Travelling by backpack is one of the things I love doing the most. It is one of the most beautiful and powerful experience I have ever done. I believe that Backpacking is to go to meet the world and oneself. The main aspects of it are to discover new cultures, traditions, try to immerse yourself to the maximum and of course meet the locals.
Some people think that going abroad demands a huge budget, the answer is NO! There are many tricks to travel cheaper which will save you a lot of money through different travel tools. Here are some tricks that I know which have made my backpack trips much easier and way cheaper.
Travel Guides
Travel Guides
TripAdvisor
TripAdvisor is the world’s largest travel site. It is a great source to get travel information, reviews, opinions and photos about hotels, restaurants, attractions and things to do, all written by other travelers. Checking TripAdvisor before a trip is always useful, for accommodation and sightseeing tips, so you get detailed information about the places you’re going to.
Lonely Planet
Lonely Planet is the largest travel guide publisher in the world. These travel guides share expert advice, accommodation tips, mostly any info you need to know about the country you’re travelling to. Can be found in books and PDF-versions.
Guide du routard
A collection of touristic guides, the Guide du routard can be useful everywhere in the world.
Cheap Accommodations
Airbnb
Airbnb is an online marketplace that enables people to list, find, then rent vacation homes for a processing fee, to find comfortable furnished rooms, city flats, country houses… It’s often cheaper than hotels and it is worth the experience. You may feel as a local while being abroad.
Agoda
Agoda is a booking platform and a great website to book hotels all over the world. Prices can be surprisingly cheap, often gives discounts compared to other booking sites. You can find all types of hotels, with low budget accommodations.
Wimdu is another online marketplace that works well, it is also available worldwide.
Housetrip
Housetrip is a booking site, concentrated in Europe.
Homelidays
Homelidays is a French booking site, it puts in relation owners that rent their home or second residence. For the people looking for an authentic place, it is ideal.
Other French Booking Sites
Likibu
Likibu allows you to compare the offers with similar short-term hire services.
Hospitality Exchanges
Couchsurfing
Couchsurfing is a service that connects members to a global community of travelers. Use it to find a place to stay or share your home and hometown with travelers. It is a hospitality exchange and social networking website that provides a platform for members to “surf” for couches by staying as a guest at a host’s home. Couchsurfing is a remarkable way to travel for cheap, a social website that makes connecting travelers with free places to stay easier.
Trampolinn
A homestay community based on an innovative night swapping system. Trampolinn gives you the opportunity to stay for free. Awesome concept: You earn points by signing up, hosting people or inviting friends to join the website. When you go on a trip, you can use these points, comparable to virtual money and book yourself an accommodation to stay.
Trustroots
Trustroots was initially built with hitchhikers in mind but anyone is welcome to sign up even if they’ve never hitchhiked. Travelers community for sharing, hosting and getting people together. They encourage trust, adventure and intercultural connections.
Be Welcome
A hospitality exchange service that is run by a non-profit organization named Be Welcome, who offers free accommodation and help during travel.
Working Abroad
Stay du
Work exchange with locals. Stay du offers a variety of programs in exchange for food and accommodation and options to stay for money or free.
Workaway
An international organization that enables travelers willing to work as volunteers to contact hosts (who can be individuals, families or groups) wanting help with their projects or activities. With Workaway all you have to do is work for five hours, five days a week, on the task they give you and then you’ll get your bed and board for free.
WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms)
This organization basically invented the work exchange concept, with early incarnations of the organization dating back to the 1970s. As the name suggests, WWOOF is a database of organic farms and smallholdings owned by people who are willing to provide food and accommodation in exchange for 4-6 hours of volunteer work per day.
HelpX – Help Exchange
An online listing of host organic farms, non-organic farms, farm stays, homestays, ranches, lodges, B&Bs, backpackers hostels and even sailing boats who invite volunteer helpers to stay with them short-term in exchange for food and accommodation. HelpX is primarily provided as a cultural exchange for working holiday makers who would like the opportunity during their travels abroad, to stay with local people and gain practical experience.
Travel Insurances
Chapka Assurance
Subscribe to a travel insurance adapted to your stay abroad. Chapka Assurance has a large choices of insurances, they can bring a solution to each type of travels.
World Nomads
World Nomads is the World’s leading travel insurance for independent & adventurous travelers, it provides international travel insurance and travel safety services for people from more than 150 countries. Possibility to extend the insurance online while traveling. 24/7 phone assistance.
Entertainments
Couchsurfing
Couchsurfers organizes regular events in 200,000 cities around the world. There’s always something to do and new friends to meet.
MeetUp
MeetUp is the world’s largest network of local groups. Meetup makes it easy for anyone to organize a local group or find one of the thousands already meeting up.
Rainbow Gathering
Rainbow Gatherings are temporary loosely knit communities of people who congregate annually in remote forests around the world for one or more weeks at a time to enact a supposedly shared ideology of peace, harmony, freedom, and respect. Anyone is allowed to attend.
Random Tips
Travel Buddies
Travel Buddies helps you finding a travel buddy for those days you don’t want to travel solo.
NOMADS
NOMADS is an online community for sharing ideas & information on shoestring budget traveling. – Facebook Group
CheckMyTrip
CheckMyTrip makes travel easy. Manage all your trip details simply and on the go from one single source, anytime, anywhere.
Warm Showers
The Warm Showers community, offers hospitality towards other touring cyclists throughout the world. If you are travelling by bike in different countries, this is your website.
G Adventures
A group adventure travel company with a large selection of affordable small group tours, safaris and polar expeditions. G Adventures offers authentic accommodation and local transportation to bring you to the world’s most fascinating cultures, customs and awe-inspiring wildlife.
Nomad List
Nomad List finds you the best places in the world to live and work remotely. A guide to the best cities for digital nomads and perpetual travelers. The best cities for digital nomads to live and work remotely.
Hairstyles VIP 10 March 2022
Valuable info. Lucky me I found your site by accident, and I’m shocked why this accident did not happened earlier! I bookmarked it.