A question born from simple curiosity

Out of curiosity, I was wondering what is the furthest you seasoned travellers have gone on the smallest amount of money?

To define, I am in the UK and beyond Europe is 'far' to me. A small amount of money (for travelling purposes) is £500 or less.

I was basically just curious to see if people had really gone travelling to far-off lands with a really tight, proper shoestring budget, and if so, how did you manage it, if it is indeed possible at all....???

Bethen.

from Ireland the furthest ive got on that budget is to Morroco for a week.....cheap Ryanair flights and cheap day to day living.

Don't know if we have to include airfares (if we do,its difficult to compare prices of 25 years ago with now).

The least money I ever travelled on was my first trip to Tibet and Nepal....I managed to survive for 4 months with around US$700.

That was a while ago and I wouldn't attempt to travel like that now..though I enjoyed the trip and learnt a lot from it....

I didn't keep track of spending but I'm pretty sure I spent under £500 getting to and seeing Jordan (approx prices = £150 easyjet flights, around £10 per night accommodation, £60 Petra entrance fees, £90 Wadi Rum tour, food averaged out at maybe £5-7 per day, couple of bus journeys £25 and a couple of short haul taxis £30. Maybe I went a little over, but I splurged a little at times (e.g 2 night Wadi Rum tour could have just been 1) you could certainly do it for under £500.

I know people doing charity hitch-hikes that have got as far as Budapest on essentially nothing.

Wow Lucapal, that is a tight budget! Bet it a fab trip.

James 2020 - How long ago was it that you made that trip? Always wanted to see Petra, interesting to know you can make the trip on so little money....

My second reason behind asking the original question is, of course, the fact that I'm short of money and have to travel extremely shoestring!! Flights included in that £500 or under budget preferably, though could stretch it a little.

I'd say you really only have two possibilities...North Africa (esp Morocco) or 'Far eastern' Europe (eg Bulgaria or Romania...

Cheap budget flights (eg Ryanair or Easyjet etc.) and cheap places to stay/eat when you get there.

Anywhere further away is going to cost you too much in airfares...anywhere in Western Europe is going to cost you too much day-by-day....

My girlfriend and I did 2 months last year in Gokarna, India for 500 pounds quite easily.... That's not moving and not drinking however, although it does include the duty free we brought in......Nothing to do but swim, lay on the beach, read, hammock, and enjoy life........

I understand it is only curiousity and that's fine but I don't see any point to the question or answers.

I left Canada on a one way ticket to London and $600 CAD in my pocket cash. I travelled to Scotland, back to London over to France, through Europe for a month and then across the Med to North Africa, across Africa from north to south (Capetown), worked a couple of month there to earn the money to fly home via Iceland and NYC. I was gone one year less one week and arrived home with ten cents.

But that was in 1971. According to an inflation calculator my $600 in 1971 would be worth roughly $3400 today. http://www.davemanuel.com/inflation-calculator.php But I doubt anyone could actually do it for that amount.

So what does any of this tell us?

I spent 2 weeks in Jamaica with 200 USD. It's really not a very cheap place to visit (especially since there are no hostels), but I managed to convince some cooks to let me sleep on the floor of their restaurant, an old innkeeper to let me the key to her abandoned motel, and a mourning family to let us stay the night of their patriarchs funeral. I went camping a few nights too ....but that was kind of sketchy given the crime rate.