how do people travel extensively with no money?

tuomas, thanks - and beware, i may take you up on that! i have dreams of scandinavia and friends in st petersburg, so i hope to make it to finland eventually.

Or possibly you have a vastly different notion of how much money you really need to live on, and what is really "essential" to keeping you alive. For instance, I don't have a cell phone, a credit card, a car, a house, a family, a regular job. But I do travel. I'd imagine the people here calling me "wealthy" do have most of those things. If they're in the UK, perhaps what's tying them down is the need to make mortgage repayments on over-priced property. Perhaps they don't have friends in foreign lands they can stay with. Or perhaps they think you need $100 a day just to live.

I've moved half way across the world to live in the city with the lowest rents I could find. I live mostly on chick peas and rice. I buy the rice in a big sack, and it lasts all year! You can sustain yourself on a few dollars a day. And if there's an art opening, all the better: free wine!

http://www.couchsurfing.com/

Haha! Yes! Didn't he also enlist in the Dutch army and then go AWOL on some Pacific island or something?

Next year I want to take advantage of the Argentine financial collapse and go to buenos aires to eat beef and maybe teach english. Budget travel is the greatest idea ever

Momus, I don't think that going to Paris while broke is ridiculous due to living standards once you get there. The missing step between being absolutely broke with no money at all and going to Paris would be finding a few hundred dollars to buy a plane ticket. Even one-way it costs more than no money at all.

Hmm. As far as getting there plane fare goes, if I were willing to give up an entire year, I could probably get a job teaching English in St. Petersburg and travel from there if I get time off. I don't know if I'm employable for anything anywhere else though!

otfm! this defn includes STUDENTS WHO GO TRAVELLING. if you're going travelling stfu about your tuition fees.

No, Momus, what I mean is that my definition of "broke" includes not having enough money to book a flight to France. Call me crazy. My notion of "broke" includes collecting all the loose change from the corners of your apartment and dividing them up to figure out how many nights you can still afford to have a 99-cent can of chunk tuna for dinner. At which point the last thing on your mind is going to fucking France, and besides, you're too busy scouring your surroundings for any sort of public reception you can sneak into and steal cheese and crackers from.

So, like, yeah, there's no use pointing out that people can get by on not much money. I'm well aware of this: that's why my definition of "broke" is HAVING PRETTY MUCH NO MONEY AT ALL.

not to mention figuring out how you can EARN some money so you STOP being broke, as opposed to going on sodding holiday.

But when he's not talking about sex he's talking about how he's starving.

This is completely OTM.

Also you just know Momus' apartment must smell like farts.

That is what the cooked cabbage and garlic smells are supposed to cover up! As Orwell so succinctly points out (although I am only paraphrasing here) - class differences cluster around the fear of smells and dirt the way flies congregate on shit.

The apartment of my aforementioned pathologically cheapskate grandparents also always smelled like flank steak and garlic, pleasantly so.

I really don't know how people can actually just keep moving from place to place without any money. I'm not sure that really appeals to me anyway, but maybe I'm just a wimp.

Momus, you might not own a house, but you still presumably pay money for a place to live.

(xpost)

...then returned to france with gangrene in one leg, if i recall. if that's your idea of a plesant vacation.

i had the same thought as nabisco: how am i supposed to GET to these places where i can subsist on crackers and cabbage and love? i mean, i could probably get myself to toledo, ohio and live cheaply enough.

i have a friend who is traveling as often as she is staying put (she lives in paris). she's a student, with a stipend from the e.u., so i imagine either she is superheroically frugal when living at home or she has some money coming in from parents that she doesn't talk about.

but also, it's can be much cheaper to travel around europe than it is to get from america to europe.

Contracted monthly financial obligations for insurance, public or private transportation, repayment of loans, housing (even cheap), incidental and unplanned civic expenses (parking tickets, for instance, registration fees), outstanding credit card debt, are enough to sink one well below the poverty line even with savvy money management and a full time job.

Having a cell phone and eating fresh fruit and cheap meat from the budget market rather than even cheaper rice and chickpeas ... doesn't make a lick of difference next to these other majorly burdening expenses. God knows many of us wish it did. And there's a nastily smug attitude inherent in the insinuation that cutting back on (the relatively) lightweight burden of food, or saving 15% on rent, would allow most of us a longer tether. Free us from our financial bonds. Trust me brother, if it were that easy...

For us struggling folk (those of us, say, robbing Visa-Peter to pay Mastercard-Paul to meet the $700 insurance deductable from the day we got rear-ended by a drunk woman in a BMW), a difference of $40/week in food costs vs. $60/week in food costs is basically incidental. Getting a phone contract so one can be reachable to even _get_ a job is inarguably essential. Sorry, but. I 'know' people who alternate the months they pay their credit cards because the debts they took (often to get an apartment, or a car repair, or pay for eyeglasses) are so crippling they can't meet them both AND find a place to live.

