Crumbling structures fall,
becoming the sandy shores
for our grandchildren
haiku photo project – follow along! 🙂
Haiku 20: Cove
Haiku 17: secret cove
To the right, freedom.
While seemingly out of reach,
one can surely strive.
Haiku 3: Boat
floating just offshore
keeping within our limits
being in control
This is part of a photo project – 30 days of Haikus. Follow along and share your thoughts below 🙂
How to travel Western Europe for $30 / day
We’ve been taught to love the idea of traveling while believing it needs to wait until retirement – until we’ve contributed our share of time to the workforce, and until we’ve saved enough money to do it securely. I disagree with this approach, because we put such a strong emphasis on money when it is such a minute part of actually experiencing the world. During my 90 day trek through 7 countries in Western Europe with my best friend out of college, we spent less than $30 per day, each.
Here is how we cut corners:
1. We camped often, in the outskirts of vineyards, the sides of roads, near train stations, in a dog park, on the beach. When we didn’t camp, we found people to host us through CouchSurfing – a global, free network of like-minded individuals committed to making the world more accessible through sharing. In the rare chance we either didn’t feel safe camping or couldn’t find someone able to take us in, we would stay in hostels.
2. We ate erratically: This is where the $1,000 discrepancy between our spending habits happened — I chose to experience places through stuffing myself with local foods and am a sucker for desserts, while Brenna could eat bread, Nutella and a block of cheese for an entire week straight. Along the way, we received food from strangers – restaurants, gas stations and random passers-by. The best night of my life to this day was when a fancy restaurant owner allowed us to sleep in his lawn (we were lured in by the lushness of the grass, and actually approached him). This turned into a night of feasting on true Italian fare, house wine made on site, and many stories shared.
3. We didn’t have a set agenda:Â By keeping vague plans, we were able to decide on a whim if we wanted to stay somewhere for a few more nights, or continue riding in a car with someone for a longer distance than expected. We saved hundreds on lodging by timing the trip based on good sleeping situations. In Barcelona, for example, we made an agreement with a hostel that we’d clean for a couple hours per day for free lodging. They ended up putting us in a brand new, immaculate hostel to help with making the beds. We ended up staying for at least a week (a city we were planning to stay in for 3 or so days).
4. We hitchhiked nearly everywhere: This is where the magic happened – where random acts of kindness were so common we began to realize they weren’t random at all. Two trucker brothers in Spain took us from Valencia to Barcelona, and when we arrived in the middle of the night, they gave us a place to sleep in one of the cars they were towing on their trailer. One woman, her dog and her child were heading on vacation in Italy — the car completely full — and they pulled over for three of us, insisting we could fit in a car the size of a Honda Fit. We did. Right before crossing the English channel by Ferry in Dunkerque, we were told we couldn’t walk onto the boat — that we had to be in a vehicle. Without asking anyone, we were approached by two people who had an RV, who said they’d take us over – they bought us a meal, and in Dover, they ensured we had a place to stay — and even negotiated on behalf of us for a low rate at a B&B. When we were caught soaked head to toe in a downpour in Western Ireland, an elderly woman pulled over and offered us a ride, despite our drenched states of existence. Pure magic, all of it.
If you have a drive to see the world, save a little. Take out a loan in college – the interest is never going to be lower than the interest on student loans. It is possible to experience the world around us without inheriting a small fortune, or driving ourselves into bankruptcy. We just have to do it, and we can, for less than $30 / day.
What are some of your creative shoestring travel ideas?
5 reasons you should hitchhike
Summer of 2012 was no less than awesome. My friend and I gallivanted freely throughout much of Western Europe with little money, enough food and supplies to stuff into 1.5 backpacks, and ambition to see and experience as much as possible before running the bank accounts dry. We cut costs significantly by tent camping anywhere we could, hitchhiking and walking often. Often, most people balk at the idea of hitchhiking, so I’d like to make a case for it:
1. Drivers are just as scared of Hitchhikers, but even the skeptics will pull through.Â
In Northern Italy, a man picked three of us up, and drove us into rural somewhere. In the car, we discussed why he chose to pick us up, and uncovered that he thought it was very likely we were going to mug him and take his car, and that he would be left with nothing. He still picked us up, and all parties involved were safe 🙂
2. You may get to listen to Muse, riding through the Alps at 120 miles per hour in a Land Rover
3. What? A ride in a Maserati?
4. You will be fed.
There were dozens (literally, dozens) of different people who randomly gave us food along the way. While we never asked for it, the outpouring of support from total strangers happened nearly every day. We’re talking loaves of bread, free pizzas, fruit, entire dinners, the works. As if giving free rides wasn’t enough!
5. You will be clothed.
Out of the 100+ rides we hitched during the summer, one was a precarious story. This goes to show, you have better odds of getting bitten by a shark than getting attacked by someone accepting your hitch. AND, it’s a free way to experience places 🙂
Deeply Rooted Soul 