In times that are not financially easy, travelling seems to be a luxury, but do not forget that even a small trip helps to shake off the burden of problems and gain new strength. There are many tricks which might help to plan a cheap trip. Since most of AEGEEans are students on a budget, we would like to post about opportunities for travelling cheap.

Plan your trip in advance

It’s better to plan the budget costs on a maximum depending on features of each concrete trip: logistics (including rent of the car, tickets for trains, etc.), accommodation and the minimum programme (exhibitions, restaurants, concerts and shopping trips). This may sound obvious but a lot of people forget about logistics and spend more than they expected. Thus, check out ways and compare prices to get to the city from the airport before your trip. In many EU-cities you can walk to the city centre from the central station, so it would be clever to check out the distance beforehand and save some money and time instead of waiting for a bus. The Internet is ready to suggest the average cost of living in a particular city.

Getting there

Most likely, the highest expenditure for you will be a flight. It is better not to delay buying air tickets: the earlier you buy them, the cheaper they will cost.
Buy tickets for the plane using airfare search sites like Aviasales, Skyscanner, Anywayanyday, Momondo, Kayak and low-cost like Lastminute. Don’t forget to clear your browser’s cache before every new search: the cookies store information you were looking before and suggest new options depending on what you’ve already seen. If you always start from scratch, they will not offer you more expensive options. Choose off-season flights, so that they will cost even less. Keep in mind that the fare recalculation occurs on Monday, and if you find a good ticket, you have time until Tuesday to buy it at the current price. Some airlines like AirBaltic offer to pay separately for everything: luggage, registration at the airport, your preferred seat and meals on board. If you can put everything in your hand luggage and survive three hours without a cold sandwich – why pay for it?

For trains you might check out Raileurope and Rome2rio, for busses – Flixbus or Fernbus. You can try “planned hitchhiking” by using Bla bla car services, which offer to become a fellow traveller. All operations and payment pass through the company’s website. It is worthwhile to focus on the feedback of grateful (or not) customers, and if there is no doubt, then the trip will hardly be different from calling Uber.

Or actually try hitchhiking! If it is your first time, consider travelling with someone who is experienced in it. You should also read hitchhike forums about destination you want to go to get some tips and visit Hitchwiki.

Accommodation

Staydu or Couchsurfing are great websites where you can find a place to stay and meet wonderful people all over the world. You don’t have to pay for you stay, but it will be nice if you bring something to your host or share some knowledge like showing your cooking skills or having a language exchange. With Couchsurfing you can also find meetups or people who would like to hang out close to you. If you are a girl travelling alone, who has heard a lot of bad things about Couchsurfing, find a travel mate or a host in Facebook GoWonder®  – Women Travel. You might also try Hospitalityclub, which is a worldwide network of open doors where you can also find a place to stay for free.

In Airbnb you can find a cheap room or a bed in someone else’s house. If not, try LateRooms or Hoteltonight, the last one is a perfect app for spontaneous booking: the closer is your booking date, the cheaper you will book your room. Check out Hostelworld – don’t be afraid to live in a hostel, it is another awesome way to make new international friends.

If you prefer to be all alone and have no money for a hotel, you might also try to rent a car for travelling and sleeping in it, check out Autoeurope.

Since it is not always easy to find a place for the night through Couchsurfing or other sites like that, one must be prepared for sleeping in a tent. Although in many cities there are not many suitable places to break a tent, if you look carefully, you can always find a loophole. You can, for example, take shelter in the backyard of the church (people who come to visit such places are more tolerant and kind), in a small garden with a lot of trees and bushes. Keep in mind that you do not need a large space to sleep, the area of 2mx1m will be quite enough.

Entertainment

Sites around the world suggest many free events and cheap places to visit with comments from other travellers: starting with the Stay and ending with tourist portals like TripAdvisor. Before the trip it is worth to dig on Yelp, Like a Local Guide or TimeOut and see what interesting and budget places there are in the city. Do not forget about Neweuropetours – free walking tours in the EU.

