When the 4th edition of The World’s Cheapest Destinations book came out in January, I posted some advance review comments from various other writers and bloggers. Now that a few months have gone by, here’s what people have said in the early reviews.

 

“Even as an experienced traveler, with some 60 countries under my belt (many of them cheapies), I still was able to find the book useful and interesting.

The World’s Cheapest Destinations will be helpful for travelers at different stages: newbies who would like to start traveling to other countries for the first time, individuals with some international travel experience who are looking to push their comfort zone a little bit, and folks just looking for a little more luxury without spending more money. This book tells you where and how to look.”

- Stephen Bugno of GoMad Nomad

“If you’re currently considering traveling to destinations where your ‘travel money is worth a fortune,’ I highly recommend you pick up the fourth edition of Tim Leffel’s well-researched, chock-full-of-details book The World’s Cheapest Destinations.”

- Kara Williams, The Vacation Gals

“If you’re up for a wry sense of humor and aren’t put off by the occasional unabashed assessment, The World’s Cheapest Destinations is not only an easy read and a money-saving Bible, but also a veteran traveler’s look at places that many travelers in the U.S. tend to leave off their dream lists.”

- Kristin Mock, freelance travel writer

“The 4th edition of Tim’s book has totally inspired us to travel even more by visiting cheaper places.”

- Ashley Steele, Wandering Educators

“Leffel wastes no time outlining some of the world’s cheapest destinations in a concise and honest fashion. Refreshingly pointed, this compact guide is an ideal handbook for those looking to stretch their money further.”

- Stuart McDonald, editor of Travelfish.org

“His advice ranges from the common sense (albeit often forgotten) to the wise been-there-done-that genre. The most intriguing reason to pick up this book is its nature to inure interest in destinations that may have been left by the wayside on your travel itinerary, but are an absolute must-see for any global traveler worth his weight in passport stamps.”

- Ramsey Qubein, Examiner.com

“With a little ingenuity, a bit of creativity and this book, you’ll be able to travel many places in the world you never thought possible. The World’s Cheapest Destinations is hands down the best guide to traveling the world on a budget.”

- Beth Whitman, editor of Wanderlust And Lipstick

“The very first step to saving money when on the road is to figure out where you can stretch your money the furthest. Due to the ebb and flow of international finance, wars, and natural disasters… the cheapest places are always changing. Tim offers a great way to hit this moving target.”

- Doug Lansky, author of more than 10 travel books including First Time Around the World

“Tim is correct: where you travel has more to do with saving money then how you travel. The cheapest hostel dorm bunk in Zurich will be more expensive than a large, quality hotel room in Bangkok. I’ve been to most of the countries outlined by Tim and can attest that they are great value destinations. This book is a must for affordable travel planning.”

- Gary Arndt, editor of Everything-Everywhere.com

 

Get Your Copy!

So where can you get this book? Pretty much everywhere online:

Direct from the publisher – paperback ($15,95 plus shipping) or PDF ($8.99, no shipping)

Kindle version from Amazon, Nook version from Barnes & Noble, Apple version from iBookstore – all around $8.99.

Paperback from Barnes & Noble, paperback from Amazon.

If you’re in Australia or New Zealand, you can order a copy from Fishpond.

Each time I put out a new edition of The World’s Cheapest Destinations, I always try to find a way to get another African country in there and always come up short when I start digging into the research. So I only have Morocco and Egypt and always get some swipes from reviewers or blog readers for devoting so little space to Africa.

The problem is, that flack usually comes from people who have never tried to travel overland on a budget. Every time I interview someone who has spent weeks or months backpacking in Africa, they inevitably say some version of these two sentences. “Unless you sleep and eat like a local, you’re going to spend far more than you expected” and “for such poor countries, prices for travelers are really high.”

These two similar statements derive from a whole litany of reasons related to economics, infrastructure, and history. It doesn’t help that three of the last four years the $5 million Mo Ibrahim prize for good governance in Africa has gone to…nobody.

The one Africa traveler who hasn’t given me this usual negative litany is ultra-savvy budget traveler Andy Graham, better known as the Hobo Traveler. He’s been on the road non-stop for 14 years and has spent a fair chunk of that in Africa.

I caught up with him via Skype while he was hanging out in Lome, Togo, a faded bohemian French Colonial town on the Atlantic coast. He describes it as “like 1920s Paris, the cultural whorehouse of West Africa.”

We talked about the need to avoid the big tourist draws and agreed that you probably need a Western Europe sized budget if you’re going to the safari destinations of Kenya, Tanzania, Botswana, or Namibia. Here’s my quote from him on the most popular destination though: “I have no desire to go to South Africa, partly because it’s got three times the cost of living of any other country on the continent and partly because it has the highest rate of crime and AIDS. Yet that’s where all the travelers go at some point.”

