Sometimes we are dreaming about travelling, adventures, visiting new places, but very often we find excuses that it is not for us, that it is impossible. One of the most common justifications are money, actually lack of money. We do not have enough money to go here or there, we do not have enough money to visit countries which are on the other continent and etc. and etc. We are perfect in producing new pretexts not to do something we love and we would love to do. Of course it is a big generalization and for sure not everyone is looking for excuses. But some of us for sure.
So, to make the life of all of us, who are only dreaming about travelling, easier, here you will find some tips about travelling almost for free.
Usually during travels the biggest expenses are connected with the transport and with the place to stay in “new home”. The other expenses which we need to incur are connected with the food. Of course we have to eat something, at least sometimes. One sad thing is that it is hard to avoid costs of transport and food. But good thing is that you can avoid almost all other costs. Of course there are people who avoid all the costs but most of us will probably not do hitchhiking or will not sleep all the time in the tents. So to be realistic I just want to give some tips about easy ways to avoid costs for all of you who are do not like this kind of adventures.
How to avoid the expenses connected with renting a room?
The best option to avoid spending money for the place to stay is becoming a guest in somebody’s flat or house. It is easy if we have a big family on all over the world or good friends. Then simply we can visit them. But not all of us are so lucky. If you are in this second group, do not give up! In that case you can use couchsurfing community. If you will join a community, what you can do for free, you will get possibility to host people from all over the word and be hosted by others. It is a great way to meet new people, to gain a lot of new experiences, knowledge about different cultures, traditions, etc.
How it works? Very easy!
You just need to create the profil on couchsurfing website with some information about you and picture. Then if somebody will ask you for the couch, if you have possibility, you can host that person, if not, it is also ok. If you need the couch during your trip, you can send the request to people who live in the place where you are going to go. If they will accept you, you will have a place to stay for free. I am a part of this project and I think it is really great idea. Just please do not use this only as a way to save money. Think about this huge project as about a great possibility to share and exchange experiences, ideas, to learn about different people the life in other countires, and etc.
Another way to avoid expenses connected with renting a room or even connected with food?
Have you ever heard about Help Exchange (HelpX)? This is a website where companies from all over the world put the announcements about possibility of volunteering. First what you need to do is to find the project which you like and in the country you would love to visit. Then just apply and wait for the answer. A lot of companies in exchange of help, usually some days per week, give free accomodation and sometimes also meals. It is a really gread deal, especially if you have some weeks available and if you want to know more about real life in the place you are going to go. Helpx gives possibility to learn new skills, to now better the culture and traditions of visited place. What is important all of that you will have for free. Maybe you will not have so much time to explore new places, but all depends on the project. Sometimes it is organize in the way that you will have time for everything: for working, for travelling and resting.
I was doing two voluntary projects thanks to helpx. Both of them were contected with tourism and were wonderful. Thanks to voluntering I got possinility to travel even more and I had free accomodation and breakfast. I also met wonderful people, got new friends and learnd a lot about Peru, about the rules of ruinning the companies and about tourism in general.
There is also other website called workaway. The idea is actually the same like in HelpX. Sometimes you can find here the same companies like in HelpX, but very often they are different with different projects. The registration fee for workaway costs 23 Euros per 2 years. The costs for access to HelpX are similar. I did not volunter thanks to workaway website, but I like it, and in the future I am going to search do some voluntary project here.
Summary
If you have never tried above mentioned possibilities, necessary try :-). Maybe you will love it and it will become your new way for travelling. Of course there are a lot of others websites where you can find volunteer projects. I have never used them, so in this article I did not focus on them. I wrote about these possibilities I checked and I have experienced by myself.
I wish you great trips and very cheap one 🙂