When it comes to museums, concerts, exhibitions, markets and so on, always try to buy tickets in advance. Also in many countries there is a day of free access to all major museums – at such a date it is quite possible to adjust the trip.

Most importantly, if the budget is small, do not put off the issue of entertainment until the last, when you stand on the street and do not know where to go and what to eat. If you pre-marked on an offline map of the city a dozen of liked places, the problem will disappear by itself.

Long-term travelling opportunities

Become a volunteer in an organic farm. Organic farmers are usually limited in the means to hire professional workers, and as a result, some of them are looking for volunteers. You will not receive a salary, but at least you will have a place to stay at the destination. Many of the owners will even provide you with food. The largest and most used by the volunteers organisation is WWOOF or World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, but this organisation will require you to pay a small fee for joining. For completely free options it will be necessary to comb ads and free forums.

If you are a student, keep an eye for exchange programmes at your university or trainings abroad like ASEF or Council of Europe, which not only cover the travel or accommodation costs but also educate you and give new friends and experiences. You will need a strong motivation and relevant experiences (e.g. organising a Summer University or active membership in the Civic Education Working Group) for this.

Another great way to learn something new is work & travel. Workaway or helpx will help you to find a host, where you get food and accommodation for working four to five hours a day and sometimes even pocket money. Those jobs are usually like babysitting, cleaning or helping with building a house, so you will not only see a country as a local and learn stuff like building a greenhouse, but also improve your language skills. Why pay for a boring language course and a hotel, if you can live in Spain helping someone around?

All this is extremely profitable, but for such a holiday you need to understand precisely that all your “deprivations” are not deprivations at all, but the result of a conscious choice, and consider those restrictions as an exciting quest.

Extra tips for any travelling

• Learn 50-100 of the necessary words of the country’s language before leaving. It’s easier to find out the prices and you won’t be so hesitant to bargain, when you have a small vocabulary. Also locals will react friendlier and maybe even feed you and offer to host you, which happens a lot in Asia.
• Eat where locals eat. The food is more delicious and cheaper there, plus you will feel the city and meet new local friends. 
• Travelling does not only mean taking selfies with some nice architecture. It also means meeting locals or other expats. Improve your social skills – do not be afraid of talking to new people in hostels, museums or on the street. You might use apps like Couchsurfing, Meetup, Facebook ( e.g. groups Munich or Lisbon international friends) or even Tinder for those purposes.

Any other ideas how to discover our big world on a budget? Share in comments!

Written by Aliona Sytnyk, AEGEE-Berlin

Sources:
http://www.wikihow.com/Travel-on-a-Budget 

http://www.wonderzine.com/wonderzine/life/travel/215847-travel-cheaper-travel-more

Picture:

http://blog.kemwel.com/vacation-plans/economical-vacation-destinations-for-travel-on-a-budget

“How on Earth can you travel so much!?”. I am pretty sure that many of you have heard these words already. We are AEGEEans, we are tireless travellers and adventurers – yet at the same time we are young and (most of us) students that many times cannot afford the typical travel expenditures. When was the last time you travelled on your own and slept in a four-star hotel?

Luckily, through AEGEE or other experienced backpackers, it is easy for us to learn about ways to travel all over Europe on the cheap, either before or after attending a Summer University. I have noticed it for my own experience: just a couple of years ago, I was doubtful of embarking in an adventure of travelling on a budget on our own. Instead, now I know many tips to make my trips affordable – and I am continuously asked by non-AEGEEans: “but how can you manage!?”.

If you happen to be a ‘newbie’ when it comes to budget travelling, these are a few tips we can give you.

Know where, when and how to travel

We have to start from somewhere when planning a trip, right? Let’s take into consideration several aspects when you travel, such as the destination. A great idea is to travel to airports connected with low-cost airlines. However, there are many cities (like Barcelona) where there are not even two, but three airports (BCN El Prat, Girona-Costa Brava and Reus) which are connected with budget airlines. Whereas travelling to off-shore airports can be a great idea in order to save money, you might well consider to add 17 euro extra for the shuttle bus from Girona airport to the Barcelona city centre, so keep that in mind when checking your travel budget!