That still leaves 40-some countries out there though. Here are his opinionated tips for traveling the continent on a budget.

Know your mission and stick to the mission.
“The media has pummeled Africa with this perception that it is such a poor mess. So most of the white people here are missionaries, state-sponsored aid workers, or are working for non-governmental agencies. There aren’t a whole lot of real travelers. Most people seem to travel so they can have good memories they can explain to their friends. I tell people I’m going to Africa they say, Who are you trying to save?’

So the first question is, why are you coming? The average traveler hates Africa. He or she has a list of things to see and do. Most of Africa is not for that, it’s a place for a cultural trip, for learning about people, languages, customs. There are very few animals in Western Africa because they ate them all or poached them. The British saved them in Kenya and elsewhere for hunting preserves. Only a few spots have a lot of them. On most of the continent it’s about connecting with people—black people of course—-which is not why most people travel. ”

Don’t come for the same reasons you went to Peru or Egypt
“Don’t come to Africa to find things to brag about with your friends back home. If you’re looking to do that the whole time, your options are limited and you’ll spend a load of money no matter how frugally you try to do it.

Know what you’re here for and don’t come to be entertained—unless you’re a sex tourist. And don’t come to Africa just to hang out with other white people. Sitting around drinking with white people is quite expensive in Africa. A flashpacker coming to Africa is going to get killed money-wise. To sit around in a huddle drinking beer and going online to post photos on Facebook is going to cost you a fortune.

Negotiate Hard for Everything
“Africa has a reputation for trying to rip off foreigners, especially West Africa. I had a much harder time before I learned to speak French. In Ghana and parts of East Africa they speak English and don’t’ make everything such a hassle, so it’s easier.

Whether we admit it or not, we white travelers have these preconceived notion of black people. We expect people to act a certain way and look for ways to support that expectation. But they’re mostly Just normal people trying to make a living. On one hand it’s so safe here in Tome you practically have to leave money on the table overnight to get physically robbed. But they’ll try to rob you blind in every transaction all day long because they’re used to white people being idiots. All these NGO and project workers have practically unlimited budgets. Lots of them will stay in the best hotels, drink beer every night, and go out to the best restaurants. So business owners become accustomed to charging ever white person five times as much as a local because they truly think we’re all rich and stupid with our money.

You have to keep money in perspective and prove you’re not an idiot. A guy tried to charge me $8 today for wire ties at a store. I told him ‘You’re crazy. You’re probably living on $2 a day, right?’

‘No,” he tells me, ‘Just $1 a day.’

Much of Africa earning that $1 to $2 a day. Treat $20 like it’s nothing and people will keep charging you accordingly.

It’s hard for us to look at a black person and say, ‘You’re f%cking ripping me off!’ We’re so conditioned to think that’s racist. We think we’re supposed to treat them with extra respect because their life sucks. But their life doesn’t suck. You’re not “dissing” them to argue or criticize. You have to argue constantly. It’s normal. If you don’t they think you’re another rich idiot working for Oxfam just to fill out the resume.

There’s no political correctness here. In the market people will yell, ‘Hey white guy! Hey fatso! Sexy blondie!’ Learn to talk like they do to get things done.”

Spend the time to get a good hotel deal.
“Anyone charging you $30 a night for a basic hotel room in most of Africa is ripping you off. The tourism industry here is probably the worst on the planet: they try to gouge every white person, assuming they’re all idiots. Many of them are idiots. Outside of big cities and resort areas, paying more than $10 or $15 a night for a basic hotel is absolutely getting ripped off. In

Arrive before noon to have time to find a hotel. Walk in and tell them how much you want to pay. You say $5, they say $30, eventually to your real budget. But you have to have a real budget and stick to it. Be willing to walk out and keep looking.

When I walk into a hotel, they always take me to the best room in the hotel. They can’t believe I don’t want that room, they’re aghast. They slowly work their way down until I’m leaving and they finally show me the $5 room. You have to assume anyone who takes you anywhere is taking you to the most expensive option. Continually refuse and stay on budget, on mission. A basic room with a bulb and bath starts at $5, a table adds a dollar, hot water adds a dollar, and each other thing keeps adding up. But I can go to the best hotel in town and use the pool for a dollar, so why do I need the hotel with a pool? You can rent a room here for a whole month for $50 if you work on it.