Yeah, I'm aware of the counter-argument. "[X] shouldn't've taken on the debts if they couldn't pay them off. And if it's that bad... [X] should declare bankrupcy. It's [X]s problem, [X] can deal with it." And yes, technically any of us can duck out of our debt at any given time. Go on the lam, sure, become a felon. Sell the car and quit the contract and wear a half-blinding eyeglass prescription, couch-surf and avoid creditors -- sure! Millions of dalit have it no better than that. Sounds fun!

Having a weekly paycheck, even a pithy amount of disposable income does not mean a lot of hard-working professional people are anything but, basically, indentured servents. Just 'up and leaving' is NOT a viable option for those of us who intend to keep our word, who would feel dishonest skipping out on the fiscal obligations we accrued or had to accrue) to keep a roof over our heads or get an education or get a job or take care our health yesterday or last year or five years ago. I'm aware I've got a major chip on my shoulder about this, but I don't think that makes my point in any way invalid. That being:

There's a tremendous amount of privilege to being able to leave. If you can skip out of town, period, you've got a luxury and freedom that's incredibly rare. FFS, Nabisco's OTM. I'll return to this when I'm more clear-headed.

this is almost always the case, I think.

I hate to bite Blount's style, but it's not a huge leap from Momus's arguments to 'pull yourself up by your bootstraps, live within your means' right-wing bullshit.

another free lodging site (like couchsurfing.com):
http://www.hospitalityclub.org/

volunteer for free room and board:
http://www.helpx.net/

i know i'm repeating what's already been said but sticking to south america, central america, south asia, southeast asia and non-EU eastern european countries will help stretch your money...as does a willingness to travel 3rd class.

i just finished traveling the world for 8 months and have seen that other cultures are open to hosting travelers. as long as you can weed out any sketchy offers (which in my case rarely occurred) you can find yourself with free accomodation and a local who can show you around. of course, it's always polite to give them something or take them out in return.

I also have a deep fear of being financially busted -- I have a pretty honest first-order fear of winding up without a home and without the resources to feed myself. There were times when grad school brought me damn close to exactly that, and while friends and family can always help you out of an absolute jam, that's just not something I want to have to do. I don't think I've been without a job for more than a couple weeks since I was 18 -- because for most of that time, if I didn't work, I didn't eat. So there is psychological stuff going on here: some people are able to drop the safety net of productivity and job-holding and all that without being wrecked by fear, but I am just plain not. My secret belief is that if I'm not earning money, then I will starve to death.

And yeah, there's such a huge list of little things that create the travel expense, to the point where what you eat and where you stay once you get there are totally beside the point. Apartments to sublet, stuff to put in storage, loans to pay, cellphone numbers to keep active, the very flight to somewhere else ... there's a reason it's young people who do the haphazard galavanting stuff, and it's that they don't have as many of these things to worry about.

I was seriously put off Paris for a long time by being there without the cash to sustain a reasonable level of comfort (eg being able to sit in a bar for a couple of drinks).

Wait a few years until you've got enough money to make it enjoyable: it's worth it.

I would love to go but I have overdrafts and payments to give and I pay my rent and I eat food at home so I can't save like a grand to go travelling for months on end. I also don't understand how people survive. They just land in Sydney or wherever and seem to be offered a job and somewhere to stay the second they arrive. How does that work? If someone were to come to my town and ask me where they can find a tourist information board and a decent hostel for the night I'd be completely stumped, so I don't see how it would be any different anywhere else. Also - how is it so easy to get a job for a couple of weeks while travelling and yet impossible to find a normal job at home here? Can you really just walk into a Thai business and say "have you got a job?" And they reply in perfect English with "Yes you can start now, here's some money so you can stay at my cousin's house over night". I just find it hard to believe, that's all.

And when I tell people I'm concerned and "oh but I have debts to clear" and "but how do you know where to go, and that I'll be safe? How do I know I'll find somewhere to stay or somewhere to work. How do I know I won't be stranded in some Beijing back alley with a broken nose begging for a blanket?" People look at me like I'm some kind of priss. Do people only stick to the touristy bits or what?

It's so tempting to say that all travellers are actually Trustafarian sods who know if they run out of money they can always ring daddy, but it's not true in the case of many people.

No temp job I've ever been in can sustain even the cheapest rent in the UK, let alone pay for essential amenities and food. And on top of that you've got loan repayments, credit card debts etc. If you have a full-time job you're even more stuck because, well you have a full time job innit?
I currently earn £21,500pa, pay £290 plus bills in rent a month. I do most of my shopping in budget supermarkets and often eat at my girlfriends or at my parents house. I do enjoy some luxuries such as CDs and the gym but have cut back considerably on the former and the latter really isn't what is breaking the bank. I have an overdraft of £2000 which I've been struggling to pay back since my student days, as well as a credit card. And yet I can't shift this - there is too much at stake for me to book a flight to Karachi and start "y'know, just bumming around and working till I can hop to the next island".

Or do what my friend did and never ever ever buy your round of drinks in the pub because you're "broke" and when questioned about all the money you've been earning and that little inheritance they got from their grandparents say "but it's for travelling" and then greedily accept whatever's coming their way.

