We travelled for two years and we visited and lived in many countries, using flights, buses, trains and boats to move around. We have tried travelling lux style and backpackers style, and it was always different and enriching. No matter of the transport used or the housing, it is about travelling and how you experience it.
No schedule at all, open to new ideas, last min booking
We started our travel with a trip to Fiji, which was a gift from my mom. We stayed there three weeks, and changed out hotels often as we wanted to see as much as we could from the island. We hadn’t made any reservation in advance and we did our schedule flexible and open to new ideas.
A local girl we met on the bus, told us about a very beautiful place, called The Beach House. In two days we made a booking for that resort and went there. It is a surfers place on the south coast of Viti Levu and about a 3hr trip with a bus from Nadi. We probably wouldn’t know about this place, if the local girl hadn’t told us. And this is why we are always trying to talk a lot with local people and trying to go out of the tourist areas, because this is a great and most authentic way to get to know culture and places, different from those widely advertised and commercialised.
We asked many fijians which of the other islands are most beautiful, what food we should try, what they think we should see. And if there is an adjective describing fijians, it is ‘friendly’, so they really tried to give us tips and advices about where we should go. And this is how we decided to book trips to 5 different islands, those which were most recommended by local people.
The trip to Fiji was adventurous, interesting and different from the other trips we have had, but this way of travelling, where you haven’t booked in advance your accommodations and tickets, is not economic at all. Making reservations for the next day can be quite expensive. If you do in advance and have a fixed schedule, sometimes the price can be three times lower than the one you have to pay for a next day booking.
Using websites for cultural exchange
If you know workaway.info and couchsurfing.com this is what they are said to be for. Cultural exchange. We have tried the first one in four countries and it is indeed the cheapest way to travel. When you go to the website you can select the country you are visiting and then a list of hosts from this place appears. In their profile they explain what they offer as accommodation and sometimes meals, and what they want you to do in exchange. Many times they need pople for teaching or helping with housework, and you can usually stay with a host for minimum a week up to a couple of months. What you have to know is that most times they require you to work 4/5 hours a day and many times they have fixed schedules and may not be flexible about your working hours.
I used to chose family hosts, as i wanted both of us to feel comfortable with the atmosphere. The tricky part is that some hosts don’t really think of it as cultural exchange but instead treat you only like a worker. i would tell you about two of the times we used workaway.
That was our second time trying the website and it was in a country where there were 5 hosts totally. One of them was available and agreed to host us. There were 4 more volunteers in this home. We were introduced the first day to each other. The host hadn’t set the schedule for every person individually. Instead, she put a list on the fridge door and let the workawayers devide the work between themselves. Two of the workawayers were host’s favourite. They were a couple and stayed in the house most of the time, were always available. They were going to the beach with the host and asked for permission everytime they were going out, and all of this was in their free time. May be this made the host shout at people who were going out without ‘permission’ even if they had done their job. We weren’t supposed to ask or explain where we go if we had done all our tasks. When i heard shouting, i tried to initiate a conversation but instead the host shouted at us also in a very aggressive way. We just packed our luggage and left together with another workawayer the next day.
Another time we did workaway was in Malaysia, in a family hotel. It was really beautiful place with a private beach. None of the family, except the daughter who has made the workaway profile, spoke english. When we arrived there, they were hosting two girls from workaway already. The girls told me they work only morning, have food available and even get money for food sometimes, and get paid extra money every week. Our deal was different, the hosts were providing us a room as accommodation (similar to the girls’ room) and food…which was mostly cornflakes for breakfast because lunch was often meat with rice whoch we cannot eat as vegetarians. This wasn’t a big deal as the accommodation was nice and we were waking up to a view of the beautiful beach. The family had kids and this was one of the best parts, because they all played together and everyone treated us nice.
The thing was that the work of the two girls, who had come before us, consisted of preparing the kitchen for breakfast and collecting shells and making a hanging decoration putting 5 shells on a string. While i was preparing kitchen for breakfast with them, swiping the floor before and after breakfast, washing the dishes (which they also had to do) , but also everyday i had to swipe all the way in front of the bungalows, weed all the garden, swipe the first floor terrace of the home and collect all the trash from the backyard. so i was doing all this while the two girls were talking and trying to make the hanging decoration. Later, on the beach, they told me they have conflict with the host and that they never worked as much as the host asked me to work because they wouldn’t agree to do that much. They were often laughing at her (the host) and giving her a look.
The next day the host told them to leave the same day, which was a week earlier than their arrangement was. But she also told us to leave…saying that she is really disappointed with the two girls and is not sure she wants to participate in workaway anymore. As this wasn’t what we have agreed on, I said i am doing my job and spending money on airplane tickets to come for a day and to leave is not what we have talked about in all the mails we exchanged in advance. she agreed that i am right and said we can stay more…but i felt she already was annoyed by workaway.
The whole family was very kind, but somehow the host was trying all the time to prove herself as mature enough to manage the hotel. She wasn’t sure which of her decisions would be approved by the family and was indecisive sometimes. What wasn’t ok was that all these insecurities she was forwarding to me. Making me swipe again and again, saying her mom won’t approve it, while her mom comes to me and tells me to take a break. The host even told me not to talk to another family member (who tried to have a conversation with us in our free time), because she didn’t like him. After a week and a family fight they had between themselves (not related to us), the host said she is leaving the island and bought herself and us tickets back to Singapore. When we asked the family to call a taxi for us, the mom of the family came to us and tried to put in our hands a big amount of cash and insisted that we should take it. As we really appreciated the kindness of the family in general and the facts itself that they were offering this as a rewars, we didn’t take the money. This was one interesting workaway and was definitely worthy to try.
Airbnb
If u wanna save from accomodation, Airbnb is definitely a good option and there are decent places for prices twice less than a hotel stay. If you don’t have a bank card, it may be really hard to make your booking. We had no card and i had to message many people from Airbnb to ask if they would accept cash. It was worthy the try, we managed to find a nice place to stay using the website. The second place was in Bali and we stayed there three months for 250eu/month. That was a good deal ☺
Where and what you eat
It is actually true that you can save a lot from food if u are careful where and what you eat. In Korea we ate in restaurants or cafes almost everyday and daily spent as much as the weekly price of our accommodation in Bali was. There are things in Korea that are cheap, like a pair of socks which is less than 1 eu, but restaurants in trendiest areas are not one of them.
During our first week in Bali, we were eating at western restaurants and it is safe to say that we spent about 30eu everyday for food. If you go to a local restaurant ‘Warung’, you can fill your plate with delicious things for 3 or 5euros sometimes. Some warungs are not looking as attractive as western restaurants, but they are good enough for having ur daily meal there. Also if you can cook in your accommodation, you can really manage with 10eu/day because the ingredients are not expensive and shops out of the most touristic places have reasonable prices.
TediNiki 