Take a hit of the April issue of Perceptive Travel and you might reach enlightenment. Or at least be entertained.

We’ve got weirdness all around this time, starting with a story about an archaeological site in Panama where the caretakers believes it’s really a place the aliens visited way back when. See What to Do About Barriles?

James Dorsey is back with another tale of stumbling into a village in Africa and finding himself the instant elder. He wants to buy a souvenir pipe. They just want him to smoke khat with them. So it’s time for Passing the Pipe in Ethiopia.

Anja Mutic makes her debut with a tale about her first trip to India—and therefore her first impressions—being part of a luxury travel press trip designed to only show the edited version of the country. See India of Light and Darkness.

Naturally we’ve got the scoop on new books and music worth checking out, so see the April travel book reviews from Susan Griffith and the April world music reviews from Laurence Mitchell.

Win some travel gear!

Each month we give away something cool to someone who follows the webzine via the monthly e-mail newsletter or the Facebook page. See links for both on the home page and enter. Last month two readers won a nice new Armitron watch and this month we’re giving away some $100+ hiking shoes from Wolverine. What are you waiting for?

$8.50 dorm, $28 double room in Turkey

I just did a post over at Uptake.com on the differences in hotel prices between big cities and smaller cities in the United States. It’s easy to compare apples to apples in this country because the market is so dominated by chain hotels that don’t vary much. Sure, there are differences around the margins, but it’s hard to tell when you wake up in a Hilton or Courtyard by Marriott whether you’re in Albany or Anaheim.

The differences can be pretty shocking. A Courtyard by Marriott standard room in Tampa is $109. In New York City it’s $409 for the same kind of room on the same weekend. A Hampton Inn room that’s $148 in Omaha is $405 in San Francisco. (Who’s paying that?! They need to learn how to use Hotwire.)

But what about the rest of the world at the budget end of the scale? How much difference does it make when staying in a big city compared to a much smaller one? Even in some developing countries, there’s a big underlying cost difference because of real estate prices, taxes, and labor costs. So how do hostel prices stack up? I looked up the same random weekend in May on Hostelworld and Hostelbookers. Here’s what I found. All prices are per person, per night. So double the price here for a private room for two.

$16 double room in India

India – Mumbai
Shared dorm – $14 to $22
Private room – $15 to $40+

India – Jaisalmer
Shared dorm – $1 to $10
Private room – $3.60 to twelve choices under $10

Turkey – Istanbul
Shared dorm – $11 to $33
Private room – $16 to $34

Turkey – Goreme
Shared dorm – $6 to $16
Private room – $11 to twelve choices under $20

Vietnam – Hanoi
Shared dorm – $5 to $12
Private room – $4 to $35 (most under $10)

Vietnam – Sapa
Shared dorm – $4 to $9
Private Room – $4 to $10

How well does this correlation hold up when we look at five or six other places? Much better in expensive countries than in most cheap ones it turns out. Prices in Buenos Aires are as good or better than what you’ll pay in Salta or Mendoza. The same is true of Quito, Budapest, or Kuala Lumpur. The reason for this is that there’s much more of a tourism infrastructure in the capital and therefore much more competition. If you own the only hostel in some small town, you have a lot more pricing power. When you’re competing with 30 others, you are subject to market forces.

So in general, if you’re in an expensive country, you should limit your time in the main city to seeing what you want to see and getting business done. Then hop the train/bus out of London, Paris, or Sydney. In many of The World’s Cheapest Destinations, however, it doesn’t make all that much difference unless it’s an out-of-whack place like Mumbai. Stay in Bangkok for the food and nightlife if you want, soak up the scene in Sofia for a week if you feel like it. So this is another budget advantage to picking the right destinations: you don’t have to hightail it out of the big city because accommodation is too expensive. So you only leave fast when it’s a pit like Jakarta or Guatemala City and there’s no good reason to stick around anyway.

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Delhi Flickr photos by jepoirrier

There are some places in this hemisphere that have some bad air, like Los Angeles, Mexico City, and Lima. But they’ve got nothing on the smoking guns of Asia, which make these places look like a blue-sky island.