Finding airplane ticket bargains can be easier than we think – sometimes it is easier when you travel on off-season dates (around late October-April). I remember that I got my ticket to Autumn Agora Budapest in November 2012 at 25 euro round trip, and I even met a few members who travelled by… less than 2 euro by plane! Booking in advance is an option.

Furthermore, if you want to keep monitoring the rise and fall for the prices of a concrete destination, I suggest you to check Skyscanner or Drungli – the latter is even more useful for the flexible travellers who are open to any destination, as it also shows the cheapest travel fares on the dates you chose, regardless of the destination.

July 2012. I never thought hitchhiking could be that cool!

There are many other options to get around. The AEGEEan published recently a ‘hitchhiker’s guide to Europe’, whereas the former speaker of the Environmental Working Group, Iris Hordijk, presented last year some different ways to travel in an environmentally-friendly way, such as kayaking or biking. You might even consider travelling long distances by budget bus lines. Unsure of which is the cheapest way to get to some place? Check Rome2Rio, it shows you the way to schedule your trips by budget and amount of time to any destination (yes, anywhere!).

Travel, eat and stay with locals

They will know better than anyone else where are the coolest, tastiest, cheapest and prettiest places to take you to. I come from Barcelona, one of the most touristic and fairly expensive cities in Europe. While most of the travellers struggle to find a place to have a drink at sky-high prices, I always bring the AEGEE members who come to visit me at a bar -right in the city centre!- where the best mojitos I have ever tasted cost no more than 3 euro.

This is an easy step. If you travel to a city where there is an AEGEE local, you can easily ask to the members in there for some tips or even have a tour around. However, it might happen that the city you plan to visit has no antenna, but you can contact locals through places such as CouchSurfing or a website called AngelsForTravellers. Even if a new one, this website has exactly this purpose – an opportunity for travellers to ask locals for advice! Another -very popular- idea is to take a look at the Spotted by Locals website. You might also check the ‘free walking tours’ in many European cities. Even if usually run by long-term expats, it is an interesting way to get to know a city better and make friends on the way.

Of course, finding a place to sleep is one of the things that can make a big difference on a budget, so why not trying couchsurfing again? You must definitely check the AEGEE CouchSurfing Facebook group as well. You might be surprised of how many AEGEE members are spread around the continent… or the whole world!

These are only a few tips aimed for beginner travellers. But I am sure that you, experienced AEGEEan, have lots of other tips to share from your own experience. So, share them with us and we will collect the most interesting tips to travel ‘like a pro’!

Written by Anna Gumbau, AEGEE-Barcelona

Of course, all AEGEE members know that the best way to find cheap and wonderful accommodation is to stay with their AEGEE friends – free of charge, friendship guaranteed and local life possible. But what to do when you want to visit a city where there are no AEGEE members living?

From my own experience here are some suggestions which I have been using during the last travelling trips myself:

1)      Ask your foreign friends if they know anybody in the place X where you want to go, especially if they are from the same country! Post this information as your Facebook status, on Twitter and any other relevant social media!

2)      Join CouchSurfing, BeWelcome, HospitalityClub or any other similar website! Hundreds of AEGEE members are already using them, so no big introduction necessary. Imagine that it’s like hosting or surfing at a friend of a friend – you just need to read the profile information, use your own judgment and take some AEGEE leaflets with you! If your host is a young person, there is a chance that (s)he might join AEGEE after meeting you.

3)      If you are staying for several days in a row or with couple of friends, rent an apartment and split the costs. Recently Airbnb and other websites where you can both rent and let apartments from other real people are becoming more and more popular. Ask one of your travelling friends (or me) for more information or even a reference link so you can get a discount for your first trip!

4)      You have a bit more money and time ahead? Groupon and other collective discounts are offering around 50% discounts for various hotels and accommodation sites in the biggest European countries. Just sign up for the mailing list, check the offers and decide which one to take!

Written by Anita Kalmane, AEGEE-Ogre