Travel the World and Explore for Less than $50 a Day, the Essential Guide: Your Budget Backpack Global Adventure, from Two Weeks to a Gap Year, Solo or with Friends

Travel the World and Explore for Less than $50 a Day, the Essential Guide: Your Budget Backpack Global Adventure from Two Weeks to a Gap Year, Solo or with Friends by Mathew Backholer.

Travel the World and Explore for Less than $50 a Day, the Essential Guide: Your Budget Backpack Global Adventure from Two Weeks to a Gap Year, Solo or with Friends.

Copyright © Mathew Backholer 2019, 2020. - ByFaith Media, www.ByFaith.org - All Rights Reserved.

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ISBN 978-1-907066-74-0 (paperback).

ISBN 978-1-907066-75-7 (eBook ePub).

ASIN B07RLJ6GYD (eBook Mobi).

British Library Cataloguing In Publication Data.

A Record of this Publication is available from the British Library.

First Published in 2019 by ByFaith Media. Updated in October 2020.

In Memory

James M. Backholer (1973-2018)

A Man who Enjoyed Traveling

And the Great Outdoors

Preface

I was seventeen when I first went abroad. My friend worked as a travel agent and had accrued enough commission so that we could visit Holland in the Netherlands for the weekend. It was a great trip as we only had to pay for our food and excursions, everything else was free. This was my first trip abroad on less than $50 a day, though I have my friend’s commission to thank for that! Before then, I traveled around Britain, staying in B&Bs, sleeping on a friend’s floor or in a caravan, pitching a tent or sleeping in the car. I have been to many countries in Europe and have slept in youth hostels, on the pavement outside a train station, in the car and under canvas. Traveling is not a right, but a privilege and I am thankful to have been able to see so much of the world.

I have been able to go on more than thirty trips in over forty countries, though I have actually passed through nearly fifty nations. These travels have included the entire length of Africa on public transport, the length of South-East Asia, the Trans-Siberian Railway, China, around Britain, across Europe and into North Africa¹ and America.

My adventures have taken me on a walking tour of the Pyrenees Mountains with a group of friends, an eight-day tour of the Holy Land as part of a larger group, and with Korean friends I drove around Eastern Europe, all three trips costing much less than $50 a day. I have also used budget airlines to get to a number of countries around Europe, traveled 22,000 kilometres overland on public transport from Cairo in Egypt to the Cape in South Africa, across South-East Asia from India to Vietnam and from Nepal to Russia, which included Hong Kong, Macau, China and a 5-day stint on the Trans-Siberian Railway from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, to Moscow, Russia. Over the decades I have visited many countries by plane, train, car, ferry, coach and on foot. I have had the privilege of visiting France nearly ten times, Tunisia five times, Netherlands four times, Germany and India three times, and Nepal, South Africa and America twice. I traveled to India three times on a multi-entry visa over the space of three months, flying in from the UK, crossing back into India from Nepal and flying back to India from Vietnam.

Travel the World and Explore for Less than $50 a Day has been written from first-hand experience and incorporates the travel testimonies from people across the globe. This book will aid you in your travels, whether you are an individual, going solo, exploring the options for $50 or less a day, or traveling with friends on public or private transport. You may have two weeks free, a three months semester, a six month stint away, or maybe taking a gap year. You may want to visit a particular people group, country, or continent. You may be looking for the perfect overland tour company, considering buying a vehicle abroad, or taking your bicycle, motorbike, car, off road vehicle, recreational vehicle or campervan to explore the world or hit the railway and let the train take the strain across a country or across a continent. This book will assist you in these areas, give you firm foundations for traveling on less than $50 a day and will guide you through the process, before and during your trip. This book will aid you on your journey and will assist you in areas of need, with many options and ideas: where to go, what to do, who to go with, how to finance it, what to pack, how to plan your travels, your expedition, what to see and how to save money and get the best deals. It also includes: buying your plane ticket, airport etiquette, medical issues, what to buy, kit list, visa issues, accommodation, transportation, scams and warnings, food and drink, understanding cultural and language issues, plus much more, and will guide you through the entire traveling process from start to finish for your epic adventure.

