have more for your trip.

Cheaper is Not Better – Budget travelers have a natural inclination to go with the cheapest thing around. However, don’t try to save a buck just to save a buck. Many cheap hostels are unclean, the beds are uncomfortable, the showers dirty, and the pillows thinner than a supermodel. Pay an extra dollar or two for nicer and clearer digs. Your body will thank you.

What’s for Breakfast? – One thing I hate about hosteling in Europe is that breakfast is toast and coffee. And it begins at 7 in the morning. I’m not sure what travelers they know but I’ve never known any to wake up that early, even for a good breakfast. Look for a place with a decent breakfast (i.e. more than toast) or at least one that begins and ends when people are actually awake (breakfasts that start around 8:30 usually go late). It’s also a great way to load up on snacks for the rest of the day, cutting down your food budget.

Check Out Time – Never stay at a hostel with a check out time before 10 A.M. The best hostels have 11 A.M. check out times and the really good ones let you checkout at noon. Sleep is valuable on the road because you’ll rarely get enough of it. Hostels with late check out times understand this.

Push Button Showers- Just say no to push button showers. They are annoying and have no water pressure. You don’t want the water to turn off mid-soaping. My rule of thumb is that if it has a push button shower, I don’t stay there.

Lockers- It’s surprising but I’ve actually been in hostels that don’t have lockers or charge you for them. In this day in age, lockers should be standard. You should never pay for security. This is a deal breaker for me, especially since I travel with electronics.

Internet- While the internet isn’t a must for all travelers, a hostel with free WI-FI and computer terminals makes your life a lot easier. You don’t have to search for internet cafes and the internet at hostels is usually cheaper (and in many parts of Europe, free!).

A Bar – Bars are not a deal breaker and there are a lot of hostels without them but they make for a great place to socialize with other hostel guests. Usually if a hostel has a bar, they put on a strong emphasis on making sure the people staying there are having fun, interacting, and being festive.

Common Area – If the hostel doesn’t have a bar, it should have a big common area. The best hostels are the ones that give travelers a place to hang out and socialize with each other. For me, a hostel without a common room is a deal breaker. Common areas facilitate interaction and helps solo travelers have an easier time meeting people. The best hostels I’ve ever stayed at always had an amazing common area.

A hostel doesn’t need to have every one of these things but they should have the majority. A hostel without the majority of these things doesn’t understand who their guests are or what they want. Outside of the above criteria, I’m flexible on everything else. I’d like a clean kitchen but it’s not a deal breaker. Dorm room doesn’t lock? That’s what a locker is for. Hostel showers are always dirty which is why I wear flip flops in them. I’m not looking for a 5 star resort, just basic security and comfort.

What makes hostels great are the people and even the worst hostels will be great if you meet good people. But removing the people from the equation, I look for hostels that have some of the above qualities in them. Hostels that know what you want as a traveler are there to enhance your travel experience not simply take money from you in exchange for a bed. And I would rather stay at a place that is looking to make sure I have a good time.

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Be Quiet – No one expects you to tip toe around the room during the day, even if someone is taking a nap. There’s an unwritten understanding that during the day, the dorm room is fair game. However, after about 10 or 11pm, keep the noise down. People are trying to sleep. In a large dorm, it’s hard to have perfect silence. People get that. That’s why we all carry ear plugs. If you are in a smaller dorm, your noise is going to be heard much easier and ear plugs don’t always work. It’s not cool being woken up at 2am by drunks or chatty people. If you are going to talk, do it outside. Don’t make us remember you as that jerk who kept us up.

Keep the Lights Off – Expanding on this theme, if it’s past 11 or before sunrise, keep the lights off. No one wants to be woken up the light. Use a flashlight or the glow from your iPod. There are people in the room who might not be able to sleep with the lights on. Please don’t disturb.

Don’t Be Dirty! – Your mother is not here and no one wants some crazy food born illness. I bet you don’t either. Wash your dishes when you are done with them and, by wash, I mean with soap not just running your dishes under mildly warm water. And remember, if there is a still a film on the pan when you are done, it’s not clean.