You also have to get over the stigma of the ‘chamber de passage.’ Probably 90% of the hotels in Africa are love hotels. There are just not enough traveling salesmen or domestic tourists to support many cheap hotels. So hotel customers are mostly NGO workers at the high end and locals getting some privacy on the low end. Every hotel I go into I assume someone’s going to bring in a girl and go at it next door. But at least there’s always a maid around. They’re private, comfortable, and cheap.

Also understand that nothing is ever cleaned like an American would clean it. It’s cleaner than India maybe, but not to the standards of say, Thailand or Vietnam. I’ll get the $8 or $10 room and pay the maid a few bucks to truly clean the bathroom. She’s thrilled and I get a room that’s up to the cleanliness level of one you’d get in Southeast Asia. Otherwise that would be $40 here. But we’re so used to convenience. ‘Why should I have to clean the sink? Or fix the toilet myself?’ Because you’re in a $5 room, that’s why. If you want convenience, get a $50 room.

One important point: traveling with someone else is far cheaper. The room price is the room price-one person pays the same as two. ”

Your guidebook is probably useless.
You won’t find most love hotels listed in your guidebook because the majority of Africa guidebook writers are current or former aid workers. Most of the hotels they recommend have parking because the writers are driving everywhere in a car. The cheaper love hotels people walk to. The outside space is just a shady tree people can sit under and drink a beer. ‘No parking’ means it’s for Africans and will be cheap.

The LP and Rough Guides are both terrible. Many of the writers are completely clueless and have grilled me for hours to get the most basic information. They’re written for people driving a car and staying at hotels that can be reached by car.

Whatever you do don’t rely on TripAdvisor. That’s even worse.

Avoid the Clingons
“When you get off a plane or bus there will be a boy or young man following you around and speaking your language. Often you can spot them before you even get off because they’re the only people in Africa with dreadlocks. They’re aggressive touts pure and simple and I promise you none are ever there to do you a favor. If you’re a woman they’re probably looking for a sugar mama and if you’re a man they’re trying to soak you for whatever they can to be your ‘helper.’ ?

Planning is a waste of time in Africa.
“The more you plan, the more you’re going to screw up. Everything is going to go wrong. It’s much better to just wing it as you go. In any city under 150,000 people I take a taxi tour of the city and say ‘Show me the $10 hotels.’ He’ll take me to the most expensive places first of course no matter what I say. Finally he gets frustrated and takes me to the cheap ones. I’m going to have to invest an hour or two of work to save $10, but I’m going to stay there a week so that’s $70 for two hours of work.

Don’t travel more than 4 hours a day, do it in the morning so you arrive before noon. It’s tiresome and you can run into all sorts of problems. If things go wrong, you’ve got a cushion. An 8-hour trip can easily become 12. The torture of travel often comes from trying to do too much.

Start out in a cheap country like Ghana or Malawi to get your bearings and get over the culture shock. Then you’ll be ready to take on the tougher places.”

Don’t be a bum.
“Being a bum is accepting less than what you deserve in life. Stand your ground and be a king instead. Refuse to get in a vehicle that already has 25 people in it. Just wait for the next one. Someone will say, ‘There are no more cars today.’

‘Bullshit. You’re lying,’ I’ll reply.

Every single time a new empty car or bus shows up soon after.

If you’re not trying to race across vast distances in a hurry, you’ve got more leverage to wait, to negotiate. If you’re willing to walk out of the hotel because they won’t budge, you’ll get a room you like for the right price. Being in a hurry will cost you.

In Ethiopia you have to take a truck overland for more than a day to head out of this one spot. A guy wanted me to ride on the canvas roof of a cattle truck for 27 hours, with cattle horns below me. ‘I’d rather live in this city for the rest of my life than ride on top of that truck for 27 hours,’ I said. I waited around and got on a grain truck where we could sleep on top of the grain sacks. Backpackers go to Africa thinking they have to be a bum. I have back problems so I’ll pay someone a dollar to carry my bag. I require a nice room for $10. What I expect is what I get.”

Get out of the big cities.
“NGO and Peace Corp workers love big cities with their big offices, so there are lots of cafes and bars for white expatriates. That makes many people feel comfortable. But prices for everything are three times more than they’ll be once you get 50 miles out of town. So don’t come all this way just to hang out in Accra, Nairobi, or Dakar.

Budgets don’t get killed by one thing. They get killed by a lot of little things. And every little thing is more in the big cities.

If your mission is to hang around a city and socialize online with your friends back home, why leave home?”

Don’t eat every meal at restaurants.
“African food is generally kind of bland, meant to be filling and fattening. There are far more fat people here than you would expect. It’s hard to get vegetables when you eat out, so I always cook vegetables in the room from a market or store and buy fruit to eat. I used to use a hot plate. You can buy one for $5 a lot of times. But hotel owners don’t like you to use them. So now I use a cheap homemade alcohol cooker.