Travel the World and Explore for Less than $50 a Day is full of anecdotes and advice with informative stories, and insights, to help you engage in cross-cultural travel with viable solutions to common and unusual issues to make your trip of a lifetime more effective, exciting and enjoyable, whilst keeping your stress levels low and your money under control at less than $50 a day. The application of the truths within this book, learnt and experienced over many decades will greatly help you on your journey of discovery and exploration into new lands and help save you money, and is an aid to help you avoid scams and to keep you healthy, safe and far from harm’s way.

In some chapters, the author refers to ‘we,’ this is himself and any other person, friends or group whom he was traveling with. The boxed testimonies are all real events, though some of the names have been changed.

Throughout the book the majority of the prices are in US Dollars ($) to Pound Sterling (£) at the exchange rate of $1.40 to £1.00.²

Mathew Backholer

Co-founder of ByFaith Media

Coronavirus (Covid-19) A Worldwide Pandemic

In December 2019, coronavirus (covid-19 / CV-19) broke out in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei Province, China and by January 2020 had infected thousands of people who infected still more. The Chinese authorities quarantined entire cities, nobody could leave, by road, rail or air and additional makeshift hospitals were constructed to help isolate victims and prevent further infection. At airports across the world screenings for passengers who had left China before cities were in lock-down was implemented so that on arrival their temperature could be taken. It was discovered later that people who were infected could show no symptoms for around two weeks (later revised to five days) and yet could still be passing on the deadly virus which affects the respiratory system. Some countries asked for voluntary quarantine from citizens who had arrived from infected areas, requiring two weeks of isolation.

Different governments sent planes to repatriate their citizens who were then held in quarantine for two weeks before being allowed back into society. Some countries would not permit planes from China flying over their airspace, whilst many countries refused entry to those coming from China and would not permit Chinese planes to land. Soon the virus spread to other countries including South Korea and Iran whilst in the last week of February, Australia announced it was a pandemic and some cities in Italy were in a state of quarantine with roadblocks and policemen in place. South Korea closed their churches which often could accommodate thousands of people to help stem the flow of coronavirus infection. Across the globe, many cruise ships had infected passengers aboard and entire ships were quarantined in different ports around the globe or were refused permission to dock. At the time some experts from different countries recommended obtaining two weeks’ worth of food in stock just in case, whilst governments advised people not to panic-buy or to stock up.

By 10 March 2020, Italy asked its entire population to self-isolate and to avoid contact with people, whilst travel inside the country was restricted. Days before, all public gatherings had been banned whilst universities, schools and nurseries shut down. In Britain, many supermarkets began to ration the number of dry foods (e.g. pasta and rice), tins and antibacterial gel / hand-sanitizer each customer could buy. However, by the time that supermarket and shop restrictions came into place most had no antibacterial gel and had run out of toilet rolls and paracetamol. Many shelves were emptied and stayed that way for weeks. As soon as stock was replenished it would be quickly sold and supermarkets introduced a policy on many food items that no more than three or four of the same items (e.g. tins or cereals) could be purchased. There were long queues at supermarkets, just to get inside and at the tills; it took around two months to get back to a semblance of normality.

In the second week of March 2020, a huge British insurance company, LV stopped selling travel insurance because of covid-19 (coronavirus). On Friday, 13 March, many companies in Britain told their employees not to come in on Monday as many businesses initially shut their doors until April, though the majority did not reopen until July or even August depending on government guidelines and regulations. Other employees were told to work from home. Disney closed all its theme parks worldwide. Some countries closed their borders to all but their citizens e.g. New Zealand, and then they had to self-isolate for two weeks, whilst some island countries in the Pacific closed their borders full stop, even if you were a national.

Most airlines were cutting flights by 75% and one carrier cut their routes by 85%. One country told its citizens, If you want to come back to safety, you have to come back now! In a few days, it may be too late. At one stage during the pandemic of 2020, it was more expensive to buy a KFC 10-piece bargain bucket than a barrel of oil as demand for oil dried up; and it even went into negative cost, where the suppliers were paying the customers to take it off their hands!