Pack Up Early – It’s hard to sleep late in hostels. Everyone is packing up and moving out. New people are coming in. The guy above you is snoring like a freight train. Anything that can help us sleep later is always appreciated. So we love it when people pack their bags the night before as to minimize noise in the morning. Bags rustling and zipping can get annoying. I know you can’t fully get rid of it but doing something to trying to keep it down is goodwill that is greatly appreciated by others.

Avoid plastic – Even worse than listening to people pack their bag is listening to people rustle with the plastic bags they carry around. They make a lot of noise. Simply put- just like packing your bag, pack your plastic bags the night before. Because there’s simply no way to muffle that sound.

Keep it private – Don’t have sex in the dorms rooms. I mean seriously. No one wants to hear you faking it. There’s a right way to having sex in a hostel and a wrong way. In the dorm room is the wrong way.

Turn Off the Dance Party – As awesome as rocking out to Lady Gaga’s Poker Face is, some people can’t fall asleep to music. While it is great that you can and it certainly helps block out other noises, keeping it too loud disturbs others. I don’t want to fall asleep to the soundtrack to your life. Plus, why work on going deaf while you sleep? That’s more of a daytime activity. Keep the iPod in but turn the volume down just a bit.

None of this is difficult. You don’t have to stop being you but remember what your kindergarten teacher said- play nice with others. However, it’s amazing how many people forget that rule. Remember you aren’t the only one in the hostel. You are surrounded by people who have different needs. Be conscious of that. All I remember about the people who woke me up was that they were rude. Don’t be that guy (or girl). Let people walk away with good memories of you.

Whenever I visit someplace new, I tend to walk around a lot. A real lot. I wander streets and alleys and turn myself all around because you never know what you will find just around the next corner. One recent walking adventure brought me little girls singing Abba on the streets of Stockholm. Aimless wandering is a great way to see the locals and how they live their daily lives away from all those great tourist destinations.

Two often overlooked places that tell us about the lives of locals are supermarkets and malls. These are where the locals go to shop, spend an afternoon, relax, and do errands. In short, it’s everyday life. And sadly, we rarely go there.

Shopping Malls
It may be hard to think of a mall as a cultural place, but let’s think outside the box for a moment. For starters, there are no tourists. In malls back home, I’ve never seen one. In malls I go to, I still never see them, especially if I visit a mall outside the city center. The only reason I usually end up there is because I accompany my local friends on their errands.

Roaming malls can tell you a lot about the place you are visiting. What type of stores do they like? What fashions? What kind of fast food do they prefer? Do they like big box stores or small boutiques? Malls also gives you an idea of cost of living because you can see how much goods cost. Once in Italy, I saw a sign that read “XXL Available- American size.” That told me two things about Italy: there was a clear perception that Americans were very fat, and that in Italy, fat wasn’t considered an Italian thing. Go shopping in Stockholm, and you’ll see a lot of trendy, high-end fashion. In Paris, you don’t see big Gaps and Abecrombies- you see top of the line fashion like Hermes, Prada, Gucci, and small boutique shops.

Malls give you a window into material lives of people and the material stuff they value. What value people place on “stuff” is as cultural as seeing the type of architecture in their buildings they enjoy.

Supermarkets
Supermarkets are another great place to spot culture. How people eat, what they eat, and what they don’t eat tells much about how they view food, life, and health. In America, our emphasis on big, quick, and easy shows that we aren’t foodies as a culture. Food isn’t as important as speed. We eat a lot of fast food, prepared meals, and on the go food. In France, however, food quality is important. French citizens living in Brussels drive back to France to get food. Every other street has small food shops- little stores for fish, pastries, fruits, and bread.

Going to the supermarket answers a lot of questions. What kind of food do people like? What are the local delicacies? You see a lot of fish in Scandinavia, lots of different meats in Austria, packed shelves of wine in France, and a wide vegetable and cured meat section in Italy. In Bangkok, you see a lot of prepared meals. All around the world, the emphasis on food is different.

Food is such an integral part of culture that no visit to any country should be without a visit to a supermarket. I’m always blown away when I go to them because I learn more about how people live their lives and what they value than I learn from any trip to a monument.

Travelers always hit the obvious destinations, but malls and supermarkets offer you something different, unique, and local. If travel is about getting to know the places you go to and peering into the lives of its citizens, then watching people go about their daily lives at malls and supermarkets is a great way to do just that.

