8 ways to keep travelling with a low budget

Wandering the world for a long period of time, usually more than a year, doesn’t necessarily mean having a lot of money. During our trips, we often get asked what was our initial budget before putting our backpacks on. Now obviously, if you’re planning to travel for over a year you must have had some huge savings in the bank, right? Well to tell you the truth, not really.

For examples, for our 2-year trip around Latin America we left home with a one-way ticket to La Habana and 5000 euros in total. That doesn’t sound like a lot of money to us!

Funnily enough, even if you travel on a low backpacker budget, enjoying long trips around the globe is perfectly feasible. From giving flyers out on a beach in Costa Rica to help building a community of Ex-pats in the forest of Belize, we’ve been through a lot. Sometimes it could be about gaining some extra money, other times just to avoid spending it and the rest a bit of both. There’s no limit to what you can find fit for who you are and what you can do on the spot. Just use your creativity!

Here’s a list of things you can do while traveling to make the most of your shoestring budget and extend your trip as much as possible.

1. Photography

A decent camera and a good lens will actively make you save money. Now, finding photographer jobs on-the-go can be hard (although we were lucky enough to have a couple) because nobody will get the time to know you if you don’t stay at least a couple of months in a place. Nevertheless, a simple way to save is to use AirBnB. Apart from being a great platform for booking accommodation, it is among the few that let you directly contact with the home-owner. And many home-owners like to have new photos for their listing on AirBnB because (1) they don’t have a good enough camera, (B) don’t have time for it and (C) don’t want to pay anyone for it.

Possibly everywhere we went, we always asked AirBnB hosts whether they were willing to exchange a shooting of their house/apartment/room (Max used to work as an interior & exterior photographer) for a discounted price or even a free stay at their property for 3-7 days. We’re happy to say that about 95% of the hosts gave us a better price on the bat and at least 80% practically gave us accommodation for nothing. Should you be lucky like us, if the host loves your photos she/he might even ask you to do some additional paid work in some other properties he owns.

Option to save money: Great
Option to gain money: Good

2. Web/Digital design

Nowadays, having some basic knowledge of programs such as Photoshop and WordPress/Wix can get you a long way. Even though in most countries there’s an over-saturation of digital designers and web builders, in lots of other countries this is not the case. In our case, we managed to not only avoid spending money but also to actually get paid for our services in some occasions. Likewise to photography, the AirBnB option works perfectly but even going door-to-door, especially in hostels or newly opened hotels, does the job. Don’t be scared of asking, even sending emails before you get somewhere, worst of worst you’re not gonna get a reply.

Remember that you’ll always have to value your work in context of the country you’re in. Forget the rates you used to charge back home, just adapt them to how convenient the situation is to you and the shape of the country’s economy you’re in. In Costa Rica we could charge 100-150$ for designing a menu whereas in Nicaragua the same job wasn’t going at more than 30$. Just think it through, sometimes its worth the hassle some other times it’s not. For us, it was much easier to exchange this type of work for accommodation rather than being paid for it.

Option to save money: Good
Option to gain money: Rare

3. Volunteering

With recent online platforms like Workaway, Wwoof or HelpX, having the chance to take a break from your traveling and volunteer for a short/long while has become available. As you might know, most hosts will offer you free accommodation, some food and sometimes some other benefits in exchange for an average of 25 hours of work on a week basis. This is definitely one of the best ways to save a lot of money. That said, most of the hosts ask for a minimum period of time (usually at least 2-3 weeks) to volunteer so if you’re a fast traveller this might not be the route for you.

The other good thing about these volunteering programs is that you get to meet a lot of people and create a small network. Many times during Workaways we were asked if we could do some designing/photography job for a friend of the host for which we were going to be paid for. The more people you know, the bigger your chances to find little side jobs! Also, lets not forget that if you stay long enough (2-3 months) some hosts might even decide to start offering you a paid position if you opt for a longer stay. Again it happened to us a few times!