When looking for a restaurant, don’t eat where white people are. Then study the menu and figure out what you can eat on a budget. Or just tell them what you want and agree on a price. They’ll usually make it for you if they have the ingredients. ”

***

To see what Andy is up to right now, see the Hobo Traveler blog.

If I did include a country in the next edition, it would probably be Ghana or Malawi. This BootsnAll article on traveling in Malawi for $25 a day is encouraging, though it does say you need to sleep in dorm beds and eat what the locals eat. Fortunately eating what the local eat here does not mean bland gruel for three meals a day.

Even seasoned travelers sometimes end up in a travel destination that stumps them when it comes to costs. “I can’t believe how expensive this place is”—that’s a statement you’re not happy about uttering.

It’s a painful realization when you thought a place would, at worst, be on par with what things cost at home. Then you get there and start wondering where all your money is going.

It happened to me in the Atacama Desert region of Chile last year, I heard backpackers who came from Ecuador or Panama muttering about it in Cartagena, Colombia a few weeks ago. I’m sure lots of travelers are cursing in Brazil right now. Some are shocked when they find out how crazy expensive Australia has become, or how pricey Singapore is compared to the rest of Southeast Asia.

This is why a bit of pre-trip research is necessary. As I pointed out in the book Make Your Travel Dollars Worth a Fortune, most vacationers decide where they want to go and then try to fit that trip into their existing budget. That only works though if you know most of the costs up front, like on an organized tour, a cruise, or an all-inclusive vacation. Otherwise it’s backwards: the cost of the destination should match the budget you’ve got. Otherwise you’re scrimping and sweating over the restaurant tabs.

Keep one eye on (print or web) international news because these factors all play a part.

What makes a travel destination expensive?

1) The population is wealthy.
This is the main one. It’s not an exact correlation, but the higher the per capita GDP of a country, the higher prices are going to be. Think Japan, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Denmark. When a country’s wealth rises quickly, as it has in Turkey, Thailand, and Brazil, prices are going to rise.

2) Taxes are high.

The United States is a rather inexpensive place to travel compared to Europe, not because we’re less wealthy, but because taxes are much lower. (We get less from our government too, but that’s another story.) If citizens pay a high percentage of their income in taxes or more than 10% on everything they purchase, that affects the price of everything, from food to fuel to hotel rates.

3) Labor laws are inflexible.
This is another good/bad factor: if all workers make a good salary, prices for taxis, restaurants, and goods in stores are higher. If those workers can’t be fired without an act of God, that means a very inefficient labor system too, which adds costs at every step of the transaction chain.

4) Distribution systems are inefficient.
Another reason retail prices in the U.S. are cheaper than in many developing countries is that we have a very lean distribution system. In Japan or Mexico there may be six people taking their cut between manufacturer and consumer—and a monopoly or duopoly on top of that. In efficient countries there’s less waste in the system and fewer middlemen. There’s also healthy competition: five wireless carriers instead of one, ten grocery story chains instead of two. Five hundred beer brewers instead of one.

5) The currency is out of balance.
The reason Brazil and Chile are expensive for travelers (besides the reciprocal visa fees) is the strength of their currencies. Both countries have been on an economic tear the past few years and lots of outside investment money has poured in. As commodity prices rise, countries that put out lots of commodities from under the ground (such as these, Canada, oil countries) see their currency vault up in a hurry.

6) Supply and demand.
Basic economics still applies. If every room in a destination is sold out for three months straight, good luck finding a deal on a hotel. Thus despite Italy’s economic clusterf&%k, you’re not going to find any bargains in Florence.

7) Everyone is out to rip you off.
Every time I read something about traveling in French-speaking West Africa, this is the main complaint. If you could pay the real price, it may actually be cheap to travel around. Since every person you come in contact is trying to charge you double what a local would pay, however, it’s a daily struggle that drives up costs. No fun.

Want to figure out where your money will really stretch instead, in places that are cheaper than where you live now? Pick up a copy of The World’s Cheapest Destinations at Amazon, B&N, Apple’s iBookstore, or the link top right for my publisher.

Getting ready to take off on an extended round of travel or a round-the-world journey? Picking up How to Travel the World on $50 a Day will be one of the best investments you can make.

Ever since I put out the very first edition of The World’s Cheapest Destinations more than 10 years ago, I’ve been continually recommending other travel books that are more general in nature, with tips on planning, budgeting, and traveling well for less. I even wrote one called Make Your Travel Dollars Worth a Fortune, published by Travelers’ Tales. Apart from philosophical Vagabonding though, there hasn’t been a good current one aimed at backpackers except Rough Guides’ First Time Around the World, from Doug Lansky. All the others have gotten dated and less useful over time or were obscure titles written by people without much authority.

