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.

Have you ever tried to price out and buy a series of flights to take you around the world? If you have, you probably don’t want to repeat the experience. Despite the expectation (fair or not) that we should be able to buy or book anything online without having to talk to someone, pricing out a round-the-world flight package has not changed much since I first bought one in 1993.

Indie, a new services from BootsnAll, has unveiled a leap into the present: a way to book multi-stop tickets around the world from a web interface.

I’ve known Sean Keener at BootsnAll for many years and used the site long before that. It’s been running since 1996. we teamed up (with a lot of other great travel sites) to give away a trip around the world a couple years ago, sending one lucky winner and her dad on the trip of a lifetime, geared up and exploring the planet. See who participated here. I’ve always admired Sean’s drive and bulldog intensity and when he decided to make it possible to price out and reserve a trip around the world online, I knew eventually he’d figure out a way to get it done.

Now it is done, so if a circle-the-globe flight package is in your future, go to the Indie site to check out your options. Unlike many of the trips like this you can book, theirs are refreshingly free from restrictions. You can reverse direction, put in 20 stops if you want, and travel for more than a year. There are some rules you can’t escape—like having to plan out all your departure dates in advance—but otherwise this presents a blank slate.

As I’ve discussed before on this blog, you may not need something so comprehensive, but for those who want to have the biggest expense—airfare—paid and done in advance, this Indie tool is a nice option for figuring out what it’s going to cost you. Here’s a video with more info.

If nothing else, this tool will give you a sense of whether your itinerary is batshit crazy for the amount of money you have saved or whether it’s easily doable. You can try different options and see whether trying to hit six continents in 12 months is really a smart thing to do, or whether you should prioritize. Have fun!

So much information spins past us every day that it’s hard to take a break and process it, much less record it for later. So here are a few travel articles I wrote or I’m in that have appeared recently. Lots more to come as the year goes on, but I’ll continue to try to keep the broadcasting to a minimum.

Some of my recent travel writing

The Viator Blog published a piece I wrote on the Buda side of Budapest.

Global Traveler magazine published an article on my time in Hanoi this past summer with my family – Hanoi: Up to Speed

I also had one in there on Mexico City at Night and did a short web piece on the new Microsoft Windows tablets.

Over at Practical Travel Gear, where I’m editor, we all rounded up our picks for the best travel gear of the year in 2012.

 

Some shout-outs from others on The World’s Cheapest Destinations

Kara from The Vacation Gals was the first to put up a review of the new edition.

EuroCheapo asked me 4 Cheapo Travel Questions

This time last month I did an interview with Gadling on cheap travel destinations.

I had fun participating in this Round-the-world chat with Adam and Sean from BootnAll via Google+ and Twitter.

You can always keep up with me via the RSS feed here or by following me on Twitter – @TimLeffel.

You may have noticed the photo of my book, The World’s Cheapest Destinations, got switched out a while back in that picture to your right. It was a bit of a tease since the new version has been trickling out to different online retailers at different times, but now it’s out almost everywhere. This popular guide to the cheapest places to travel in the world is now in its 4th edition.

Prices fluctuate but don’t fundamentally change all that much in a span of three or four years unless there’s really high inflation (as in current Argentina), so if you have the 3rd edition it is still a good guide to how countries compare in terms of costs. If you have the 1st edition though, you might want to just put it in the recycling bin—I released that one a decade ago!

As I mentioned in this recent post on what has changed in the cheapest places to travel, I have made a few country changes. Turkey and Argentina are still great values for mid-range travelers, but are not the good deal they used to be for backpackers. To take their place, Cambodia’s infrastructure improvements enabled it to move from “honorable mention” to its own full-blown chapter and Slovakia replaces Turkey in Europe.

That means Asia gained a country and Latin America lost one, which wasn’t my intention, but unless people suddenly start finding a reason to visit Paraguay or Chavez gets replaced by a reform-minded president in Venezuela, I think the status is not going to change there. Apart from Chile and Brazil, the mainland Americas south of the U.S. are a great value, but Asia just has more bargain-basement destinations than anywhere else.

Get Your Copy!

So where can you get this book? It’s not yet online at Fishpond for Australia and New Zealand, but it should appear there in a week or two. Meanwhile, get it almost everywhere else 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.

Early Reviews

Want to know what a few other bloggers, editors, and book authors have to say? Here’s a random sampling of a few advance reviews.

“This is the book that anyone planning a vacation should read because it’s exactly what travelers who circle the globe all year long already know: it can be really cheap to travel, you just have to know where.”
- Christine Gilbert, editor of almostfearless.com

“As dollars get ever tighter, this book becomes all the more precious. But what’s most brilliant about it is that Leffel really doesn’t just think “cheap” – he thinks “smart.” As valuable a travel book as you’ll find today, in ways too numerous to even count, no matter what your budget.”
- Chris Epting, author of Led Zeppelin Crashed Here and Marilyn Monroe Dyed Here

“It’s no fluke that the world’s cheapest destinations are often also the most amazing to visit. This valuable guide inadvertently attests that money can’t buy happiness by recommending countries where the locals smile without it.”
– Bruce Northam, author of The Directions to Happiness: A 125-Country Quest for Life Lessons

“Warning: this book is hazardous to your ability to stay in one place. With your copy of The World’s Cheapest Destinations in hand, you can see the world while leaving your savings account untouched.”
- Chris Guillebeau, author of The $100 Startup

