Formerly in the 1980’s my job require’s me to travel a lot especially domestically. We were given a fixed allowance for food and accomodation per diem, therefore we have to be smart not to overspent our budget or otherwise we have to pay the balance from our own pocket.
Then it comes to the issue of what accomodation do we choose? I am of the opinion that if your budget is tight the right accomodation for you is one that gives the most functionality, i.e. clean, comfortable to rest and to clean up yourself. Most often this kind of accomodation comes quite reasonable priced.
This principle applies to travelling abroad too. Most of the time we do not need the extra luxuries of the 5 stars hotel (remember that we are talking about budget travellers) and if we look around we can find reasonable priced hotel with nearly all the facilities of the 5 star hotels but we only pay for that facility when we use them. Better those kind of accomodation very often were more friendly than the 5 star hotels staff and you feel more at home or at least you will feel that your’e at a friend’s place ha ha.
The key to this kind of accomodation is “DO YOUR HOMEWORK” In this days of wide internet access you’ll find a lot of information from the web, if your internet access is limited you can also read travel guides like the lonely planet series, they even have an Internet access for the latest info. But even you cannot find it directly you still can find it in another way i.e. by making friends. There are lot’s of means to do this, Friendster or something similar will lead you to locals who knows better the place where you want to go, the added bonus is maybe you can have a free guided sightseeing tour or at least at a discounted price.
The above tips works for me so why does it not work for you too?? Give it a try.
Will come later with more post on transportation costs so stay tuned.
