Everyone wants to travel. Some people travel during holidays, some travel in the weekends, some take an extra day off and a few like me quit their jobs to travel. But there are still many who long for traveling but do not set their foot out. Because they are told traveling is an expensive affair. Hence, many do not travel due to monetary constraints.
This post is for those who think they can’t travel with less money and for those who have money but want to travel with a shoe-biting budget for the sake of constraint and adventure it brings with it. I fit somewhere in the middle of these two categories.
I quit my job in July and started traveling within my native country, India. To be able to last for a year at least, I calculated how much money I had and found out that Rs.300 (less than USD5) is what I needed to spend per day to last for an year on the road. It has been exactly 120 days of being on the road and I have learnt how to survive with such a little money.
If an experience of 120 days is reliable, let me share with you the tricks and hacks I use to stay within my budget and I will be brutally honest about it. You may take what suits you and use it in your travels, but you may not judge me because that’s of no use to you. This post is also an answer to many people who ask me how do I survive and do not get a detailed and satisfactory response.
Let us list down what are the particulars on which we need to spend money while traveling. But before you go ahead and read’em, please be prepared to be as rough and tough as possible. When you don’t have money, you have to have a strong will power and a motivating force within as strong as a rock.
Mobile phone and internet expenses
Long Distance Commute: You have two options: Hitchhike or take a train. I won’t suggest state buses.
Indian Trains: If you are in India, you are blessed to have world’s most complicated and the largest railway system which is as cheap as traveling for free. Of course, I am talking about the unreserved general coaches (You think you can travel in AC?). Do not worry about the crowd in these coaches, rather use this crowd to motivate you to travel in such suffocating environment.
In general coaches, you might have to stand for 6 hours without having even enough standing space, you might have to sit close to the stinking toilets and believe me when the speed of train slows down, the smell of toilet multiplies by 1000 times. The smell becomes unbearable and you will hate your life. But remember you do not have an option and remember that there is a beautiful destination waiting for you on the other side. In such situations, I take motivations from the fellow passengers. Most of them always travel in these coaches. For them it is as normal as it is for us to travel in an airplane. These passengers include small children, pregnant women, old couples suffering with arthritis, spondylitis and many more bone-braking diseases. Surprisingly you will find them perfectly normal and the look on your face will be like a constipated person. At times like this, these fellow passengers motivate me. I think, “if they can, why can’t I?” After that, everything becomes ok. Now, I don’t even realize it is the coach that I used to dread from the most. I have become part of such crowd and whenever I have to commute long distances, I just show up at the station, take a general ticket and hop on the next train. I don’t need to curse the IRCTC everyday like everyone else.
They are my motivation. If they can, why can’t I?
Hitchhiking: Stand on the highway, stick out your thumb and wave it up and down as soon as you see an approaching vehicle (if you just stick out your thumb and do not wave, chances are that Indians won’t understand if you are appreciating the design of their vehicles or their driving style or asking for a free ride). It can take a few minutes to a full day in getting a free ride. But believe me, when you do, it is going to be the best ride ever and definitely an experience far better than the that of traveling in the train.
When the vehicle approaches, wave it up and down. :P
There is no secret of hitchhiking. Follow your guts and be shameless. If you are lucky like me, you can also get a ride in a C-class Mercedes Benz. You will make friends with truckers and learn more about their lives. Hitchhiking is the most famous way of commuting throughout the world. Of course I am talking about budget minded travelers.
Short Distance Commute: To commute locally in the area you are going to spend a few days, hitchhike. In India, most of the bikers will stop for you. Cars won’t stop so much but you can definitely try. Within the radius of 6-8km, walk. Walk because you need to stay fit and walk because you don’t have stupid money. Walk because after a few months of walking, you’d love walking and start saying no to free short-distance rides.
Accommodation: You have to understand the power of relationships. You need to be extremely sociable, moderately funny, definitely kind, and awfully shameless. You need to act like a person with no ego, no prejudices, no strong opinions and no radical thoughts. You will be amazed to learn, after a few months, that acting like such a person actually makes you a better and peaceful person. You need to start talking to all your relatives, your long-forgotten friends, people whom you extremely dislike, and people who have no morals and values but can be your valuable resources. The next step is to keep in touch with all such people. Ask them if you can spend a couple of nights in their places. You’d be surprised to see that most of those who you thought were useless people will actually come forward to your help and many so-called closed ones will turn down your requests.