But I found the city beautiful, nonetheless. The medieval architecture was great, but I got a little bored quickly. A romantic canal cruise isn’t the same when you are by yourself. Much like Venice, I will return again when I’m with people. Deciding that my time was best spent the next time around, I decided to do some work. After traveling with people for a few weeks, I was behind. Blogs needed to be written, emails answered, advertising deals to be made, and miscellaneous things to be done.

Lots of travelers today want to have a travel blog on their trip. People even put in a lot of effort before they leave getting it up and running and getting the bugs out of it. However, running a blog on the road isn’t easy, and it is a constant battle to balance work and play. Even trying to post and upload pictures to update your friends and family can be a task that keeps you spending hours in an Internet cafe.

If you want to do more, then you spend even more time. If you want to run a business, then, you’ll spend a lot of time.

Balancing work and play becomes a major issue on the road. I still haven’t found a great balance, but I found that taking breaks from travel to work usually keeps me up to speed. It doesn’t always work out. Sometimes, I fall behind. But cities like Bruges offer a good opportunity to catch up. In fact, all quiet cities offer everyone that chance because there is no wild night life to draw you out. Just the tranquility of the town.

But that still doesn’t solve the work/life balance. It is a daily struggle, but here are some good tips and practices to help you develop that balance:

• Write on trains, planes, and buses. Even if you don’t have a laptop, a pen and paper is still a good way to write out a draft. You’ll probably catch more mistakes when you rewrite later, leading to better written posts.
• Set aside one day to do all your major work. By giving yourself a day to focus, work become the only task and not a distracting task or a burden.
• Set a time limit. Twitter, Facebook, the news- all are great and all wonderfully distracting. I’ve wasted many hours on them. Give yourself a work time limit and stick to it. If you only want to be on the computer for 2 hours, then you’ll “force” yourself to concentrate.
• Create a to do list. By creating a to do list you can know where to focus your energies on the tasks at hand.
• Know your rhythm. I always do work in the morning because that is when I am most productive. Know when you’re the most productive, and always do work then.
• Wake up early. Waking up at 8 and being done with work at 10 still gives you the whole day!
• Get a smart phone. The iPhone has really come in handy for me. With the ability to check emails while waiting for planes or trains, I can kill time and get some work done.

These tips have helped me become better at managing my time so that work doesn’t completely take over my life. Hopefully, these tips will help you manage the balance a little on the road.

Flying
1. When booking flights, sometimes it is cheaper to fly into airports other than your final destination, and then take a train or bus. This is especially true during peak travel season or festivals. For my recent flight to Valencia, the cheapest flight was $700 (2 stops) as everyone is traveling there for La Tomatina. Even Ryanair was $200 to fly just from London. However, it was only $550 to fly into Madrid and then another $50 to take the train. Furthermore, I saved myself over 6 hours in layover time.

2. Always get behind business travelers when in security lines. Families have more stuff and move much slower. Frequent fliers know exactly how to move through that line quick and have everything ready even before they grab the x-ray machine tray.

3. Always find out what type of plane you are flying on. It will determine how nice the seats and amenities are, since not all planes are created equal. For example, American Airlines MD-80s have wi-fi installed, but as of right now, smaller Boeing planes do not. Newer versions of planes also tend to have more leg room and nicer seats.

Accommodation
4. If you like hotels, last minute deals on Priceline can get you rooms over 60% off the normal price.

5. When you check in to the hotel, ask for an upgrade. Tourism is very bad right now and you are much more likely to get free upgrades and goodies just by asking. They want to keep customers happy and have them go home recommending them to others. Use that to your advantage.

6. If you are traveling with 3-4 people, get a suite. Couches usually fold out into beds making that Priceline negotiated room even cheaper. Four of us split a King suite in Chicago for $50 each per night.

7. If you are in a city for a week or more, renting a furnished apartment can cheaper than a hotel. You can also use sites like Couchsurfing and Hospitality Club to stay with locals for free.

8. Most hostels offer private rooms that are cheaper than hotels. You will have your own bathroom, new sheets each day, free Wi-Fi, and sometimes even a T.V. In New York, my private hostel room was $90 per night. The closest one star hotel in the area (Central Park) cost $120 and did not include wi-fi (but probably some bed bugs.)

