So, you want to travel as tightly as possible? I’m sure you’ve read plenty of guides about cheap buses and flea infested hostels. However, all those cost real dollars. These tips aim to crank it down another notch.
Couch Surfing
This is the ultimate budget lodging option. Fellow travellers offer up couches for your lodging pleasure. The only fee is good company and tales from far away places! Check out www.couchsurfing.com for some great couch surfing locations. A more upmarket version (i.e. it costs you money!) is www.airbnb.com, which lets users offer up couches for a fee.
Lift Surfing
A close cousin of couch surfing, is lift surfing. Here we replace couches with cars! Sure, some of them might be rusty old pieces of crap, but they generally get you from A to B (sometimes breaking down in C). However, the best part is it’s cheap! Lift surfers usually share the cost of the fuel, so depending on the size of the group, it can come out very cheap indeed. Check out www.liftsurfer.com to find some fellow lift surfers.
Tent/Bike
If you really want to tighten the purse strings, then a tent and a bike is the way to go. This can be a rather lonely and arduous way to travel. However, for you frugal penny pinchers, the savings will outweight the discomforts. If you wish to have moments of luxury, I recommend staying at caravan parks. They are relatively cheap and offer luxury items such as… showers!