Option to save money: Great
Option to gain money: Rare

Our chart for activities that can save you money while travelling

4. Seasonal jobs

As obvious as it can be, finding a seasonal job (3-6 months) with a fixed salary is a great way to gain money while being abroad. This is not really an option if you plan traveling for little time but for those looking at longer trips, settling down for a bit and working can be a great combo. Finding jobs such as waitering, bartending, language teacher and instructor (yoga and diving mostly) it really isn’t a hard task.

Usually employers seek foreigners to undertake these jobs because they tend to speak more languages and be more professional than local people (not always the latter though!). For this reason, even if you don’t have a working permit by the country, pretty much all employers will pay you “under the table” without saying a word. In our experience, make sure to make this kind of work in a wealthy country where you would have the chance to save money to keep traveling and not just survive. Sometimes, instead of having a huge salary, employers would offer you accommodation and food in the deal on top of a small salary.

Option to save money: Great
Option to gain money: Great

5. Bargaining

Overlooked and scaring at the eyes of many, bargaining is possibly the most reliable way to actively save money without putting in much extra work. Whenever you start exploring a new country, in the first few days you’re around you can already tell to what extent bargaining is present in the culture of the country. In places like Morocco or India everything can be negotiated, be it food, accommodation, tours, transport, buying souvenirs etc… but maybe trying to bargain a room in Finland won’t get you far.

That said, the key factor for saving some money is always to ask. In the worst case scenario you’ll be told no and nothing will change but in the best case scenario, you’ll have the same service at a lower price! And against what most people might tell you, even in countries where this practice is unthinkable, there’s often room for bargaining.

Option to save money: Great
Option to gain money: /

6. Organizing your expenses

Keeping track of your daily expenditure might seem a time-wasting and boring activity after a while but it can be a blessing in terms of money saving. Usually, it doesn’t take you longer than a day to figure – more or less – if a certain country is expensive or cheap compared to the budget you had in mind. After that, is crucial for you to understand what’s an average amount of money you can spend daily on certain basic traveling needs like food, accommodation and transport. We suggest keeping a nice spreadsheet either on your phone or pc to make this easier!

To give you an example, in the week preceding our Latin America trip and only after a good country by country research, we set our daily budget to be an average of 50€/day for the both of us. You’d be glad to hear that in only very few countries we actually went over that but at least we had our mark set! Once you know what you want to spend on a daily basis, you know whether those additional beers/drinks can fit into your budget plan.

Option to save money: Good
Option to gain money: /

7. Hitchiking

Paying for transport is often hard hit for everyone’s budget. Buses, boats, taxis, ubers and especially planes can take a big chunk of your budget away and make your trip a little shorter in terms of money. Then, why not giving a shot at hitchiking? Around the world, there are plenty of countries (e.g. Argentina, United States, Europe) where hitchiking is pretty common and safe to do. Sometimes it can be very time-consuming cause you never know when you’ll get a ride but surely it’s also very rewarding to know you’re moving around for free.

Make sure to consider that hitchiking is not always cheaper than transport cause sometimes you might be stuck without a ride in a place where accommodation is expensive. Then again, everything changes if you travel with your own camping equipment and can simply set up base anywhere you want anytime. Either way, whether you do it for a short or long ride, hitchiking is a good way to save money if you have the time for it.

Option to save money: Good
Option to gain money: /

Our chart for activities from which you can gain money while travelling

8. Couchsurfing

Similarly to hitchiking but with accomodation instead of transport, Couchsurfing is an amazing way to meet new people, get to know local spot and save on accommodation altogether. On the online platform you can list yourself as a guest and just access to the very extensive network of people offering anything from private rooms to sofas all over the world. Even though the process for couchsurfing is not always 100% effective, chances are you’ll save money using it.

The great thing about couchsuring is that you also get to share crazy interesting moments with your guests. A tasty dinner, a couple of drinks, a free city sightseeing tour, a drive to a local spot and much more of the things that will come along with you being a guest/host. If you like meeting new people and sharing experiences, this is definitely the way to go. No doubts about it!