Travelling is always a wonderful experience, and everybody loves it. We require time and money to travel. Most of us have time (holidays), but we’re not able to travel due to no-money thing.
I have been traveling for years, and I know some travelers that travel with absolutely no money. Following them, I tried traveling with for free and succeeded. They make use of different strategies to get free trips and tours.
Those strategies are not a secret anymore, and if you follow those, you can set your path to travel for free.
Traveling with no money seems impossible, but as you go through top travel blogs, and read stories, you start believing in!
In a TED Talk, Tomislav Perko shares how he travels the world with almost no money. This talk includes some simple strategies to see the world with no money.
How To Travel With No MONEY
Before I start sharing some secrets, let me share the major expenses during the travel.
So, travel expenses mainly fall into three categories:
- Transportation: This includes moving from point A to point B. It can be through airplanes, vehicles, or ships.
- Accommodation: Where you stay during travel, whether it’s a restaurant or a hostel, you’ve to pay.
- Food: Yes, you can’t live without food, and it costs you money.
When you minimize these expenses, you can travel for free:
#1. Free Transportation
Transportation covers most of the travel budget. For free transportation, hitchhiking is the only way.
You stand on the right road, with a cheering face and a ‘like’ thumb. Someone stops and owes you a lift.
Hitchhiking costs you nothing. You need to have exciting stories to share when you’re traveling with the stranger.
I tried visiting several European countries which require no visa to travel within.
I used to stay on the right road (towards the destination), with my thumb on, and a cheering face. A vehicle stops in here I go.
This is how simple hitchhiking is!
An exclusive tip by Tomislav (an experienced free traveler) is to look into drivers’ eyes when you’re hitchhiking. That’ll make them stop.
As you hitchhike and reach your destination, go out and talk to locals. You’ll find a lot of friends who can help you with free trips across the city.
#2. Free Accommodation
To get free accommodation, I use Couchsurfing. Couchsurfing is a place where you can find locals that host travelers for free. You can meet other travelers, travel together and enjoy more.
For minimizing travel expenses, this site is heaven. I used it when I traveled to Asian countries like India, and Nepal. Free accommodations, everywhere!
Here’s how to get free accommodation; be humble when you talk on the site, share why you are visiting the city. For better interaction, video calls your host on skype and learn more about himself and the city.
When you reach your destination, and then your host place, get ready for fun. Enjoy your time as much as you can, amuse your host with compelling stories you’ve got. You can get started with “how I reached here” story. After relaxing hours, wake up and start talking about the tourist places. Your host already has an idea about your no-budget travel so he will find an affordable or freeway to go around. In some of my journeys, my host used to spare time to travel together, costing me nothing!
#3. Food
About food, you’ve to manage on your own. In most of the cases whether you’re Couchsurfing or sleeping in a park; you’ve to work for food.
When I was in Europe, I worked for a few hours at a hotel, and they gave me food and accommodation for free.
If you don’t want to work, you can try some magic tricks, live music on the roads to have enough money collected for food. This works for all traveling destinations, you entertain walkers, and they owe you food or money.
To minimize your food expenses, always buy food from general stores. They have packed food, and costs less than the market prices. Packed food can also be saved in your backpack, which can be utilized later on the go.
#4. Don’t Forget Walking Tours
We’ve learned how to minimize accommodation, transportation, and food expenses. Now, we are into exploring the city for free.
I know you reached a beautiful city through hitchhiking and you wanna explore.
So, here’s the thing, take free walking tours.
From Couchsurfing, you can meet travelers in the city and arrange free walking tours. These tours will cost you nothing, and you can have amazing experiences.
#5. Look For Free things to do
It’s not about doing part-time jobs. It’s about doing little tasks to enjoy free accommodation and probably food.
When I was in Australia, I stayed for free on a beautiful yacht by doing some simple tasks like serving beer and food. I got free accommodation, food, amazing views, and that is what we all need!
You can find small jobs around, that cost you nothing but a few hours, and you earn free accommodation plus food.
#6. Don’t underestimate the power of Tourist Cards
If you’re in a country where local transport is present across the city, get yourself a tourist card. Government tourism authorities issue these Cards.
With the tourist card, you can travel for free on local buses and other transport. For European countries, it works great. You are allowed to travel on local trains, local buses and other transport options for free.
#7. House Sitting
This is similar to doing small tasks or jobs, house sitting helps you get free accommodation and kitchen cooked food for little responsibilities.
Several sites connect house owners and travelers. Profiles are verified with documents, so you don’t get scammed.
Here are my top picks for house sitting:
WRAPPING UP:
Traveling with no money is possible in the era of the internet. We can make connections in no time. Wherever you travel, have some quality connections (built online), and you’ll experience no money travel. Have you got any other tips to travel with no money?
Great idea for all tourist and travellers who want to spend minimum amount or no money to travel. Working to get free acommodation, food etc is creative way of travelling.