(upbeat music) - I'm gonna just start off asking what you think the biggest misconception people have about travel is. - I mean, I think the obvious answer, at least to me, is that people think it's expensive. I think less so now because so much is on social media and there's so many blogs and it's talked about.

But I still think the vast majority of people will say, well, they don't really have time to travel. But if you did, there's always time, but then they're like, oh, I just can't afford it. Because people think, oh, plane tickets are expensive, hotels, Airbnb, they just, they see all these commercials and this glamorized version of travel on social media and they just think, well, that's pricey.

Travel is a luxury item, right? It's not a must-have thing. It's something you do to relax, to take a break. And so there's this perception that this is expensive when it doesn't have to be because you always can go over to wherever you're going and just do the local things and the local things cost a non-touristy price.

And so I think if you ask people like, well, how much do you spend in your own life? People have these very way off estimates. They usually have like a low, like they're on the lower end. But if you get people to record all their expenses, even like, oh, I bought a water bottle, that's a couple bucks, right?

Yeah, but you don't think of it. People actually spend a lot more than they think they do. And then when you balance that versus the price of travel, it's oftentimes cheaper. - Yeah, I mean, I live in the Bay Area. So anywhere in the world I would go has to be probably cheaper except maybe Tokyo or a few cities.

So life other places is cheaper. And I experienced this actually, it was probably almost 15 years ago. We traveled for eight months and we rented our place out at home. And we broke even or even kind of came out slightly ahead because it turns out we were spending more to live in the Bay Area than we were spending to travel.

But I wanna get into some of those costs, some of the ways you save money, some of the tactics you have. But I kind of wanna get started and just ask how travel has changed for you. I know you have been in this industry for longer than many. And by industry, I mean writing and sharing your travels online.

You wrote a memoir about what you've learned after being a nomad for a decade. How have things evolved for you personally and in the industry? - Yeah, I started this when I was 25. I started traveling the world. So I'm 42 this year. And so obviously my days of cheap meals and 12 bed hostel dorms is long gone.

I like nice food. I, since I work when I travel, having a place to work is really important. Having, getting a lot of good sleep is important. So I tend to get my own room, hotels. I take a lot more paid walking tours or food tours. And so for me, the biggest thing is that my accommodation is a lot nicer.

I take more paid activities. Whereas when I was 25, it was all about the free stuff, the hostel dorms, cooking your own meals. I still consider myself a backpacker, a budget traveler. You know, I take public transportation. I love street food. I still do parks and local things and go to the markets and all that jazz.

I'm not a resort guy. I don't really do luxury. I mean, it's nice, but it feels hard isolating to me. So that's the biggest thing that's for me has changed. It's sort of probably the nicer days. And then how has travel changed? I think travel has become a lot more accessible than when I started traveling.

Both the ability to do it and the ability to find information. You know, when I started traveling, the internet was just sort of taking off as a means of like finding information in the sense that you had like forums and like blogs and all these places you can go to ask questions about where do I find this hostel?

How do I do this thing? And so I was still primarily using guidebooks as well as just asking around. But between social media and the advent of so many blogs, there's nothing you can't learn with a quick Google search, right? There's no hidden restaurant, there's no hidden town. Like, oh, have you been?

Yeah, there are places that are more well-known than anywhere else, but there's no place that's unknown in the age of the internet. Somebody has been there and they posted an Instagram from there. No matter like what little town it is, no matter where it is. And so that is really great because it demystifies a lot of the travel experience.

It allows people to become more comfortable with going, right? It's not so much of like you're going into the unknown. It's like, oh, okay, I've heard of this place, I've heard of this thing, so maybe I'll go there. Even if you're like so scared 'cause you're going to a place you've never been, it's no longer like this like fog out there.

- Yeah. - And then the advent of all these budget airlines and everything has made it just a lot cheaper for people to travel. - Yeah, I mean, sometimes one of the ways that I get inspiration is I'll just search on YouTube and it's okay, well, what's this place like?

