I love to travel. I want to visit every corner of the earth and experience every culture, but like so many other people, my budget is limited. Darn!
Before we departed on our last trip, we set a budget and a destination. Then came the planning stage, where I squeezed as much destination as I could out of my budget.
When travelling, there are several things on which one spends money, including transportation, accomodations, food, and recreation. Naturally, the first two are the big-ticket items, and present the greatest opportunities to save.
An example: a night at a five-star hotel can cost a thousand dollars or more. That translates into a month of nights at one of the hotels where we stayed in Mexico. Of course, the accommodations were not nearly as nice, but I don't travel to experience my hotel room. 
In fact, 99% of my time in the hotel is spent with my eyes closed, which means I can't see it. My major requirements of a hotel are that it be safe, have hot water, and a bed that does not leave me aching the next day. Almost everything else is negotiable.
Likewise, first-class airline tickets can cost a bundle. The difference between airfare and first-class bus tickets is enough to allow us to travel deep into Mexico, and stay for days. The personal cost is the time I spend sitting on a bus, from which I can enjoy the countryside. I can also take an evening bus, which does the double duty of a night's accommodation and transportation.
Restaurant food can be expensive, and I find restaurant fare tiresome very quickly. I'm happy eating strawberries and Mexican pastries for breakfast, and buying dinner from well-patronized street vendors whose clientele are local and whose food smells good.
These kinds of economies allowed us to stretch a weekend budget to cover about 10 days.
Where do you draw the line? What are you not willing to give up for the sake of going further or longer? What amenities are "must-haves" on your list?
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Comments: 15
My last vacation was to a small Mexican village. I rented a house for $300 for the month. The bathroom was out in the courtyard but DID have running water and a shower. Water in the kitchen was from a garden hose stuck through a hole in the wall. The "walls" that separated the rooms were sheets hung from the ceiling.
I'm going back this Fall!
In our $30/night hotel in Guanajuato, they ironed the sheets. They were smooth and very comfortable. The beds were just ok, nothing fabulous, not as nice as what I sleep on at home. But my purpose in renting the room was to have a place to sleep, bathe, and leave my suitcase during the day. The shower was UGLY. It was not unhealthy or dirty, but the tiles were chipped. The water was hot, and I could stand the ugliness for the all of 10 minutes I spent showering each day, if it meant an opportunity to experience Mexico.
but I still had to eat. The dollar had a good exchange rate so I was fine. I was there for 2 weeks and the trip included London, Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam.
This has been the way my husband and I have traveled even here in NJ were I live. I volunteered to our States DEPE and get too cruise on a research vessel doing fish counts and studies. The lodging for this is a private cabin and free food the entire 7 days we sail off the coast of NJ. I do not pay a dime for this experience. Sleeping in a ship docked under the brooklyn bridge or just off shore by the lighthouses was an awesome experience. ANd a bonus from these trips result in a cooler of fish to take home that the DEP let me keep, including lobster!!! ANd we can do this every other month if we choose to.
Maybe we should have been more ...I don't know...nice?