On 16 March 2020, the Peruvian government due to coronavirus pandemic placed the country in lockdown. No flights were allowed to enter or leave without permission from the government. Around four hundred British citizens were stranded across the country and the only commercial airline leaving was charging almost ten-times the normal price of a one-way ticket from $3,000 to $3,500! At the end of March 2020, due to the global pandemic, the British government set aside £75 million to bring home British citizens from around the globe.

The British travel firm TUI cancelled 900,000 holidays up until mid-June 2020 and then extended it until 10 July 2020. After 3 months of lockdown, in August 2020 the majority of places and spaces that had closed due to coronavirus reopened, and a small percentage of people compared to 2019 were cautiously going abroad on holiday, whilst many opted for a stay-cation, a holiday in their own country.

The world as we know it has fundamentally changed with social distancing, facemasks or face-coverings antibacterial gel and many other rules, regulations and recommendations to help us live in a safer society and world where coronavirus can kill. An international study revealed of those who have been hospitalised due to coronavirus and survive, 50% now have a damaged heart. For many, it will take months or even years to recover and to get back to normal, if there ever is normality.

On 5 July 2020, Kazakhstan became the first country in the world to fully return to lockdown after it eased its lockdown in mid-May 2020. On the same day in July, Melbourne in Australia went into lockdown and its citizens were told to stay indoors for five days.

In 2003, SARS broke out and by 2020 no vaccine has been found. Covid-19 (coronavirus) is from the same family tree and whilst there are multiple medical trials across the globe, at present, there is no cure or inoculation, though there are some medicines that can help some people get better. There is no magic tablet or pill you can take to prevent this life-threatening virus, which can affect one person with devastating consequences and not affect someone else who can become a super-carrier and spread coronavirus to many people, with no symptoms themselves who themselves go on to infect others. Coronavirus can infect babies as well as those who are long past retirement age, the super fit and the regular person, some have survived, others have not. Those who are more vulnerable are: people who are over 70, those with existing health conditions, people who are overweight, and those with lung relation conditions, such as asthma.

Traveling in a Coronavirus World

As it has been said before, but it is worth repeating, the world as we know it has fundamentally changed and travel has greatly altered in such a short space of time. Some countries have reciprocal safe zones to make it easier to travel to, others have returned to a state of lockdown, or a localised lockdown of a town, city, county, province or state.

If you go abroad on a two-week holiday / vacation you may have to self-isolate or quarantine for a total of four weeks: two weeks upon arrival and two weeks upon your return. To allow quarantine free travel between countries there is talk of air bridges, where the rate of coronavirus is at least as good as in the UK, noted Prime Minister Boris Johnson nearing the end of May 2020.

Some countries have introduced holiday corridors which means that citizens from participating countries can still travel on holiday between and through (or to and from) participating countries, but details change from one week to the next. Some citizens went abroad in July and August 2020, only to be told by their governments or tour operators to come home ASAP.

There are fewer flights and less public transport and what is available is more expensive in a post-CV-19 society. There are increases in the cost of travel insurance which may not cover you for a pandemic or cancelled flights, repatriation or medical bills. Check the small print.

At present, there is no vaccine and only preventive measures can be taken: Social distancing, the wearing of facemasks (or some material to cover your mouth and nose), use of hand sanitizing gel, antibacterial wipes, disposable gloves or washable ones and regularly washing one’s hands thoroughly under warm water with soap for at least twenty seconds. In the future, there may be an immunity passport or a certificate which proves the holder has been vaccinated similarly to Yellow Fever. Without it, you will be denied entry to the county and turned away.

Some airports expect you to wear a facemask or face-covering and gloves. You can buy facemasks from vending machines, but it is better to take a pack with you. Due to aircraft being pressurised because of high altitude flying, air is recirculated throughout the cabin and cockpit. This means if one passenger is not wearing a facemask and sneezes whilst being a carrier of covid-19, particles could end up in another part of the cabin and infect others.

Some hotels and places of accommodation will have a gap of 24 hrs from the departure of one set of guests from a room until the new arrival, to allow time for a ‘deep clean’ to prevent any possible spread of potential infection. Luggage may need to be disinfected before unpacking. On arrival some countries may expect you to quarantine for two weeks!

