We often pride ourselves on being fearless travellers combing the globe in search of sights, sounds, new experiences for our pleasure and personal education. Few of us are wealthy, and we plan our travels accordingly, seeking to make our $$ go as far as possible, and looking for those 'authentic' experiences.
For the first time in many, many years I travelled as a tourist in my own country. I was gone for two weeks, shorter than any of my travels abroad. It was an expensive trip, but I did my best to do it as economically as possible.
It was an a revelation, though.
When when I travel abroad, I am usually gone for several months, and I am concerned with making my money go as far as possible. I often stay in hotels and hostels in neighbourhoods that I wouldnt be caught dead staying in at home. I travel 'peasant' class, on busses and trains, and chalk it up to 'experience'. Given that there is really no cheaper way to get to Churchill than how we did it, we did spend less money than most visitors spend to get up there. But there were other ways I might have dealt with things had i been in another country.....
We could have stayed at the hostel in Winnipeg.... but the Holiday Inn was right beside the bus station
We could have stayed at the YWCA in Thompson.... but the bed and breakfast looked nicer (and we didnt know about the 'Y' til we got there)
We could have stayed at an unofficial B&B in Churchill for a few bucks less....but we went with the recommended one
We could have foregone the sleeper berths on the train there and back....but we didn't want to.....
In my own defence, some of the overnight choices have to do with travelling with someone else. Accommodation is definitely cheaper for two, and as an independent traveller, I usually pay twice that a couple would pay. Whereas we might pay $100 for a 2 bedroom room, I would pay the same if i was by myself.
I think there can be a certain 'travel naivety' when one travels far from the comforts of home. When I compare the cheap hotels I have stayed in when abroad to the equally cheap hotels in my home country, I know i wouldnt be caught dead (well maybe I WOULD!!!;-) in similar neighbourhoods when travelling in Canada!!
comments???
Well, I don't stay in unsafe neighborhoods anywhere. If you're dead, you won't care about how much money you saved. Being mugged or killed is not more "authentic" in a foreign land than it would be at home. It's exactly the same, just more of a nuisance. That said, it does seem to me that it's often easier to get cheap accommodation in foreign lands than in the U.S. and Canada.
My home country is the United States, and I live in a suburb of New Orleans. It's my understanding that New Orleans has the highest murder rate of any city in the nation -- by far. The United States as a whole is infamous for its high rate of violent crime. It is fair to say that there is insufficient police to protect everyone, and like it or not, there is going to be more police presence in well-known tourist areas like the French Quarter/Downtown as opposed to "cheap" motels on Airline Highway which may be populated by crackheads and prostitutes.
So: A $25 motel in New Orleans is probably somewhere you don't want to be. Even if you're not mugged, you have a fairly decent chance of a motel fire thanks to the crack users in other units of the motel. I suspect this to be true of many areas of the U.S. although there are regional differences where some places it might be a meth addict who burned down your cheap motel, rather than a crack user. Same song, second verse. It just doesn't seem like I have to worry about the same issues when arranging for a cheap room in many other areas of the world. A cheap room in Washington D.C.? I'd be afraid to book it, until I saw the area. A cheap room in Lisbon, Portugal? I could confidently do it over the internet and arrive to find myself in a safe, walkable area.
I do very much like to travel the U.S. and Canada. But I take a different approach to saving money than I do elsewhere. Considering North America's physical beauty and its many national parks, I may camp at least for part of the trip to save money. Since I camp in a tent, not an RV, the savings is HUGE over motels or hotels. And that $14 campsite may be one of those memorable nights of the vacation, as when my husband and I hiked the Rio Grande Village trail behind our campground in Big Bend the other day, to watch the setting sun turn the Sierra Del Carmen mountains in Mexico a beautiful red.
I also do my research and seek out various promotions to collect free rooms. In May, we stayed at a chain motel in Leamington, Ontario during our visit to Point Pelee for the spring warbler migration. During our 8 day stay, we earned enough points thanks to their spring promotion, to get two more hotel rooms free, in thousands of locations in the U.S. and Canada, one of which we used ourselves for a weekend trip in July, and one of which we used as a gift for a good friend. During our most recent road trip to west Texas, we signed up for a promotion where we stayed twice at a Choice Hotel property. We have now received points for another free night's stay. That promotion is still taking place! And so on. If you don't have a lot of money, you have to have your wits about you and play the game. By the way, in both of these promotions, these weren't crummy motels. These were mid-range properties with all the trimmings -- fridge and microwave in the room, free breakfast, free internet, etc. No, you probably can't stay in the CHEAPEST property in a town in the U.S. and be all that safe -- but if you play the "game," you can get a fair price with a lot of freebies.
By the way, I would love to take that polar bear trip to Churchill one day! Not this year, though, in a few days, I'm on my way to Madagascar. :-)
I've done a lot of travel here in Aus and abroad. It wasn't until I took my first o/s trip and realised I couldn't answer questions about my own country because I hadn't seen it that I made a conscious effort to start travelling at home.
In years past I stayed at hostels (of varying standard) and have done a lot of miles by bus. I am older now and my dorm days are well behind me (unless there is no alternative or I am in the UK or Europe). I still look for cheap alternatives and often find that I can get a private room in a hostel or a hotel room for much the same price as a room in a hostel. I still try and keep it under $100 per night in capital cities and the benefit of a hotel room is tv, tea making and fridge in room and often breakfast included. The single supplement on solo travel can be a real killer. I do allow myself more comfort these days than when I was younger. I guess I go for value for money rather than cheap. Safety is always a consideration so I won't stay in really bad areas either here or overseas.
It's a funny thing about travelling solo in your own country as opposed to o/s. When I'm in another country I quite happily stay in hostels, eat/drink alone. It's easier to start talking to someone, other traveller or local. No problem etc. But for some reason, in my own country these same activities make me feel uncomfortable, like I don't belong. So I just don't do it anymore. I've seen most of my own country so the rest of the world holds much more interest.
So much still to see, so little time, so little money.
Like you Canayjan, when I travel in Canada or "the States", I stay where the middle class stay. It isn't necessary though. In Halifax, the International Youth Hostel is in the heart of the city, in a very safe area. Next to it is a blues bar where you can get the cheapest food, and their lamb roast is to die for. Or, last summer, I got a visitor reservations at a university dorm that rents out its' rooms cheaply. Again in a great part of town, easy walking distance to everything in the historic part of Halifax.
One summer, I did make the effort in New Orleans, and found a great place to stay cheaply near Bourbon Street, and they even parked my car somewhere and returned it unscathed. I did notice a lot of short time users of the place, men accompanied by attractive young girls.
I find that if I am on a short trip of a few weeks, and don't have the cost of an airline ticket, I do spend much more. I could have a month long trip, or more, to a Central American country, for example, for the same cost.
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