Hopefully next time it'll be a slap around the jaw.

I've spent periods of my life travelling with little money - put my stuff in (free) storage at my mum's house, accumulated a landing pad of money through saving carefully when I was working, and then just going. Yes, your biggest expense is your plane flight, but that's what lastminute.com and the like is for - plus going at cheap times of the year. Stay with friends, couchsurf, temp if you're planning on going long-term.

I suppose all of this depends on a frugal mindspace where you just don't GET into debt in the first place. You're much freer that way.

The Family Money got spent up and MOVING, permanently, back to the UK. My travelling was done on mine own savings.

I'd understand if it was someone who'd been working hard for a year and never going out and living off of sprouts because they really really really must see this country that they've been in love with it's culture and people since they can remember. That is fine. Except it hardly ever happens. In the case of most people I know it's seemingly a matter of doing a temp job for 6 weeks, blagging pints off me in the pub and then farting around in Australia and shagging anything that moves.

YES I'VE GOT A CHIP ON MY SHOULDER TOO TODAY. IT'S WARM OUTSIDE AND I WANT TO BE OUTSIDE.

*slaps head* Why didn't I think of THAT before?!

I'm still struggling to get my head around how you managed to run up an overdraft of £2000. I mean, how freaking many rounds of drinks did you buy with that?

Kate, I do agree with you to a degree. But then having believed and thought that for most of my life, when I moved to England and was offered a whopping great credit card it was VERY easy to just think of it as MY money. And when you're young and foolish you kind of think it'll be easy enough to pay back until you realise you can barely afford to make the repayments on the interest alone.

I dunno, it's hard to be sensible sometimes.

Doglatin, I don't think many employers would mind at all you taking a six-month break so long as the rest of your CV is rocking. You are YOUNG. These things aren't surprising.

Yes, I saw a lovely scarlet evening dress and some oversize green corduroy trousers in Help The Aged that I could wear at work tomorrow. In the meantime I will spend every night sitting in my underwear and reading a ripped up library book because I obviously spend way too much money on books and clothes and that is why I am in debt. Food I can skip out all together, maybe water too as those bills just keep mounting up. I can live in my Dad's garage and get up at 5am each morning so that I can walk to work instead of taking the train to Stevenage in the mornings.

I'll write a nice letter to my bank manager and the credit card companies explaining that they are smelly bad men and that I don't want to pay them back for the debts I ran up at university and yes £3000 is a perfectly good yearly amount for students to live on and really I should have stuck to that baked bean diet for those three years instead of eating real food and having a social life. Yes I should have got a job as a student, because EVERYONE wants to employ you when you've got irregular lesson plans, exam commitments and coursework to stick to.

And yes Mr Bank Manager, that whole year after uni when I was struggling to move out of my parents' house by working in bars and temping and handing out leaflets and sending out letters and being told on a weekly basis that I simply don't have enough experience to get a normal job despite my degree - yes it could have been put to better use. Yes the depression wasn't fun but that's no excuse for wanting to go out and see friends in the pub once in a blue moon because that's just frivolous really. And I may as well terminate my 18-month mobile phone subscription because I won't be speaking to anyone until I'm out of debt for fear that they might ask me to do something with them that involves money, like go food shopping or something.

As for our landlady I will tell her to shove it and that I've got squatter's rights now so she's not getting a penny of my rent. Then I can go and put all my things in the magical empty room at my Dad's house because I knwo he just can't wait to receive it.

Staying out of debt is so simple Kate, thanks a lot for your help.

Have you heard of mooching? Staying with friends? Cheap flights? Cheap food? I mean, really, it can be done. Momus has obviously constructed his life so he can go travelling with little to no money. There's no mortgage to pay off, no children who needs to be taken care of nor have to go to school,...

parents are a boon. don't have to be rich, just able to bail you out with airfare when it goes wong.

jump. think later. learn. trust yer ability. talk to people. if thats too scary then ferget it.

yesh doddy...i'm going. ta-daaa

Sure, it's not "no money", but neither is it an insurmountable mountain of cash you need to find.

xpost: er, yes, you probably should have got that job as a student. £3000 a year will cover £250/mo rent for a year, so if you want to do anything on top of that you'll need a job. I don't know of anyone who has gone travelling without working in some fashion beforehand.

Perhaps it's the automatic assumption that they'll do it that makes them work for/find the money to go, like your automatic assumption that you'll go to the pub means you find cash for pints?

FWIW, I went to uni in the States, where there's no question of being an unemployed layabout student like there is here.

