Enjoy Local Culture for a Cheap and Memorable Trip
Posted on | December 29, 2009 | 9 Comments
Enjoying local culture means living and eating like a local while traveling. This can be done on a low budget whilst giving you many wonderful memories. If you can stay away from popular tourist spots and get off the beaten track with your destinations your cultural experiences will be richer and mostly cheaper.
What better way to immerse yourself in the local culture than by visiting the local markets? Not only will you get to see and try the local cuisine, but you’ll probably save a lot of money. Eating in restaurants, especially those geared towards the tourist trade, can get very expensive. Try buying your food fresh from the markets and preparing it yourself. Or buy already prepared food from the market vendor. For more inexpensive, culturally authentic food ideas, discover where the locals eat. The food will taste better and you will more likely be eating exactly as the natives do.
If you are prepared to live like a local when traveling you will find many more opportunities to save money. What about staying with a local family? A number of places rent out rooms to travelers. These are usually quite cheap, (you usually need to bargain down a price) and you will get to experience living life as a local. Your hosts could prove excellent guides to many unknown tourist delights, places you won’t find on a package tour. You could also arrange to house-sit or house swap as another way to enjoy the local culture at a fraction of the price.
But what about traveling locally, around your own city? You can do this on the cheap and enjoy what cultural wonders are in your own backyard. Once you take out the heavy cost of air faire, your travels costs come down markedly.
How long is it since you’ve been to the local theatre or museum? When was the last time you packed a picnic and went exploring in your National Park? Most places have hikes and bushwalks or scenic drives to be enjoyed for free. Is there a local art fair or festival happening nearby? Have you got the Entertainment book vouchers for your area? There are many savings to be found in these booklets around your local area.
Going traveling and broadening your cultural experiences doesn’t have to mean leaving the shores of your country. Check out the community papers, surf the Internet and find out what’s happening in your neck of the woods. It could be very enlightening and culturally surprising, not to mention a whole lot cheaper.
This article is brought to you by: Stuart S. Travel – Your Online Travel Guru
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9 Responses to “Enjoy Local Culture for a Cheap and Memorable Trip”
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December 29th, 2009 @ 11:26 am
From where? Greatly affects how I would answer your question. Please edit your question to add this key detail; I'll check back later.
December 29th, 2009 @ 12:00 pm
1. Encashing frequent flyer miles is one of my favorite methods to get discount air tickets on subsequent purchases.
2. Online travel services like Orbitz, Travelocity and BookingBuddy allow customers to choose selected flights whenever deeper discounts become available. Other services such as Priceline may allow customers to bid for lower price airline tickets, but they can also require immediate purchase of those tickets or a much more flexible schedule.
3. If you belong to an auto club, or to Sam’s Club or Costco, it is helpful to compare rates there too. Companies like AAA or Costco sometimes offer the best prices for plane tickets online or offline.
4. A travel agency is a time-tested source for discount air tickets. Here the agent can negotiate a package deal to lower the price of airline tickets as long as a specific hotel or car rental is booked.
5. A major airline sometimes uses discounts to encourage the use of its low-price commuter service. Occasionally airlines compete for business through 'fare wars', which may lower the price of tickets by as much as 40%.
The key is to look out for those little-known ways you can travel for cheap without having to forgo the 'luxuries'.
December 29th, 2009 @ 12:06 pm
December 30th, 2009 @ 6:36 am
You don't really have much of a choice for domestic air travel in Vietnam, either Pacific Airlines or Vietnam Airlines are your best (and only) options. Air Asia, a large budget airline in Asia is planning on beginning domestic service in the future, but it's still a ways off, but that should help to bring down the costs and provide more options, but for now there isn't much of a choice. You can check online, but is easily arranged once you get to Saigon.
December 30th, 2009 @ 8:29 am
For the purposes of buying airline tickets, those kids are considered adults. You did not indicate your origin or destination city but check the following sites:
southwest.com
jetblue.com
orbitz.com
kayak.com
December 30th, 2009 @ 7:37 pm
cheaptickets.com…. travelocity.com…. expedia.com..the old standby, priceline.com
CAREFUL… cheap means no changes or you pay huge fees to adjust your travel days! Make real sure the schedule you're buying is one you can actually use…
January 1st, 2010 @ 5:25 am
Try Expedia.com . I fly to Europe several times a year and they usually have the lowest prices when I'm looking. Other things you can do to get a lower price…try to fly between Tuesday and Thursday. Weekends are higher. Avoid traveling near a major holiday, if possible. Search for tickets at any time of day if you can be flexible. Certain times of day are more expensive than others. Are you heading to a particular city in Europe or just anywhere cheap? London often has very good flight prices but it's expensive once you get there. There are some budget carriers in Europe that you might be able to use if you are planning to travel around after you arrive. Check out http://www.ryanair.com , http://www.easyjet.com and http://www.bmibaby.com These might allow you to fly to whatever European city you find good fares to and then cheaply move to another location. It's often cheaper that way than booking a US carrier into a less-traveled destination.
January 1st, 2010 @ 6:56 am
Priceline.com is the best!!!!
January 1st, 2010 @ 12:37 pm
I have found that the cheapest way is generally by check the airlines page or hotel page, and yahoo travel seem to be the cheapest.