I’m happy to report that How to Travel the World on $50 a Day by Mat Kepnes is a different story. He certainly has plenty of authority, running the popular NomadicMatt.com blog, plus he’s been continually traveling on a budget for years. He also goes to conferences, meets lots of other travelers, and responds to feedback regularly. He knows the issues backpackers face and the mistakes they frequently make.

This book is a straightforward, sometimes opinionated guide subtitled “Travel cheaper, longer, smarter.” It lives up to the promise with sometimes hard-won advice based on screw-ups not repeated and lessons learned from others. The $50 a day pitch is an average, not something you can necessarily do in every country easily. As Matt admits, you can get by on half that much in Southeast Asia or India, but it’s hard to scrape by on $50 a day in northern Europe or Australia even if you’re Couchsurfing much of the time.

Cheap travel inclusions and omissions

It’s hard for me not to read a book like this and find flaws—even in ones I write myself—but the flaws here are minor. There’s no index, which seems odd, and there’s barely a mention of huge costs travelers get surprised by like vaccinations, visa charges, and airport exit fees. Some of the generalizations are overdone (“Trains around Norway cost about $70 USD” or for Sweden “Grocery shopping here will cost around $70 USD per week.”) The blog writing style of short, declarative sentences doesn’t work in a book as well as it does online when people are skimming and have short attention spans. It’s also squarely aimed at people who travel like Matt does: solo.

Quibbles aside, the book is organized well and covers most of the bases. It starts out with the argument that traveling is cheaper than just living at  home and backs it all up with solid evidence. It then goes through how to do it all right in the planning stages, from getting the right credit cards and bank accounts (worth the book price by itself in money it will save you) to flights to buying the right backpack.

This section is followed by 28 pages of saving money on the road, solid advice from someone with experience on shaving the big expenses: accommodation, food/beverages, transportation, and activities. I especially like his advice on knowing what’s important to you. He will shave on accommodation in order to have a good meal, but others may want to do the opposite. Some people hate museums, some consider that the main reason to visit a big capital city. Figure out your priorities so you’ll enjoy your time on the road with a limited budget.

The largest section of the book is a regional breakdown, lumping continents or travel areas together and trying to estimate specific costs. This is a tall order, but in general Matt handles it well, showing the major differences between East and West in Europe, for example, and explaining how taking different transportation options between countries can have an impact on your budget and your enjoyment.

A few tacked-on sections at the end include specific gear and city-by city hostel recommendations (where a link to one page on his blog probably would have sufficed), a packing list, and a few pages of medical advice.

How to Travel the World on $50 a Day lists for just $15, so even if you only use one section of advice in here, it’ll pay for itself several times over. Even with 20  years of travel under my belt, there were still pages in here I dog-eared to reference later and websites to check out that I had never heard of before. Get it at Amazon (around $10 for Kindle or paperback), Barnes & Noble (Nook & paperback), or at your favorite store.

March is in like a lion and it’s time for another strange and wonderful issue of Perceptive Travel webzine, home to the best travel stories from book authors on the move.

Fresh off our third year in a row placing as “Best Travel Journalism Website” in a major awards competition, this month we’re putting out some offbeat tales from not so offbeat places: Gatlinburg, Montreal, and Nairobi.

These aren’t perky surface-level tales you’ll read in an airline magazine however. First, Vera Marie Badertscher of A Traveler’s Library makes her debut with a Tennessee trip to check out the progression of Moonshine in the Smoky Mountains. Darrin DuFord returns with a quest to find seal meat in Montreal, while Luke Armstrong finds a day of futility at a Kenyan soccer match with the Prime Minister in attendance.

William Caverlee highlights new and noteworthy travel books, from the Silk Road to the Appalachian Trail. Graham Reid is back to spin some new world music albums worth checking out from Senegal, Turkey, Portugal, and the world of Samba.

As always, we’re giving away something free to some lucky reader who is staying in touch. Two lucky readers actually: we’re giving away two nice watches from Armitron. Yeah, I know, you’ve got a pocket watch to tell you what time it is, just like they had in the 1800s, but that’s not so handy when you need your hands free. And when you’re abroad, you’re probably not going to be on your pocket watch, I mean smartphone, so often with international roaming being such a reaming.

Last month we gave away a Battery Porter portable charger from Digital Foci. If you’re on our newsletter list like Daniel from New Mexico is, maybe you would have won. Sign up here for next month, or get in on the action for the watches by liking Perceptive Travel on Facebook.