Right, but it wasn't through lack of trying that I never got employment at uni, let alone after uni. I applied for jobs ALL THE FUCKING TIME but it would always come back as "no, you're a student" or "no, you've got no work experience" and I have had to struggle every day and go from the very bottom to where I am now since leaving uni to be where I am. And yet there is still an overdraft and bills and a girlfriend and rent to pay for every month. I don't even drive a car or have any expensive hobbies (apart from buying a CD or a bit of clothes once a month, but with downloading and the fact I can wear last year's clothes these are negligible spendings). Believe it or not I don't really go out even half as often as I used to, and before that it would normally be to a friend's house rather than the pub as Kate is insinuating I did every night of my life, which is not true or fair.
Living frugally is all very well, but I will direct you to what Marianna said about young frivolity and especially to Remy's excellent post upthread about the day-to-day cost of living and the indemnity to certain entities that comes with having a job and renting a flat etc.
Kate, if you were living on cardboard for 6 months then how on earth did you save money to go travelling. And why on earth would you rather go travelling than maybe finding somewhere better to live? What did you do when you got back and "Oh look, no job, no beans, no cardboard, no nuffink"?

The deal is simple and both sides know what they're getting: a student to work a shit job for shit pay. And I haven't said anything about living frugally: I'm a full-time student, and I don't live frugally (ha!). I just work full-time as well.

If you don't want to learn to live frugally, then don't bitch about people who can and do, in order to do what's important to them.

I was raised never to get into debt - my parents didn't have credit cards (the house had two mortgages for a time to keep a roof over our head, and I can remember months where we had to keep the garage locked to keep the car from getting reposessed so it's not like we were living in luxury, oh, except for the heirloom furniture my dad kept trying to sell - yes, I did grow up in "I Capture The Castle") and I was never *allowed* to have a credit card as a student. So I've never got one as an adult. Getting a mortgage was the first major debt I've ever been in, and it scares the shit out of me.

Travel was viewed as important in my family, because it was the only way you were going to keep in contact with your family, with your Culture, when they were spread out everywhere from Scotland to Africa to Singapore. I come from a long line of Colonials who viewed their wanderlust as more important than just about anything.

I was able to save the money, despite making less than what you make now, because I was able to go back into the scrimp mode I was raised in. Instead of buying new clothes, gadgets, going out to dinner, buying furniture, I kept my money in the bank. And didn't take it out unless I was Going Somewhere.

And when I was a student, I honestly worked anywhere. Even at MacDonalds (funny considering I was a vegetarian) if they were the only people that would have me. A few months work on a till, and that enabled me to get a retail job at a Woolworths.

I know exactly *two* Trustafarians who travelled on their parents' money. I'm not saying that they don't exist. But the majority of people I've known, travelled with, stayed on the couches of, let stay on my couch, etc. etc. are NOT. They're canny people who have made sacrifices and allowances in order to do what matters to them, and often learned to live by their wits, whether that means teaching, temping, or working at sodding Starbucks in Hong Kong.

If travelleling isn't important to you (and from the way you snide about "backpackers" etc.) then by all means don't do it. But don't just fall back on your old class resentments and make assumptions about everyone who can and does.

Like Nabisco, it's inherent in me to blag from my friends which is what I assume you mean by "mooching". I also agree with him that I feel I should be able to support myself, no not because of Conservatism but for three other reasons - first for the reason I just mentioned and that I don't want to mooch; secondly because I don't feel good about myself if I am living on a handout; and thirdly because you never know when the person you're staying with turns nasty and throws you out into the street.
Having never really travelled before, I only really have friends or relatives abroad in France (yes, there is ILX I admit but how many of you live in Bolivia and would be willing to put me up for a matter of weeks on your couch?); Cheap food? Maybe in other countries but in England shopping bills are incredibly difficult to cut down upon - especially if the fact you work in the suburbs in the daytime and don't drive limits the places you can shop. I do most of my shopping at Netto and the local market anyway but there is a Sainsbury's across the road from us and when I get home at 7pm it's always a little too tempting to go there instead, admittedly. Even so, healthy cheap and varied food is hard to get hold of these days in the UK. Cheap flights exist too, but not to everywhere and they're never THAT cheap.

I'm not going to turn this into a rant about the cost of living. It just baffles me that the people I know who moan for months about not having money and getting me to pay for their rounds in the pub because I'm a nice guy and feel sorry for them can suddenly afford to go globetrotting. I'd love to do that myself, but it never occured to me to even think about it until recently because a six-month world tour holiday was an extravagance I thought I could never afford.

Kate, I'm not not taking into account what you said, it's just I don't know many people who can honestly claim they did what you and Momus did and literally live off of canned food for a year just to be able to travel. And really I don't think living in squalor is appealing enough to warrant six months of travelling and then nowhere to come back to when I got home unless there was something and somewhere I really really really must see before I die. And as I say, it's hardly the case with most travelling types I've met who tend to just want to drift about for 6 months and doing a tiny amount of work and a large amount of blagging to be able to do this.

correction: NOT blag from my friends - hah!

When you actually *travel* you meet the full range and spectrum of people who can and do do it.

And from the sound of it, your actual beef is with your own lack of initiative/fear of travelling without a "safety net".

You still haven't answered HOW MANY PEOPLE your sample size of travellers is based on. Because you continue to make an awful lot of assumptions based on this one bloke down the pub who wouldn't pay for his round.

Okay, so not everyone I know has gone travelling but I could name probably about a fifth of my social group can say they've been travelling at one point or another and I don't think any of them were able to do it without relying on living with their parents or mooching off someone in some way.