But where is the worst place to take in a lungful really? That’s not an easy question because it depends on how  you measure it. This recent study says India is the most polluted country, even in rural areas. Part of that is due to the increasing number of their blue-smoke-belching vehicles on the road and almost no restrictions in place. The attitude from this guy quoted in the piece says volumes.

“D. Saha, a scientist in the ‘Air Lab’ at India’s Central Pollution Control Board said the study’s findings were not a matter of huge concern. ‘It is a non-issue, we have other pressing problems like poverty, focus on them.’”

Delhi is only the 3rd-most-polluted city in the country says this article. Delhi was beat out by two places I’ve thankfully never been to and will be sure to avoid: Ludhiana and Kanpur.

But what about China? Time magazine says Linfen, China is the most ungodly place to breathe in a lungful and the World Bank reported in the past that 16 of the world’s 20 most polluted cities are in China.

Beijing Flickr photo by kevin dooley

The problem, as this evaluation from The Guardian notes, you can’t compare a country that releases accurate data (most of the developed world) with one that’s famous for releasing inaccurate reports—like China. The poor people who have to spend their whole lives breathing the air in China are starting to complain more loudly, however, and calling b.s. on the rosy government air reports. Many expats and locals who can read English rely more on the Twitter feed from the U.S. Embassy there. (Hint, it usually reads “hazardous” or “unhealthy.) The pollution is so bad there we’ve taken to measuring it from space.

If you look at this list from the World Health Organization of the worst cities, you probably weren’t planning to go to any of them anyway: half are in Iran and Pakistan.

In the U.S., some spots are far worse than others. Apart from a few geographic oddities like southern California and Salt Lake City, the most polluted places tend to be the ones where coal-fired power plants are prevalent. So you’ve got your industrial heartland around Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia, plus places like East Tennessee and central Alabama. Then there’s the city that defined urban sprawl—Houston—and a compact one jammed with people—New York. See the full list here from the American Lung Association and some analysis from Forbes.

Today’s guest post is from a book author who has written for me on several occasions in Perceptive Travel. See the link at the end for the book and blog from Jim Johnston, but he’s just back from India and is giving us the scoop on current prices there. As I noted recently, it’s a good time to visit India if you’re a budget traveler because the U.S. dollar is fetching 50 rupees. So not only is the math easier, but this has made a bargain destination even cheaper. Take it away Jim!

The extremes of poverty and wealth in India make thoughts about money complicated. One of the clearest statements came from Ashish, our guide in Lucknow. Few tourists visit the place and he was thrilled to be showing off his hometown. In the narrow lanes of the oldest part of the city we visited a small workshop where two young men were pounding out silver leaf with heavy wooden mallets. Each square took 15 hours of pounding to make it thin enough to eat-the silver is used to adorn pastries and candies. Each man earned about two dollars for a full day of hammering.

“They do not earn money,” Ashish explained. “No one earns money. You are given the money by God, so what you have is what you are supposed to have.”

What God has given me felt like an awful lot in India, one of the world’s great travel bargains. In fact, you could probably travel on less than $10 a day without much effort (although I wouldn’t want to see where you’d sleep).

The contrasts are striking: you can eat a full vegetarian meal for 75 cents, or go down the block and blow 75 dollars eating at a 5-star hotel. In Lucknow, two of us ate dinner, went to a movie, and had dessert afterwards-and spent under $5 US total. In Jaipur we went to a restaurant that had just opened the day before and were served a huge tandoori meal-for free, to celebrate the new business we were told. If you do splurge at fancy hotels or restaurants, expect to see luxury taxes added to your bill, which can be as high as 25 percent of the total bill.

Hotel prices run the gamut from a few dollars to a few thousand. Cheapest accommodations won’t be found on the internet—just walk around to find them. Clean, good-sized rooms with private baths can be found in most places for under $30. A splurge at the spectacular Bissau Palace Hotel in Jaipur was just $60 a night. Mumbai is notable for the lack of good value in hotels: our $20 hotel in Ahmedabad was larger, cleaner and more attractive than our $60 dump in Mumbai.

Air transportation within India is reasonable. A one-way flight from Mumbai to Delhi, for example, is about $65. The websites Cleartrip.com and Yatra.com offer bookings for low-cost airlines throughout India.