Buy this before you buy a plane ticket–it’s the best first investment for a budget traveler. Leffel provides real numbers and practical money-saving tips, and he wisely weighs the appeal of a country as well. As a result, The World’s Cheapest Destinations are places you really want to go.
- Zora O’Neill, author of The Rough Guide to Cancun & The Yucatan and Moon New Mexico

The World’s Cheapest Destinations is an entertaining read sharing the secrets that long-term travelers and backpackers have known for years. No room for excuses now, this book you’ll give the tools and information you need to travel the world in comfort on a budget. It’s an excellent resource for planning and researching your next vacation destination or around-the-world trip and is something that we’ll be using regularly for reference whenever we do our own travel planning.
- Deb and Dave, editors of ThePlanetD.com

“Tim Leffel has long been a guru of balancing the practicalities of cheap travel with a keen sense of judgement about the aesthetic value offered by varied countries around the world. In this newly researched and expanded edition, Tim’s easy conversational style turns the book into a page-turner, leaving you hungry to set off on the many paths he opens up to the traveler’s imagination.”
- Gregory Hubbs, editor-in-chief, TransitionsAbroad.com

“Tim is writing from the voice of a ‘Real Traveler,’ a person that has actually traveled the world for three years and lived in other countries for extended periods. This allows him to have the insight into what is the essential information needed.” – Andy Graham 15 years of Perpetual Travel and 90 countries – HoboTraveler.com

I’ve been running this Cheapest Destinations blog since 2003 and the 4th edition of my international travel book will come out soon, so I’ve heard more than my share of excuses on why people can’t or don’t travel.

In all fairness, some of the reasons are really legit. “I’m a convicted felon” is one that may give you some visa trouble. “I can’t leave the country until the custody case is settled” is reasonable. “I don’t really enjoy packing up and leaving home” was a response from a friend that I really didn’t have an answer to. Fair enough. We can’t assume everyone likes to travel.  And some people really can’t. There are not many travel agencies in Cuba or North Korea.

If you live in a free country and want to travel but don’t, however, the excuses you give are probably the same ones I’ve heard 100 times. Apparently these 71 other travel bloggers have heard the same ones too as their sample excuses and responses are amazingly consistent.

The b.s. travel excuses

1) I can’t afford it.

2) I don’t have the time.

3) I’m (scared about) not good at foreign languages

4) My family wouldn’t approve (I’m scared to leave my family).

Why these travel excuses are usually b.s.

1) Unless you’re in such poverty that you can barely afford groceries, you can afford to travel. Because if you choose the right places, it’s cheaper than being home. Try shopping less, buying fewer gadgets, brewing your own coffee—in other words, prioritizing. Do some basic research and you’ll find ways to couchsurf, get free flights, work abroad, and in general get by for far less than you’re getting by now. If you have a job you can do from anywhere, you’re just plain nuts to live out all your years in an expensive country anyway.

2) If you’ve been in your job a year at least and don’t have a couple weeks to travel, something is seriously wrong. If you’re self-employed, even worse. That’s called not taking the time; it’s not a lack of time. Nobody is so important in their position that they can’t take a couple weeks to travel unless they have “president” or “prime minister” next to their name. If you’re worried nobody will miss you if you leave and you’ll be easily replaced with another warm body, then you’re not making much of an impact when you’re there are you?

3) Based on my 20-odd years of travel, you can get by with English alone in about 90% of the places you’ll go on this planet as a tourist, with Spanish taking care of another 5 or 6%. So unless you’re going to visit rural China or some undiscovered tribal region, I think you’ll survive. If you’ll be somewhere more than a couple weeks, you can pick up some basics with minimal effort and a phrase book. Heck, these days you can even take a real-time translator on a smart phone, Star Trek style.

4) I’ve heard so many iterations of this sequence now it’s become a short story I could write in my sleep. Daughter (it’s usually a woman) announces to her family that’s she’s going backpacking for a month, for the summer, maybe even for a year. A family member (usually the mother) responds that it’s a horrible idea, that she’ll be raped or killed, that she’s abandoning the family. She forges on and goes anyway, sending them photos along the way about her fantastic time and telling them all the things she’s seen and learned. She returns home looking fit and radiant, she’s worldly-wise, and she’s exhibiting a new self-reliant streak that’s going to help her create success on her own terms in the future. Her parents can’t stop telling their friends about her wonderful adventure and they share her photos with everyone they know.

Of all the 71 responses on that long blog post, which admittedly get a bit redundant, I like this one from Benny at Fluentin3Months the best:

Usually people will latch on to what seems like a totally logical reason to not travel, such as lack of money, no time, unable to get off work, family responsibilities and so on. At times these are legitimate, but many times the true reason they are not following this passion is fear, and the reason they give you when you ask is founded in nothing but this fear.

They can repeat the mantra of “I have no money” all they like, ignoring stark evidence about how they should embrace minimalism and stop buying so much crap, or perhaps they think that learning a language is a rare genetic gift even though over half the population of the planet is multilingual. It’s time they stepped outside of their self-fulfilling prophecies.

Like most things in life, finding the time or money to travel is just like finding the time or money to do anything else worthwhile: buy a house, reach a sales goal, raise a child, get good at a sport, get in shape, learn a language, write a book, finish a painting, dance the tango, or build a fence. Make it a priority and it’ll probably happen. Put it no higher on your list than the latest slightly better gadget Apple is feeding you, then it probably won’t.

Do you want to travel this year or are you just saying it would be nice? Like winning the lottery would be nice?

If you’re not just fantasizing, stop dreaming and start finding ways to make it work. See all the excuses and answers here.