When you actually *travel* you meet the full range and spectrum of people who can and do do it.

And from the sound of it, your actual beef is with your own lack of initiative/fear of travelling without a "safety net".

Yes, I even admitted to this upthread. I still don't understand how you can touchdown in an unknown country and find a place to work and sleep that night. I know that an employer in this country would have trouble granting employment to a random traveller and I certainly don't know where someone could stay the night if they were stranded in Hitchin and didn't really speak English. I'd like to say I'd let them sleep on my couch but sorry, I'm not that trusting.

It works because they don't have to buy loads of shit/internet access/TV licence/rounds for mates back from travelling while out there. They use less money than you do!

I think there's also a lot of the "'how much studying did you do for your exams?' 'oh none'" in your anecdotes. Sure it seemed like nobody else was working, and that they decided to go off on a whim, but everyone I know worked their balls off for months before leaving, usually staying with their parents and spending as little as possible before they left. Those who couldn't stay with their parents just extended the amount of time working before they left.

But then I snapped - I felt that deep down I had that travel bug in me, and at the age of 34, I quit my job in London and went so SE Asia for about 4 months. But I DID have a plan - I saved as much money as I could - most of which to cover the flights - and away I went. Travel books are your friend. I took the easy option and got the Lonely Planet guide and it helped me immensely in planning my budget before I left. You see, I'm NOT one of these people who can just take off and figure out what to do when they get there. So if you have a bit of trepidation about the whole thing, don't just dismiss it - you simply need to do a little research and save some (but not TONS) of money. But then once you GET there, you’ll be surprised about how much you lighten up about the whole thing. After the first couple of weeks, I started drifting from my “plan” and starting doing things on instinct, on a whim, etc, and figuring it out as I went along - it really isn’t all that hard. It’s just a matter of keeping your wits about you and applying a little common sense to everything, and of course not to let any change or snag freak you out – i.e. ‘roll with the punches’, etc. I know its easier said than done, but honestly – once you’re abroad your whole mindset changes and you’d be surprised how travel-savvy you actually are!

It goes without saying that places like South America and SE Asia are super-cheap to live day-to-day. I was a little bit prissy to stay in the absolute cheapest hostels, etc, but even "upgrading" to nicer guest houses, I was still spending about 10-15 pounds a day MAX for everything (many days less or nothing), with occasional "splurges" that would still be about half the price of an average night out in London. I know that's not travelling on ‘zero’ money, but I'm just not the type to start working somewhere, beg, etc - I do enjoy my comforts, which is why I planned and saved.

It must be said that this type of travelling is NOT for everyone. I know some friends that would simply not be able to handle it – they would SNAP a few days in and cry and want to fly home. But that said, I think we all have a lot more travel/survival skills than we give ourselves credit for.

Yes, I came back broke, but essentially I was in the same position as when I left. And after a bit of stress, hustling and desperation (desperation is an EXCELLENT motivator to get off your ass), I got a new job and all is well. And as for the 'gap' in my employment, my boss asked me about it with interest since he himself spent some time in Vietnam. Maybe I'm just lucky, but you'd be surprised how sometimes these trips can be a positive influence towards the way others (yes, even employers) see you.

Some general advice:
-Travel guides – there are tons to choose from. Start by reading these in places you are interested in. Research is key.

-Budget – yes, I’m a bit of a fun-hating Virgo and all that, but if you have concerns about the whole thing, draft out a budget of the whole trip based on your research. If it’s something you REALLY want to do (i.e. you can’t stop thinking about it, etc), then just work as hard as you can to save money to meet the budget, then off you go!

-Hostels – if you’re not as precious as me, these are cheap places to start in any location to get yourself ‘grounded’ and also meet other travellers for advice.

-Talk to as many people as possible who have travelled – simple things you hear in a brief conversation might be that nugget of information you need to get you out of a jam somewhere.

-- No Mistakes, Only Happy Accidents (masonicboo...) (webmail), Today 3:41 AM. (kate) (link)

This is like the most snide, elitist thing I've ever heard.

-- No Mistakes, Only Happy Accidents (masonicboo...) (webmail), Today 3:41 AM. (kate) (link)

You do realize what a snide, smug, and elitist argument this is, don't you?

I had an official day-job as a British Council language assistant (which requires you to be studying at a UK university), but I also gave private classes totally unofficially for cash. I did usually between 5 and 7 hours of these classes a week, but if I hadn't had the day job I could have done far more. There were so many people who wanted English classes that I had to start turning down offers...it really helped that I was in a smaller city where there weren't masses of other English people all offering classes. I doubt I could have got so many students in Madrid or Barcelona.

For some of us who are, that is still a huge chunk of cheddar.

Cathy - how'd you advertise to your private clients? That sounds like a great arrangement for you.

Thanks for the links for how to sleep on random people's floors - if I can convince myself it's safe, maybe I'll do that sometime. Any other interesting travel links people have?

Maria - I didn't have to advertise ever because I got so many offers through word of mouth. But putting up notices in language schools and universities is probably the best way. I saw adverts for private classes in shop windows and on lamp-posts too though.