If covid-19 is on a surface it can survive for 72 hours. With this in mind, be careful what you touch: armrests on a plane, seatbelt clips, door handles, buttons on a lift, light switch, public toilet flushes, water taps / faucets, taxi door handle, handing over money, self-service checkout screen, a handle on the tube / metro, the person who serves you food, cutlery etc. Avoid touching your face if you have not been able to wash your hands recently. Different countries have different rules for when wearing a facemask is mandatory; ‘mask wearing-zone’ even in some public spaces. Hand cleaning stations and or antibacterial gel are often available inside the door of a shop, cafe or restaurant. If it is not an automatic dispenser, pressing to top with your can be risky, but you may be able to use your elbow if it is wall mounted.

At theme parks, there will be hundreds of hand sanitizer stations, and the wearing of facemasks on many rides is compulsory. You may have to pre-book a time slot for a ride, and there can be long queues and less seating on each ride because of social distancing.

Remember, you may be away on holiday abroad or traveling through a country and another lockdown can be enforced. You could be trapped for weeks or months until you can fly home and the cost per flight may increase due to supply and demand as well as from profiteering. Just beware of this if you have no emergency funds or are on a tight budget. During the first lockdown of 2020, across many countries, some places of accommodation increased the daily rate for foreigners who were trapped, whilst others were evicted from their accommodation as fear gripped some hoteliers. Some travelers ran out of accommodation money and lived in the wild! One group of multinational travelers were found in a cave in India! In the same country, fear gripped many Indians who were concerned that Westerners were contaminated and they were shunned or shooed away in some instances, whilst in China, many Africans were shunned as were Chinese from Wuhan, the centre of the outbreak. Travellers in Thailand noted how the lockdown was not like in Europe or Western countries where most people were told off or warned, but in Thailand, if you were caught breaking lockdown rules or the curfew, you could end up in prison, and many travelers ended up behind bars for weeks or months.

If an airline or a hotel cancels your flight or accommodation you can ask for a refund. Do not accept a booking at a later date (unless you want it) or a voucher from the company (which could go bust at any time). Have a full refund which in many cases you would be entitled to, however, this is easier said than done, as companies do not want to give refunds for fear of going bankrupt. Some airlines and travel companies have already gone under and more will go bust. Does your travel insurance cover you if you are isolated abroad or will you have to fend for yourself?

Within the United Kingdom, the Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) stated in the 2020 lockdown that firms must offer cash refunds for cancellations when: 1. No goods or service was provided. 2. The firm can’t provide the service due to lockdown. 3. You can’t use the service due to lockdown. Many companies are still flouting these rules and some travelers have been trying for months to get their money back: From the company or site they booked through, from their travel insurance, or a ‘charge back’ on their credit card.

If you are traveling in a motorhome and lockdown occurs you could be like the hundreds of European travelers in Morocco, North Africa in 2020 who arrived by ferry from Spain, but then the campsites closed due to lockdown and everyone was evicted. These travellers were left out in the wild with no connection to electricity or water etc. With the borders closed, they could not return to mainland Europe for some weeks.

At around 10pm, on Thursday, 13 August 2020, British tourists in France, Malta and the Netherlands had to be back in the United Kingdom within 30 hours, by 4am, Saturday, 15 August 2020 or self-quarantine for 14 days upon their return. The price of ferries, Eurostar (train lines under the English Channel between France and England), and airlines tickets increased in price as demand outstripped supply. One airline hiked its prices by 600% compared to 24 hours earlier!

Within one week, three more countries had been removed from the ‘safe list’ of countries to visit and British tourists raced home to avoid a two-week quarantine and air ticket prices greatly increased! At the same time a number of European countries saw a spike in coronavirus cases.

By the end of September 2020, due to coronavirus there had been one million confirmed deaths worldwide and nearly 34 million reported cases of covid-19 globally.

Additional Items To Pack

* Hand sanitizer / antibacterial gel.

* Antibacterial wipes.

* Disposable gloves.

* Washable gloves.

* Disposable facemasks.

* Washable facemask or face-covering.