Stay on the dividers. You are lucky if you get a bed.
Apart from that; stay in ashrams, temples, monasteries, bus terminals, railway stations, road dividers, parks, and any other place where you don’t have to pay. Believe me, it sounds crazy and scary but it’s actually not. The most difficult part of any act is its beginning. Once you take the first step, the other foot will definitely follow you.
Air: We all need oxygen to breathe, traveling or not. You’ll get this for free anywhere you go. If you find a lack of oxygen anywhere, come back from there. Don’t travel in such places. And if you are in a place where there is enough air but due to someone you can’t breathe. Kill that person (if you have guts). Breathing is your basic right.
The best things in life come for free.
Water: If you had planned to travel 30 years ago, water would be free everywhere. But alas! you are living in the time when humans have commercialized such a basic resource that sustains life. But do not worry, you can still save your money on water. Keep a water bottle with you, fill it from the dhabas where you eat your food, fill it from the taps you see occasionally on the road side. The thing to remember is to KEEP A BOTTLE and keep your eyes open. There is still ample free water available everywhere. If you are trekking through villages, knock on the houses and ask for water. No one has ever turned me down.
If you look for it, you will find it.
Food: In India, you will find a lot of local food stalls that serve food at an affordable price. Do not forget that India is home to billions of poor people and they all survive at less than Rs.100 a day. They are your motivation. Go eat in the local dhabas and don’t worry about your stomach. You might not get this but our mind is everything. Keep that fit, everything else will be taken care automatically. Eat at your hosts house but help them in cooking. Eat at temples, gurudwaras (Sikh temples), and Ashrams.
“Drink a lot of water and meditate regularly. You will never fall ill.”
Help your host in the kitchen
Alcohol: Don’t drink local alcohol to save money. You might die. Every now and then they are found poisonous and ironically the poison is found only after a few die due to drinking such alcohol. So how do you quench your thirst for alcohol when you don’t have money? You wait. You wait for an offer, an offer from your host, an offer from the trucker (I got them a lot in Punjab). You should make good friends who drink. You know what, don’t worry much about alcohol, you’ll get it. People won’t give a penny to a beggar or 10rs. to a needy person but they will happily share their alcohol with you. This irony will work for you. You will meet such people in highways and roadside dhabas.
If it is free, it is ok in the steel glass
At times, you meet good friends
Mobile Phone and Internet Expenses: Well, you need to be lucky to get it for free. I am blessed by friends who take turn to do it for me. I don’t know how good you are friends with your friends. Do I sound horrible? Well, the point is to have a good intention behind doing this. You need to know that this help is not a small one and you owe them a big one. You should pay them back with what you can. Your stories, your time, and when you start earning; your money. You need to genuinely take care of such friends. Period.
Others: Others may include a lot of things but if you can take care of all the above mentioned needs, you will take care of everything else. Trust yourself.
When we have less money, we will need people more than anything else. We will learn one thing about different people that they are all the same: their eyes glitter when they are loved and their bodies jitters when they are scared. Everything else is unnatural. You will learn that we need to know who we are without our possessions. We need to define ourselves by who we are rather than by what we have. We learn all this while traveling with a low budget. It changes us in ways beyond description.
P.S. When you start earning through your travels or after your travels, do not forget the important lessons you would have had learnt. Remember all the people who helped you. Also remember that you can never pay them back for their help as the timing is more important than the help alone in isolation. So, help as many people in life as you can. Stay rooted to the ground. Have a wonderful life ahead.
P.P.S. This post intentionally excludes the options of getting a sponsorship, using Couchsurfing etc.
In the end, a photograph to motivate you to do all these above mentioned difficult tasks so that in the end you can be in a place like this.
It has been 120 days on the roads, here is how I survive and you can too. Everyone Can Travel Everyone wants to travel. Some people travel during holidays, some travel in the weekends, some take an extra day off and a few like me quit their jobs to travel.
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