Or just get a loan, yo.

this hospitality club site is awesome. looks like a great way to meet people.

also haha, perhaps i should get a boyfriend so he can add me to his list of daily expenses.

but still it's something I feel I ought to do before I'm 30.

dude, do it because you REALLY WANT to do it! it's not meant to be drudgery... it's meant to be FUN and EXCITING and EYE-OPENING and a little RISKY and UM STUFF. if you're planning to go before you're 30 because of some misguided duty "ah well i better go... it is all there after all..." i reckon wait a while until the wanderlust hits. it gets us all sooner or later, right? see what rob said up there.

maybe it's a UK/US thing? once you've got bad credit in the US, things can be pretty bleak.

There's not a day gone by in the past five years that I haven't wanted to pull up stakes, snuff the campfire, unhitch the ponies and head for Alaska, or Colombia, or Argentina, or Chile. I have at least a baker's dozen of travel-on-the cheap brochures, and more books than that. I know the travel prices, budget airlines, and inexpensive hostels, and who/where I'm supposed to go to in major cities in those places.

And I could go. Right now. I could pay off my credit cards, sell all my belongings, and wave a fond adieu to my league of dubious cronies. I could release the little dogies and head into a golden-rosy sunset over sagueroed desert hills.

But that's where the fantasy ends. Because I'd be skipping out on major fiscal obligations, sacrificing hard-earned career gains, destroying my credit (which has an 84 month history in the US, remember), and saddling family/friends/other guarantors with MY preterit expenses. Bearing these impediments (not conservative, or 'pseudo-conservative' but often necessary and contracted) in mind, there's the additional difficulty of covering living expenses, medication, incidental travel fees, food, etc., BEFORE being able to find employment in Country/State of escape. And that takes a not wholly insignificant wad of cash or a lot of charity up front. Not $6,000 maybe, but $500 or $1000 or enough to be prohibitive for many of us.

Because there's not a thing in the world I'd rather due than leap outta SC, live on the cheap-&-fly, travel somewhere grande and start all over again. It's my dream of dreams, you know? But please to shut the hell up about how easy this is, about how all I need is to unfetter myself from my narrow mindset, or deeply ingrained conservativism, or whatever... because that's NOT what I (or most people in my situation) need. Certainly I can defray my initial expenses by foisting my burden of debt and at-home-responsibilities onto my nearest and dearest. But having some ethical qualms, some scruples, about ducking out on my life and saddling my peers and creditors with my responsibilities (however dubious and unfortunate these might be) in no way indicates that I'm fearful or conservative. It indicates I don't wanna be a felon and a career drifter. It indicates I don't want to return in 2 months ... 5 years ... 20 years ... to find myself owning 30 times the outrageous amount I owe now.

horseshoe: the reason people can go on about it is because remy is wrong. There is nothing fundamental about life that means you have to spend more than you earn. Sure, there is if you are "aspiring to a middle-class existence", but if you don't have middle-class wages ... don't try to live that way!

I mean, take this:
Having a cell phone and eating fresh fruit and cheap meat from the budget market rather than even cheaper rice and chickpeas ... doesn't make a lick of difference next to these other majorly burdening expenses.
Well, no, but if you save £30 a month with no cell phone, and £20 a month by using cheaper food, that's £600 a year. That's a set of flights to somewhere far-flung! Get the 15% off rent also mentioned and there's the spending money to start the trip. Jesus.

It's a different story once someone is deep into debt, b/c all those savings have to go into paying it off, but for those starting out debt-free there's no call to get into it. Though granted this is a Scottish view, where uni fees are paid etc.

xxpost: yeh, good pt

that might have been a bad way to put it, but all I meant was pursuing a job that requires a certain amount of education, a situation that I think fits the circumstances Remy was talking about. I'm convinced this isn't a matter of individual will, because I'm surrounded by people who find themselves in pretty bad financial straits repeatedly (grad students) and none of them, trust me, is spending money extravagantly.

According to my father (a professional mortage counselor) the mean length of time it takes for a single college-educated American working full-time to pay off the loans and expenses accrued by age 27 is...

19 years.

DL, I am not in Bolivia but you (and most other ILXors who don't hate me etc) would be welcome to crash on my futon. Etc.

(there's another thread on managing on less money somewhere, I think Sarah McLusky started it?)

What the fuck are you people spending it all on then? Tuition can't cost that much, surely. And don't students get subsidized campus health centres?

do you really think that tone is advisable, given the kind of personal debt issues people have shared so far? anyway, this: Tuition can't cost that much, surely. gave me a good laugh.

While you're a student. I've been out for 10 years.

The average surcharge for out-of-state or out-of-district students at public institutions is $4,160 at two-year colleges and $7,673 at four-year colleges.

Fuck it, lop another $6000 on that, plus $3600 to cover automatic loan repayments while you're away. If you're slaving for 20 years to pay it all off, might as well have some memories.