Indian Trains are a bargain, too, although the comfort level varies greatly according to class. You can buy tickets in advance (with a U.S. credit card) from Cleartrip.com and even get a refund if you change plans. Trains fill up fast in India, so it’s best to plan ahead. [Editor's note - see this review of a fun e-book on the Indian Railway system.]

Long distance buses are even cheaper than trains, and it’s easier to get a last-minute seat, although it requires a trip to the bus station to buy tickets. A 130 km (3.5 hours) bus ride in Rajasthan cost us three dollars.

Hiring a car and driver is a great way to get around. We did it a few times, and it averaged about $50 per day, including gas and tolls. If you don’t return to your starting point, expect to pay the cost of the driver to get back home.

Local commuter trains are very cheap. In Mumbai we paid 15 rupees for a half hour ride. A cost of the Delhi metro varies from 10 to 28 rupees, depending on distance.

A 90-minute taxi ride to the airport in Mumbai was 350 rupees (around $7). In Jaipur, a one hour cab ride (includes waiting time) cost 200 rupees. Our taxi from the Kolkata train station to south of city (30 minutes) was 150 rupees ($3). Most short-distance rides within cities will be a dollar or two.

Foreigners are often charged at different rates than locals, and it’s best to let go of any resentment about the fact as soon as possible. “We call it ‘skin tax’ here,” an Indian friend told me. “Most people assume foreigners are rich so it’s OK to ask them for more money.” If you start to feel uncomfortable about it, remember what you paid for your flight to India, which might amount to several years’ wages of the person who is “cheating” you.

Some taxi and rickshaw drivers refuse to use their meters and will quote inflated prices to foreigners (be sure to agree on the price ahead of time), but even these prices are usually cheap by U.S. standards. Many museums and monuments have entry fees that can range from 200 to 500 rupees for foreigners (only 10 to 20 for Indians). Entry to the Taj Mahal costs a whopping 750 rupees for foreigners.

Here’s a sampling of other prices around India. At the time of writing, January 2012, 50 rupees = $1:

Bowl of cut-up fruit (papaya) 10R
Fish with hard boiled egg and rice 40R
Dosa 15R
Apple milk 10R
Pani puri (snack food) 6 for 20R
Vegetarian thali lunch for two with bottled water 180R
Café Coffee Day (a chain selling good coffee) 70R
Chai from street stall 5 to 10R
Liter of water 15R

Shave and haircut 40 – 160R
Public urinals: free (most of these for men only)
Reserved balcony seat in movie theater 100R
Laundry in deluxe hotel: pants 30R, shirt 20R
Laundry in cheap hotel: 30 to 40R per kilo
Internet 10 to 20R hour
Massage on the ghat in Varanasi 400R

Hand embroidered Kashmiri shawl 2000R
Doberman puppy 10,000R male, 9,000R female

Daily wage for agricultural worker 30R

Jim Johnston, writer and artist, lives in Mexico City. His blog is MexicoCityDF.com

If you had India on your short list or you’re planning how fast to get there on your round-the-world journey, take a look at the exchange rate right now and that might sway you.

In the quirky way that world currency markets work, Europe’s troubles are the U.S. dollar’s gains, despite all the problems on this home front. So while it may be short-lived, we’ve entered one of those periods where this is a good time to visit some countries because you can get a lot more for your money on the ground.

Take a look at that chart above. You don’t see a dramatic spike like that very often and when you do it spells big opportunity—an imbalance that hasn’t had time to right itself. Prices haven’t risen in rupees, but you’re getting a lot more rupees for your dollars.

After moving in a fairly narrow range from 44 to 46 most of the past two years, the rate is now more than 52 to the dollar. That’s an 18 percent rise from the bottom. Plus in India you really can buy something for that 8 rupees extra. A few samosas at least. A cup of tea on the street. Or a bunch of bananas.

Or look at it this way: that extra 8 rupees the tuk-tuk driver is trying to charge you isn’t worth stressing about. You just got it as a bonus.

India was already near the top of the list of the cheapest places to travel in the world. If you’re traveling with dollars, it’s looking even better right now.