Tips: Plan Your Route/Schedule

The map is not the territory.
Alfred Korzybinski

• While it may seem a bit mercenary, if you read that a country?s currency is in crisis, consider going there for your next vacation. When I read that Argentina?s peso had lost 2/3 of its value, I immediately began to look at local websites for cost information and realized that it was a real travel bargain. Before the currency fall, Argentina was fairly expensive. Afterwards, it was cheap (a four course dinner with a bottle of wine in a fancy restaurant was $7 in February 2003. In 2001, the same meal would have cost $20-$25). If you feel guilty about ?exploiting? another country?s bad fortune, keep in mind that if you avoid chain hotels and restaurants, you?ll be pumping money into their economy and helping fuel the country?s recovery. 
  
  
• Sometimes you can buy air and rail passes in the USA that are not available in the country you?re visiting. These passes can save you money. I would encourage you to visit Rick Steve?s website and guidebooks for up to date information about these passes if you are going to visit Europe. For anywhere else, read the Practical Nomad.
  
  
• Unless you don?t ever expect to return, avoid packing too many countries and cities into the same itinerary unless you are traveling for a long time. It is much more relaxing to spend two or three weeks in one to three cities in the same country. If you choose to go on a whirlwind tour, the sights will soon melt into one frenzied mess. You?ll never remember what you saw and never get much of a sense of any place. Ideally, plan at least one day in each city to act like a native ? go to local marketplace, eat food at a street stall, (this is safe if the food is fresh. The best way to tell if the food is fresh is to follow a line of local people waiting for food) sit in a caf? and watch the people go by, read a local English language newspaper (I love to find out the cost of local real estate and services), and see some off the beaten track attractions.
  
  
• Use local travel agents and travel providers whenever possible, particularly outside of the USA and Western Europe. Keep in mind that most American and European travel agents have to pay American and European wages to their staff and as a result will add considerable markups to survive and that most of their travel providers are located in the local country, anyway. Unless American/European travel agents are experts in a given area or travel specialty, they wouldn?t add much value to the services provided. Local travel agents, on the other hand, have close relations with their providers, know local conditions, and do not have to markup the services that much to pay for their costs. In addition, with the advent of the internet, you can get in touch with them directly easily. Consult guidebooks for a list of recommended local travel agencies for your destination.
  
  
• Consider communicating directly with local service providers (schools, hotels, tour companies, homestay placement services, etc.) directly through the internet and bypass travel agents altogether if you want to save money. However, compare prices and services carefully. Travel agents can help in the event of a problem, save time, and sometimes have worked out better deals with their providers than you?ll get.
  
  
• If you have lots of time, make your travel arrangements after your arrival. Most of the time, hotels, tours, and other service providers have last minute spaces available that they will sell you at a real discount instead of letting the space go vacant. This is a great strategy, if you can hang around a place, waiting for these last minute spaces to open up. If you?re in a hurry, this strategy is not recommended.
  
  
• Decide if you want to travel alone or with someone else. Traveling alone allows you to get closer to another culture, pursue your own interests, meet new people, and have as flexible a schedule as you want. You will usually find people to travel with as you go along. Traveling with someone else is safer and can save you money and time. It will, however, make you more conspicuous (you?ll be talking your native language a lot) and insulate you from contact with other people.
  
  
• Traveling with someone you are thinking about marrying is a great way to determine if you want to go through with the ceremony. In fact, I think most couples should have their honeymoon before they get married. The trip would tell them a lot about whether they are as compatible as they thought beforehand.
  
  
• Be careful about choosing your travel companions. Often, your best friend may be your worst travel companion. You need to have someone who has similar interests as you do (or someone who is not afraid to allow you to pursue your own interests by yourself). Traveling brings you in very close contact with another person. Little traits that don?t bother you at home are magnified on a trip. Therefore, you need to find people with similar attitudes toward time, cleanliness, and meeting other people.
  
  
• I have heard horror stories about trips arranged through travel companion services or by placing ads in the paper for companions. Several of my friends? trips have been ruined by travel companions that they did not know well.
  
  
• If you use a travel companion service or place an ad in a newspaper, take the time to get to know your companion. Meet them in person and if possible take a couple day trip out of town together. This worked for me. I joined Travel Chums out of curiosity. To my surprise, someone responded to my listing and asked me if I wanted to go on a cruise with him. I usually never would take a cruise, however, in the interest of finding out if travel companion sites work, I decided to see if it would work. We spent a couple days on the road together before we left for the cruise and clicked. My companion turned out to be a generous and savvy tourist who turned me on to the joys of a type of travel I was too eager to criticize in the past. If I had been overly cautious, I would have lost out on a fun trip and never made a good friend.
  
  
• Use your trip to follow your interests and passions. Travel is a great way to learn a new skill or to hone your skills. I decided to learn tango in Argentina. I have two left feet, but, I had fun, met some really great people, and got 15 hours of private lessons for about $200 (the cost of 1-2 hours in the USA). If I had been a real tanguero, I would have been able to establish an immediate connection to other students and the teachers that would have opened the door to Argentine life.
  
  
• Supplement your guidebook research with the internet. The internet will give up to date information on costs on all tourist services. Reading tourist reviews on sites such as Lonely Planet?s Thorn Tree and Rough Guides will help you determine the quality of these services.
  
  
• Ask fellow travelers and expatriates for information. Visit the bars and restaurants where local Americans/ Europeans hang out. Stay at hostels and communal accommodations. Take language and other classes in places frequented by fellow travelers. Get in contact with press clubs, foreign chambers of commerce, local affiliates of international clubs (such as Rotary and Toastmasters). Peace Corps and other volunteer agencies can also provide really great advice.
  
  
• Take local residents? advice seriously but with a grain of salt. Sometimes, local residents can be overly alarmist. Often, locals are used to living in a place that was very safe in the past and has become a bit more dangerous recently. As a result, they feel threatened because they are used to feeling safe. All in all, most of the world still has a crime level below that in the USA. In addition, at times, local people assume that you only want to stay in the best places and will steer you toward places way beyond your budget. That said, be open to their advice. I have been led to some really wonderful, hidden places by locals that I?d have never found otherwise.

Notes:

• I (Paul Heller, the founder of the Big Blue Marble) have prepared hundreds of travel tips like these to help you plan and enjoy traveling like a local experiences. These tips have been gathered during my 25 years of traveling around the world. If you'd like more tips, please buy one of my inexpensive and informative publications.
• My website, the Big Blue Marble, also contains hundreds of links to other websites and book reviews designed to teach you how to travel-like-a-local inexpensively, safely, comfortably, meaningfully, and purposefully.
• Do you agree or disagree with any of these tips? Do you know any great tips that should be added? If so, send your comments to me and I'll post them on my blog