I essentially agree with you at this point in my life, but most people headed off to college aren't in a position to make that kind of calculation, I don't think. Also, it's not like it's easy to get along without a college education, either.

(a) People who would like to travel but cannot afford to, often because they are too busy struggling to build and maintain decent lives for themselves at home. These people are pissed off because they feel like others are telling them that it's actually very easy to travel and that they should stop going to college and frittering their money away on massages and gold-plated mp3 players, instead of just taking their word for it that some people in the world genuinely can't afford to go traveling all the time.

(b) People who do manage to travel, and are afraid that they're being accused of being privileged family-money sorts, which apparently, in ILX-world, is right up there with "white" as the most crushing insult in the world.

So obviously I kinda think the first of those groups is being rather more reasonable, though I will make this concession to the second group: if I really really wanted to go Australia for a season or whatever, I could probably, given time, find a way to make it happen. It would just be at a massive cost to me -- in terms of unserviced debt, shirked responsibilities, loss of jobs, loss of savings, selfish mooching, and arduous life-disruption. And I don't want to go anywhere that badly.

*whistles idly*

Meaning that I think the terms we're misunderstanding one another on are the following: "no money" (which has been used to mean everything from "no money" to "$6000"), and "really want to" (which could mean anything -- want badly enough to go into debt for? want badly enough to give up jobs and homes for? want badly enough to take personal losses? Or just "want?").

THEN I AM GOING TO GRAD SCHOOL.

MY PENIS DEBT IS BIGGEST ARRR.

I'll buy your train ticket if you'll come catalog and pack up all our books :)

-- Ned Raggett (ne...), August 22nd, 2006 5:49 PM. (Ned) (later) (link)

When I become homeless I will dress him up like a hobo clown and he will panhandle for me.

I, on the other hand, agree with nabisco's deep fear of being financially busted, and I've never been anywhere near it. I think it's an inherited fear from my dad, who seems to strongly believe that he'd be in the gutter and the world would fall apart if he quit his job or stopped paying attention at work.

I also think questions about Momus and healthcare are amusing. The guy has a nonfunctional eye, remember?

obviously in certain parts of the world you should be a little careful...for example, countries where premarital sex is taboo are more likely to have some skeevy guys offering a place to stay for a young girl from the west. however, those guys are not at all smooth about their hiding their intentions so you will know right away. the usual practice on hospitality club is to meet up in a plublic place to make sure you will get along with your potential host.

as for the other discussion about not being able to take off because of obligations, it is true that these things can be hard. maria, you're in such a great position to take off. like i said, if you can find free places to stay and keep to the cheaper parts of the world you'll be fine.

i actually was quite ambitious and circumnavigated the globe...however, i was conservative with my spending (not to say that should shy away from indulging in some cultural experience like going out to eat the national dish of whatever country you're in) and did a lot of extensive research and nerding around to find the best travel deals. i especially made sure i had free places to stay in all the western countries.

despite having no family money to speak of i was able to take off because i lucked out and score a "leave of absence" at my company. they gave me a letter contract stating that they had to take me back once i returned to the states. basically what happened was that i tried to leave my full-time job for a higher paying contract job that would enable me to travel a bit once i finished. they counter-offered with a raise to beat the other job, which i still turned down. then they said they'd guarantee me a job on the condition that i stay through the busy season. that made me decide to stay on the condition that they acknowledge the high level of work i had been doing prior to that point and to give me a retroactive bonus going back a few months. so i had a big lump of money to begin my savings with, plus a bigger paycheck every two weeks for the next 5 months, plus my annual bonus.

anyway, the point of my babble is that you never know what kind of windfall you may encounter. i'm certainly not a privileged kid. believe it or not, i pulled it off because of hard work (and touch negotiation).

...and now i'm back in the real world and had to return to my uber stressful 10-14 hour a day job because i was too lazy to find another one while traveling. if anyone wants to hire me (especially any company in europe that is willing to sponsor a hardworking and cunning american citizen) then please feel free to write me!

I'm the same about home ownership. I get constantly angry wondering why my brothers (for eg) manage to have 500k houses and 2 kids and still cope. I conveniently forget their extreme stress over even making the mortgage payments, paying the bills etc.

A thought occurred too: DL, are you regarding the globetrotting you see people do as a complete and utter *holiday*? No work, no stress, do what you like in the city you end up in? Because I suspect some of those you mention and some who post here who have travelled a lot have done so a) on an extreme shoestring and b) working while doing it.

It isnt much of a footloose and fancyfree 6 month gadabout if yr spending every night in Prague/Sydney/Rio de Janiero sweating yr guts out working in a bar til you fall over exhausted, surely.

Although Waxy, that's particularly spectacular -- you must be one hell of a valued employee!

Mind you I spent 600 flight + another 800 on hotels just going to Perth a few years ago. Yay for living in a shitty huge isolated country!