It's like, here's a video of a person walking down the street and you can get a really visceral feeling for what it's like to be there. And I remember when we first went to South and East Africa, I had this one brat travel guide that was from 1998 because it was like the only one that was, we were traveling for long enough that I couldn't bring a book for each country.

So I was like, this was the one. It's like, you don't get a lot of feeling about what you're about to embark on there. It was more of a directory. - Yeah, guidebooks, even in the best of times are usually a year and a half behind what's going on.

- Yep. - I never have used guidebooks as a price guide, just more of a rough guide. - Yes, yeah, yeah. I think they're great about here's the part of town to look for, here's some ideas of how transportation works. But I'm curious, you said now that you've kind of gotten older, have done this a while, your digs have gone up, you wrote the book, people have referenced it in many ways about being like the guide for backpacking about traveling the world on $50 a day.

Do you think that still holds both in today's world, inflation pandemic and as people age and wanna experience travel, not in a hostel with 12 beds? - Yes and no. I mean, that book is never about the number. A lot of people would get caught up on that, like, oh, 50 bucks, good luck doing your way on 50 bucks.

I mean, you're traveling the world on $50 a day. So it's a daily average. Some places, totally, especially post COVID, strong dollar, India is still very cheap. Parts of Central America, Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, still very cheap. But your average place for a hostel in Western Europe is probably 30 euros now a night.

So it's very rare to see door beds, 10 euros, 15 euros. They're still out there, but they're harder to find and they're less common. And the beds are probably gonna be like 20 beds. So if I, and I am going to redo this book probably for a post COVID, post inflation world, I'd probably up it to like a 65, $70 a day average.

If you're doing the quintessential round the world trip, you know, go to Europe, Southeast Asia, Australia, New Zealand, South and Central America. Yeah, and if you're coming from the US, that's going to be even better because the US dollar is so strong right now. Will that stay? Who knows?

When I planned my original trip around the world, I remember it was one US dollar got you $1.30 Australian. So that's what my budget was based off of. And by the time I got there, it was one-to-one. So I lost 30% of my budget because of that. So like I had to readjust everything.

So, you know, I mean, it's less about the number and more about the style, like the tips, the tricks. If you're just looking for ways to travel cheap, forget about the number, just use the strategies in the book. - Okay, so let's talk about some of those strategies 'cause I liked how you actually broke it down.

It wasn't just, there are a bunch of strategies, go have a great trip. It's here's what you specifically need to know. So how would you walk someone through the high level of planning a trip like this with the goal to do it on a budget? What are the kind of key strategies you think people need to follow?

- I think the biggest thing for people is one, travel slow. The more you can sort of spread out your costs, the better it will be. If you're moving around a lot, you're gonna have high transportation costs and that really can eat into a lot of people's budgets. But the big thing is just really being flexible because if you can wait for that deal to come, then you're not tied into like, I have to get this flight on this day to this destination.

And so one of the benefits of long-term travel is that you're in no rush to do anything. You can wait for that flight deal, that hotel deal, or you can find a flight deal or a hotel deal and be like, that's where we're going next because that's where it's cheapest.

And so big picture, always be flexible. Second big picture thing is to travel like you live. You in your daily life, cook food, you don't eat expensive food all the time, restaurants, you look for free activities, you take public transportation, you go for walks. Do the same when you're traveling.

If you really wanna get a taste of local life, go to the local farmer's market, go take the train or the bus, go for a walk, sit in a park. Travel doesn't always have to be about doing things. It can be more about just existing in a place and soaking up the vibe.

And so if you travel like you live, you're gonna end up doing all the things that locals do because what people do in Berlin isn't different than what people do in the Bay Area or Austin. Everyone gets up and goes to work and takes the train and goes grocery shopping and lives their day-to-day life and then walks.

Maybe it's just by the river, they do something, sit in the park.