1. Keep in Touch with Family and Friends
Keeping in touch with family and friends back home keeps you connected and helps those who love you to connect with your travel experience. Communication can be expensive if you rely on phone calls and paid texting services. When planning your travel budget, include a simple smart phone in your purchases. ‘Simple’ because you do not want to appear ostentatious in a strange economy, but a ‘smart phone’ so you can take advantage of all the freebies available online.
2. Use Freebies Available Online
A social media site like Facebook or Pinterest helps you quickly upload your experience on the go right from your phone. Make use of other free online services such as Skype, WhatsUp, and other texting facilities on social sites like Facebook to keep in touch. You may also put up a quick travel blog to share your experiences. This will be a fun way to spend your time in between flights and travel schedules and will serve to keep everyone with you.
3. Use Home Stay Options Where Possible
In tourist heavy nations such as Kenya, staying in a hotel is extremely expensive compared to staying with a host family. There are other incredible benefits of staying with a host family in Kenya or in any other country you will visit. First, you get a real picture of the country, the culture and the lifestyle. Hotels are mainly created to make your experience as close to what you are used to and often that is very far from what is really the lifestyle of the locals.
Second, your accommodation expenses go directly into supporting a local family. Third, you get a real feel of the development projects you can get involved in at local level. In all, staying with a local host family will give you a far richer experience while being very friendly on your pocket.
Avoid hotel stays as best you can. Out of all your options, staying at a hotel will cost you the most by far, and presents you with a lot more tempting spending situations such as room service, internet, entertainment, and other services.
4. Find Non-Paying Tourist Sites Locally
Very closely related with the last option is your experience as an explorer. You can take advantage of numerous sites that do not attract tourist entry and viewing fees when locals take you along. This type of visiting will also give you a chance to get the real feel of the nation. Seeing most sites in any nation does not have to break the bank vault.
5. Plan Your Trip Early and Enjoy Early Booking Discounts
Air travel will eventually be your single most costly item when you travel. You therefore want to save on this as much as possible. Spare yourself cash by checking out discounted flights. The best way to get these reduced fares is to plan and pay for your travels early. A month to two weeks in advance will give you as much as a 30% discount on many airline routes.
6. Stay Away From Obviously Touristic Attractions
If you are travelling to a nation where the colour of the residents is significantly different from yours, this is easy to identify. For instance, if travelling to Kenya, any facility that is predominantly patronized by whites will be almost three to four times costlier than the same service provided for locals. This will be true in almost all nations that attract tourists. The more a facility is created for tourists, the higher you will pay. Enjoy the real country, hang out with the locals.7. Keep Your Shopping to Basics
Unless you intend to settle in a country, you should plan to keep your purchases to the basics that you need to stay comfortable during your stay. Buying such items as travel bags, clothes, cutlery, and other household utensils will most often expose you to ‘tourist prices’. Most of your hosts will have the basic items you need to stay comfortable. If you do need other items that are not provided, then ask your host to help you make the purchases. As much as possible do not hit the streets for major purchases alone. For grocery shopping, keep to the larger supermarket chains. Their prices do not change with the clientele.
8. Keep As Little Cash On You as Possible
When travelling to a nation with a lower currency exchange rate, always keep as little cash on you as possible. Find out from your local host or from your travel agent what payment options exist in the country. In Kenya for example, you can pay for most purchased with mobile cash. Carrying cash exposes you to greater risk of petty crime including pick pocketing and bag snatching. If you are visiting Kenya here are basic payment rules to observe to stay safe.
9. Eating Well and on a Budget
Hygiene should always be the top on your eating considerations when travelling to a foreign country. The key reason is that nationals may have developed a much higher resistance to certain types of bacteria that your system could easily succumb to. Therefore, the rule of thumb is (a) keep to just cooked foods as much as possible. Avoid the fast food places that store their food in warmers. Always insist that food is either properly heated in or cooked while you wait. (b) as much as possible, when eating fruits, stick to those that you peel for yourself and those you do not need to eat the rind.
If you are staying with a host family, discuss your feeding needs in as much detail as you can. Do not shy away from telling them what you cannot eat and your feeding preferences. Such a discussion will also enhance your experience of their local cuisine.
10. Use The Available Local Transport
All countries and cities of the world have as varied a transport culture as there are cities. This is going to be one of the best experiences of your stay in the host nation. For the best experience, approach transport like a child who intends to have fun whatever the trip throws their way. When travelling in Kenya for instance, there are three main types of public transport; the matatu, the bus, and the boda boda. The matatu is in two forms; the colourful mini-bus, or the smaller 14-seater van.
Buses are mostly for the longer distances, while the scooter (boda boda) is most frequent in the much shorter distances. Taking a cab or a taxi in Kenya is common particularly when you have to do something within a set time frame. The tourist van is also common when visiting tourist sites. The main difference between a tourist van and the local matatu is the tourist van will have seven seats and is much more spruced up. Time will also be a point of frustration. Here is a good way to understand time and Kenya save yourself the angst.
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