It isnt much of a footloose and fancyfree 6 month gadabout if yr spending every night in Prague/Sydney/Rio de Janiero sweating yr guts out working in a bar til you fall over exhausted, surely.

this is pretty much otm. it begs the question of why anyone would do this!

travelling does appeal to me, but not travelling where i have to sleep on park benches, take jobs i wouldn't consider taking at home and eat crusts for nourishment. travelling shouldn't mean lowering one's quality of life! crucially though if i'm travelling i don't want to have the insecurity of not knowing where the money for food in a month's time is coming from - i really don't handle that sort of stress well. i can't imagine any benefits of travelling outweighing these costs.

I'm lucky to be finally in a position where I've paid off all my debt except my student loan (which frankly can wait). I've never got a credit card and picked up any consumer debt, mercifully, and I'm in a position now where I can make serious travel plans. These mostly involve saving up a hefty amount of money (which shouldn't be too difficult now), getting an extended period of leave from my employer with the ability to return at the end of it, and then filling in that gap however I want. This is a couple of years away I think, and there'll be opportunities to make other trips (including India in a couple of months), plus hopefully some work trips to the Far East. It's a very fortunate position to be in but I don't imagine there are many others that can get away with it.

Anyway, don't most people with no money just teach English as a foreign language or work as volunteers on charity projects, as a starting point if nothing else?

House trades are good I suppose, but I've never done it.

i guess im getting old, because i would rather shell out the dough to travel comfortably.

also, i used to travel a lot about 2-3 years ago and it was all on loans and credit cards, about $300 of my earnings a month go to my little jaunts of the past. DAMN DEBT.

It was an excellent arrangement - and served me and many other friends very well. Well, that was until a particular Trustafarian piss-taker decided to come and move in for nearly a month.

But you're right, the time to do that kind of thing is when you're young. I'm too old to sleep on a couch any more, I've got a bad back.

haha, you have it so rough. ;)

I'm with Beth and Mandee in the no interest in staying with other people thing. We even get a hotel when we go to visit my family these days.

Personally, I did a very stupid thing and planned not a whit, and somehow managed, so I actually do think it's a question of what you're willing to give up and live without--or be a student and have your parents pay of course (many people do this from what I see). Still, I only had a few hundred saved up and:

plane ticket to london(november is cheap): $300
hotel in london for two nights: $70
staying with relatives/friends the rest of the time: free
easyjet flights and trains around europe: $250 approx.

We could have had more meals and fun with less obsessive penny-pinching in retrospect, but avoiding tourist traps should be the goal anyway. Plus, if I hadn't gotten my wallet stolen I would have had loads of money to spare at the end of the month, so traveling on a budget seems quite feasible to me. Especially with a willingness to work, as that makes a huge difference in lots of small but significant ways.

Anyway, this is all rubbish. Just do whatever - dance in the streets naked, burn all your money, etc. As a little man once told me:
"short time alive, long time dead"

as for working while traveling...i did that once in sri lanka. i was a waitress at a beachside tourist restaurant for 6 weeks. it definitely was not stressful or that labor-intensive. i was friends with all the employees so it made sense to just work there. i also befriend people from all over the world who then helped me out as i continued on to other destinations.

it's weird how you'd think you'd never want to do something until you're somewhere different. there are many things i had never considered doing...like hanging out on a beach, waitressing, surfing or dating a vegan (i normally don't find non-cheese eaters sexy), but there's something about travel that makes you more open.

this isn't true at all in my experience.

I have a job that means I have to travel regularly! To, um, Scunthorpe. Hurrah!

(it's quite nice if they're doing a steel-blow at night - the whole town is lit up by the glow of the blast furnaces)

Where's that money-saving thread?

This thread seems like a good place to advertise for a cleaner. London based. I have bookshelves full of travel guides too. Kill two birds with one stone! But don't neglect the ironing.

Let me know if you're interested. We also need a painter to do the lounge and hall. Cash in hand.

That said a friend recently came back from blowing the £3000 she'd accrued from not paying her round and generally leeching off her mates at any given opportunity is now having problems finding full-time work.

re 'getting into debt', i guess it was too obvious to point out that most students in the UK are practically encouraged to get into debt and indeed it is inevitable given the costs of university unless your parents can pay for it all. debt is extremely common here and most people my age and social position (as opposed to 'class') have them.

the big stumbling block to travelling a lot in your youth comes down to your own attitude combined with the position you find yourself in. like doglatin i left university and finding full time relevant work (and then clinging onto it for dear life) was the only thing that really mattered. if i'd REALLY wanted to go off to Australia or whatever i suppose i could've - but i preferred to spend my wages on London living, computer stuff, gadgets etc.

my friend who didn't go to university worked in a high street restaurant (a job where you have to work weekend nights so you save money by not going out clubbing or whatever because you can't!) for a couple of years before moving out to australia for 18 months to do similar work over there but have an absolutely phenomenal time beforehand, doing all the cliched but fantastic stuff you hear about, scuba-diving, skydiving etc. - which he afforded with his savings. v envious of him for this but wouldn't really want to go through what he did beforehand. another guy who worked with me here did a similar thing 18 months ago. it doesn't matter what kind of work/hours you do even, just a matter of prioritising things and making the necessary sacrifices.

lol

think ill stick to the other thread not much useful here