Chapter 1 - $50 a Day or Less

Traveling on $50 a day means sacrificing some luxuries for one great adventure. It can be done. I’ve spent months in South-East Asia on a daily budget of just $14 (£10) and later $28 (£20) a day, and in Africa on $25 (£18) a day, all less than $50 a day. Staying in cheap and austere accommodation, though some had TV and Air Conditioning (AC), traveling on local buses, coaches and trains, whilst eating at food-stalls, cafés and restaurants and having a great time, seeing the sights, broadening one’s horizons and soaking up the atmosphere. There have been splurges on petrol go-karts, a helicopter flight over Victoria Falls, guided tours, private taxis, hotel swimming pools and many historical sites etc., but you offset one against the others and balance the budget from one week to one month to the next so that you can travel for less than $50 a day.

US $50 is approximately GBP £36, Euro €43, AUD $69, NZD $72 or CAD $65. (February 2019).

You have a dream of traveling the world, a country or continent, yet you have limited finances, $50 a day, which is a good budget, however, you must first accept reality. You cannot fly business class or stay in 5-star hotels in the major cities of New York, London or Sydney. Traveling on $50 a day means economy, budget travel, but it does not mean dirty hovels, locked in the hold of a cargo ship or hitchhiking (which is not recommended due to safety issues). $50 a day may seem a small amount in a Western country but in a developing country is quite generous for economy travel, if you know what you are doing and are happy to travel on a budget. If you are traveling in pairs or as a group of friends then your purchasing power will increase. When you are traveling with a friend in a developing country $10-20 each per day helps you stay in your own room (if that is what you prefer) rather than in a dormitory with bunk-beds.

If you are only intending on traveling for two weeks then $50 a day ($700) may not get you far, but if you are traveling for three months ($4,500) or more, then you can travel farther and explore a lot of the globe. If you have six months ($9,000), or even a gap year away ($18,000) then you can see and do so much. However, this book is about traveling for less than $50 a day so the figure for six months can be decreased by at least $1,000 and the figure for one year by $3,000. This is assuming that you will not try and live the high life.

If you are traveling for less than three months to a faraway destination then you may need to add the cost of a plane journey to your $50 a day budget, from your start destination and for your return home (two single flights), unless you are traveling in a loop. If you only want to get to a single destination, say in a developing country and stay in one place, such as at a beach resort or a great forest wilderness then your budget can decrease considerably from $50 a day, because of lack of travel on public transport, which increases when traveling across a country or a continent and thus will be eliminated. However, most travelers like to travel and explore the globe or a section of it and this is where your budget of $50 or less comes into its own: transport, accommodation, food and some paid sights and experiences, though most of it is free, but it will all be new to you.

When you travel on $50 a day you have to make intelligent decisions, but you do not need to go without. If you want to spend one month’s travel money on a week of luxury accommodation, you can, but you would have sunk your $50 a day budget! You can easily blow your finances within a week on a luxury safari, staying in a private lodge in Botswana or Tanzania, but instead, you could do a cheaper safari in Malawi, see most of the big game and travel the length of Africa or other continents for the same amount of money, the choice is yours. You have to do your research and make informed decisions.

Traveling the world involves planning ahead, and not taking the first option that comes along (however tempting that is), but to shop around, investigate and inquire after the best deals. I have saved thousands by using local transport, sleeping in basic to good accommodation and discovered hidden gems off the standard traveler’s trail. Why spend $200 or four days of your budget to fly into the next country when you can take the coach to the border for $30. Why spend $2,000, forty days budget for a week in Japan including airfare, when you could spend three months in Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and Malaysia for the same amount and that is less than $50 a day. You can travel Japan on a budget, but some countries and cities are more expensive than others. If staying in Japan is more expensive than Korea and you only have two months away, you need to decide whether you will spend one month in each country, or a week or two less in the more expensive country to be able to balance your budget with an average of $50 a day. You could also travel to China as you are in the Orient, but remember, if you cannot cross a land or a sea border, then the cost of plane travel can add up. If you are traveling across a continent then some countries or cities you may wish to pass through quickly due to the exorbitant cost of living. This means a higher cost of travel, accommodation and food.

With some countries, you may only be able to get a one month visa, or a transit visa, which is x amount of days just to travel through a country which can be as generous as ten days or just