Tourism
9. Always visit the local tourist office. They usually have discount cards for major attractions and can let you know what deals are happening at that time.

10. While at the tourist office, take some of those advertisement brochures that offer discounts. Most of them (especially the maps) contain ads for discounted tours and meals.

11. Libraries, Starbucks, and most cafes have free wi-fi or internet.

12. Lunch time is the best time to visit historical sites. Tour groups always head to places in the early morning or late afternoon, but around 1 pm, they break for lunch, leaving much shorter lines for major attractions. Conversely, if you are an early riser, you can be the first one in line and also beat the wait time.

Eating
13. Never eat in a tourist area- the food will be half as good and twice the price. This is a simple enough tip, but one often forgotten by people.

14. Locals don’t eat out every night and neither should you. Visit the local supermarket to see what the local palate is like, and make your self some sandwiches or if you have a kitchen, a nice dinner.

15. Eat at expensive restaurants during lunch. Most restaurant offer lunch specials much cheaper than those on the normal dinner menu. Don’t know where to go? Don’t look in the guidebook. Ask a local.

When you plan your next holiday, remember some of these tips. Traveling doesn’t have to be a time consuming and expensive process. It should be easy, cheap, and, most importantly, fun.

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The increasing value of the Euro has made traveling across Europe even more expensive for overseas visitors. It’s especially ridiculous in England, where they use a pricing method similar to the airlines (book early). Just hopping on a train can be more expensive than hopping on a flight. It cost me more for a 2-hour train ride than it did to fly to Amsterdam from London.

But, despite the expensive Euro, high transportation costs, and the general expensiveness of Europe, I still found a few ways to travel around Europe cheaply:

Megabus
Megabus is a cheap way to get across the United Kingdom, as fares can cost as little as one pound. You’ll need to book at least a month in advance on popular routes to get the one-pound fare, though. And even if you don’t scoop up these amazingly cheap deals, you can still travel for a reasonable price on the National Rail system. Fares rarely top 15 pounds. Most Megatrains and buses leave from London, but you can also get intercity links from many of the country’s main destinations (as well as major destinations in Wales and Scotland). It’s simply the best deal around. Travel in the UK is ridiculously expensive, and even if you change your plans, you are only losing a pound. This should be your first option for UK travel.

Busabout
Busabout is a hop on/hop off service similar to the Oz or Kiwi Experience in Australia and New Zealand. You can get on and off whenever you like, and, once you buy the ticket, you don’t have to worry about transportation the whole way. There is also an onboard guide that can help you with accommodation. They’ll help plan events and tours for you, too. Busabout is not the cheapest option on the list, but for those looking for something different, it is a good way to get around hassle-free while still knowing you’ll be around other backpackers. What you are really paying for is a scaled-down guided tour, but, for the first-time traveler, this can be a good option if they don’t feel comfortable traveling on their own.

Low Cost Airlines
By far the cheapest option for traveling Europe, these airlines are so prolific that excess capacity and competition helps keep fares cheap. You can often find tickets where the fare is just the taxes. Companies like Transavia, EasyJet, and RyanAir offer flights throughout the continent for dirt cheap. It cost me 20 pounds to fly from London to Amsterdam, 25 Euros to fly from Paris to Germany, and 60 Euros to go from Stockholm to Amsterdam. Book early, and you’ll scoop up great deals. Remember though: read the fine print, as not all airlines offer refunds for canceled flights. Moreover, check what airport they fly into. Many fly into secondary airports to keep costs down, but sometimes those airports are so far from the city center that transportation from there can be very expensive.

Eurail Pass
Getting a rail pass is a good option if you are going to be traveling across vast distances. The European rail system is very good and very cheap over short distances. However, when you start boarding night trains across multiple countries, the rail system becomes a bit more expensive. Rail Passes are a great way to save quite a few Euros, and are a must for anyone looking to take the trains over long distances. I never used to think this was a good option, but when I finally did this, I managed to save a few hundred dollars.

Use these options and you are bound to save money while you travel around Europe. Europe is expensive, but there are still cheap ways to get around!

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