How To Travel the World on 50 Dollars a Day

191 Pages·2016·0.9 MB·English

by  Kepnes Matt.

PRAISE FOR
How to Travel the World on $50 a Day
“Whether you’re a savvy backpacker or just dreaming of getting a passport and
going overseas, Matt’s collection of easy-to-employ money-saving strategies will
open your eyes to the near-infinite ways of seeing the world without busting
your budget.”
—Matt Gross, former New York Times Frugal Traveler
“If you’ve longed to travel the world but figured it was just an unattainable
pipe dream, take that pipe out of your mouth and read this book. Matt Kepnes
does the math and shows you how to make this dream a reality, from how to
save for an extended trip, which credit card to get, and how to handle banking
on the road to a breakdown of how to save on accommodations,
transportation, food, and activities. Matt proves that for most Americans,
traveling is cheaper than staying home.”
—Marilyn Terrell, National Geographic Traveler
“A celeb in the travel blogging world, Matt is your go-to guy for all things
budget backpacker. This book is an awesome resource for any traveler looking
to maximize their adventures without maxing out their credit cards.”
—Julia Dimon, travel writer, Outside Television
“There are very few people in the world who have gathered as much firsthand
knowledge about long-term world travel as Nomadic Matt. This book will guide
you from the first exclamation of ‘I’m going traveling!’ through the planning,
takeoff, and navigation. Filled with insider strategies and resources, it’s a
valuable primer for your upcoming adventures.”
—Tim Leffel, author of The World’s Cheapest Destinations
How to
Travel the World
on $50 a Day
TRAVEL CHEAPER, LONGER, SMARTER
Matt Kepnes
A Perigee Book
A PERIGEE BOOK
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses, and other contact information
at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any responsibility for errors, or for changes that occur after
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Copyright © 2013 by Matthew Kepnes
All rights reserved.
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First edition: February 2013
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Kepnes, Matt.
How to travel the world on $50 a day : travel cheaper, longer, smarter / Matt Kepnes.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-101-61935-3
1. Tourism. I. Title. II. Title: How to travel the world on fifty dollars a day.
G155 .A1K44 2013
910.2'02—dc23 2012039979

Most Perigee books are available at special quantity discounts for bulk purchases for sales promotions, premiums, fund-raising, or
educational use. Special books, or book excerpts, can also be created to fit specific needs. For details, write: Special Markets,
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
To all the people I’ve met on the road—
you changed my life in ways you’ll never know.
Contents
Praise
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Introduction

PART ONE
PLANNING YOUR TRIP
1: Getting Over Your Fears
2: Is Travel Really Too Expensive?
3: Banking Overseas
4: Getting the Right Credit Card
5: Airline Tickets
6: Buying a Backpack
7: Travel Insurance
8: Get a Travel Discount Card
9: What to Do with Your Stuff

PART TWO
ON-THE-ROAD EXPENSES
10: The Savings Mind-Set
11: Tips for Saving Money on Accommodations
12: Tips for Saving Money on Food and Beverages
13: Tips for Saving Money on Transportation
14: Tips for Saving Money on Activities

PART THREE
BREAKING IT DOWN BY REGION
15: Europe
16: Australia
17: New Zealand
18: Southeast Asia
19: Central America
20: South America

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
APPENDIX A: TRAVEL COMPANIES
APPENDIX B: SUGGESTED PACKING LIST
APPENDIX C: VACCINATIONS

About the author
INTRODUCTION
We are led to believe travel is too expensive to do long term. Fancy tours,
hotels, five-star meals, and budget-blowing flights are supposedly what travel
is all about. The travel industry keeps this image alive with advertisements in
magazines, on TV, and on the Internet. These advertisements always have the
uncanny knack of showing a luxurious holiday in some far-off destination where
we can go to get away from the stress of our day-to-day life . . . if only we
pony up the money.
Everyone I know wants to travel more. Many of the people I encounter in
life dream of wasting their days in paradise sitting on a beach as the breeze
cools their face and the beer quenches their thirst. Yet when people travel,
they always seem to head out on a short vacation because, even if they have
the time, they think it would be too expensive to go longer. We internalize
those travel commercials so much we never consider the possibility that travel
could be affordable.
Experience has shown me the opposite is true. It has shown me that travel
can be done cheaply without sacrificing comfort. Actually traveling showed me
that everything I knew about traveling was wrong.
But that realization didn’t happen overnight.
Back in 2003, I was planning my first trip overseas. I had just graduated
from college and was working as a hospital administrator. I was putting in
forty-plus-hour weeks and looking forward to my precious two weeks per year
vacation. I booked a trip to Costa Rica and spent two weeks falling in love with
travel. I loved the sense of adventure. I loved how every day held something
new. I loved the feeling of endless possibility each day brought, which was in
stark contrast to my well-planned-out days in the office. The next year, I used
my limited vacation days in January simply because I couldn’t wait to get
somewhere else again. Costa Rica had given me the travel bug, and when
2004 rolled around, I left right away.
And that’s when my life changed.
In January 2004, my friend Scott and I ventured to Thailand. While we were
in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, I left him for a day to visit a temple
outside the city. I shared a Tuk Tuk (the name for inexpensive shared taxis in
Asia) with five non-American backpackers. On the ride we began discussing
vacation time, and they were amazed that as an American, I only got two
weeks of vacation per year. They all received at least a month in their home
countries.
I was extremely jealous. I wanted that much time off to explore the world.
Our whole conversation made me rethink my life. It was heading down a road
that I realized I wasn’t ready for—marriage, house, kids, 401(k)s, playdates,
and college funds. While those things aren’t bad, at twenty-three, those
weren’t the things I wanted right now. I wanted to travel.
A few days later, while lying on a beach in southern Thailand, I turned to
my friend Scott and said, “I’m going to quit my job and travel the world.” I
knew the second I told Scott that I was making the right decision. I didn’t
want to go back to working sixty hours a week at twenty-three. I had my whole
life to do that.
I came home, quit my job, finished my MBA, and, in July 2006, hugged my
parents good-bye and left for the open road. I used the money I had saved
and invested from working in my hospital job to fund my initial trip. I had
$20,000 to last me for a year.
It was supposed to be a one-year trip. It turned into eighteen months, and
then eighteen months suddenly became six years.
There was a lot I didn’t know back then. I made rookie mistakes I look back
and laugh at now. But the more I traveled, the more I found ways to save
money without sacrificing comfort. I’m here to share that knowledge with you
because what I have learned over the years is that the greatest lie ever told is
that travel is expensive.
I’m writing this book to dispel the myth that travel is expensive. I’ll show
you how to travel the world for $50 USD a day or less. I’m here to tell you that
you don’t need to tap a trust fund, have your parents pay for you, or win the
lottery to travel. Anyone can travel cheaply and comfortably if that person
knows the secrets to saving money on the road.
When I returned home in 2008, I started my blog, Nomadic Matt
(www.nomadicmatt.com), and began spreading the word that travel could be
affordable. Within months of going home, I was back out on the road (and I’m
still on the move!).
But blogging has its limits. You can’t write a sixty-thousand-word blog post.
This book allows me to go deeper into the subject of travel and create a
planning guide that can’t be done on my blog.
Not everything I tell you in this book is a secret. I didn’t need to join a
special club to learn these things. I didn’t take a course. Experience on the