The idea of ​​going around the world first arose six months before the trip: my friends and I hitchhiked on the highway to Odessa and the conversation turned to travel. Someone talked about how they were going to go to the Balkans, and someone started telling a story about two guys going around the world. In my opinion, they were also from Ukraine, and for some reason this particular story got into my head so much that when we returned home two days later, we called a friend and began to discuss a possible trip around the world. It turned out funny: someone is inspired by the books of Jules Verne, Jack Kerouac, Jack London, Jon Krakauer and others; Some people were influenced by travel films, but we were influenced by short story ordinary guys who traveled around the globe.

Start of the journey

We started planning the trip two months before departure. This was a simple monitoring of prices for air tickets to countries that interested us. We called each other every day, discussed some cheap flights and came up with new interesting routes. We decided to act gradually: first get to Asia, travel through it in about two months, and decide what to do next based on the situation. Although, to be honest, there were many factors that made our plan very difficult. Firstly, money, secondly, visa problems, especially in the case of, where we really wanted to go after Asia. Nevertheless, we settled on the fact that we would resolve issues along the way.

What to take with you

It all depends on what travel format you choose. If someone like me is in tramp mode, then you definitely need to take a waterproof backpack and, preferably, some waterproof clothing. It’s easy to find yourself in a downpour at the most inopportune moment, because the less your backpack weighs, the easier it will be to move. Being in Central and South America We walked about 20 km every day with a heavy backpack.

Visa issue

Before the trip, we only got a Thai visa; all the others were opened along the way. Most often we dealt with visas that were opened at the border. I received a US visa while I was in Hong Kong.

How to make money while traveling

My initial budget was almost $300 dollars. It didn’t last long – after two weeks, due to unforeseen circumstances, I had about $170 left. Therefore, when I arrived in Hong Kong, I lived in a tent on the island. There was a campsite with all the amenities - a shared shower, toilet, and the view from there was simply incredible. And waking up to the sound of the China Sea is simply unforgettable.

In Asia I didn’t see everything I had planned, because I had to skip many countries. But it doesn’t matter, because Asia, like Europe, is always nearby, but America is much more interesting, so after 3 months I decided to fly to the USA.

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Brooklyn Bridge, New York

Having not slept properly for 4 days in a row since Hong Kong, I got to San Francisco, met a friend, he gave me the keys and I went to his house to sleep. From San Francisco, I decided to fly to the capital of the world - to, there are more opportunities there and, as it turned out, I also found mutual friends. When I got off the plane in New York I had $10 and couldn't even leave the airport. As a result, I came to visit acquaintances who became true friends for me. They received me very warmly, and literally the next day I already made money helping this friend in his work with machines. A few weeks later I met a friend and he suggested we go around the USA. I agreed, although I skipped the entire south, flying to them in San Francisco and from there by car we went through all the western and northern states back to New York.

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Masaya Volcano, Nicaragua

Masaya Volcano, Nicaragua

After returning to New York, my friend and I realized that we didn’t want to return home so quickly, so we decided to save up some money and go to Central America. Inspired by the book “The Diary of a Motorcyclist” by Che Guevara, they thought of buying motorcycles and riding them all over America, but the idea failed immediately after monitoring the prices of motorcycles in the USA.

Machu Picchu, Peru

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Despite all the horror stories about the dangers of Central America that we read on the Internet, this did not happen to us. Only in the capital of Honduras, Tegucigalpa, did locals want to rob us when we were heading to the highest point of the city through the favelas. But one woman stopped us in time - several guys on edge were indeed waiting for us nearby. There was also an incident in Costa Rica when we were running away from a group of guys. We had to hide from them on the territory of some government agency, after which guards ran out to us with batons and flashlights, thinking that we were robbers. After that, calling the police, we went to bed at the station. In the Republic of Nicaragua, the police did not give us peace: no matter how diligently we hid in the parks, they found us and, under the pretext that the streets were unsafe at night and that they were worried about us, they took us to the police station, where, according to them, we should sleeping rooms were provided. It turned out that the sleeping rooms were the site itself and we slept on the floor.

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San Pedro, Peru

What can you save on?

In this article, I will tell you the biggest secret of long and long journeys.

How to go on a long and long journey?

You would know how often people pester me asking me to tell them the secret of my travels. How do I so cleverly manage to travel for a long time and not die of hunger? I tell them, but they still think that I am not telling something important. What am I hiding? How, they ask, did I manage to get out of the office and travel freely around the world? Did I really win the lottery on the sly? Or did he keep silent about the trust fund? After all, there must be some kind of catch, it can’t be that simple!

In general, I was so tired of listening to these complaints and questions that I finally decided to tell the most terrible and secret secret - how to go on a long journey? And even if they kick me out of the club of Those Who Hold the Secret Secret of Long Travels, I will now lay it all out, because you deserve it. Take heed!

The biggest secret about going on a long journey...

Absent.

There is no secret. There is nothing special that I wouldn’t tell anyone about, and that my fellow travelers wouldn’t tell about.

I understand that this lifestyle is very different from what the vast majority of people are used to. From everything that many consider normal and familiar. And travelers who go to distant countries for longer periods also do not have superpowers and are not always the holders of a Swiss bank account. But still, all of them have one unique feature - they act differently than other people. They, like me, were able to get out of office slavery and see what was there, beyond these fictitious boundaries.

But before I decided to go on my first long trip, I was an ordinary guy. I envied those guys who calmly moved around the world while I listened to the screams of the boss and suffocated under the air conditioning. I wanted so damn much to be like him that traveling became my monomania. This is what saved me.

I was also looking for this great secret, during my holidays I went to a cheap, warm country on a last-minute ticket and drilled my brain with one single question - how? And then one day, on one of these trips, I suddenly realized that there was no secret. Many people do the same.

There is nothing special or unique here.

I met many travelers along the way who did the same thing as me, and also were not the children of rich parents or the owners of a million-dollar inheritance. So I'm not special at all, a lot of people live the same way. The whole problem is that you are unlikely to meet such a person in your Everyday life. Therefore, there will be no one to tell you this Great Secret.

Go on a long trip– this is a great thing for everyone. A year-long break from everyday life is a kind of rite of passage. Then moving to another country for a year or two to live, work and relax becomes the norm. I lived in Thailand for 2 years. In some countries this is a priori the norm, but, of course, this is not about Russia. The Iron Curtain still haunts us. This is the whole problem. For a normal Russian person, going on a trip for a year is not normal. And I was the same. And then…

I just suddenly realized that in order to travel longer you don’t need to do anything out of the ordinary or have a decent stash. All the unnecessary nonsense fell away from my head at that very moment, and I was able to focus on the main thing. All travelers had one thing before starting desire become free, free yourself from social pressure (and in Russia it is perhaps one of the strongest and most oppressive), do what you want, and in the end, enjoy life, otherwise it is one and far from endless .

I realized that I could die at any moment. I imagined that I was sitting here, drinking my morning coffee, making plans for the evening, even making an appointment with someone, but while I was walking to a nearby cafe for lunch to eat my business lunch, I got hit by a bus. Zilch and I’m gone. Then everything fell into place.

I realized that if I suddenly died today, I would be very sorry that I was never able to realize my dream about other countries. That I sat and put it off for some incomprehensible “later” that may never come. It was at that moment that I made up my mind. And I wanted to travel not only in my dreams, lying on the couch, but in such a way that I was ready to act and change my life.

This is very important point. You need to be ready to change something. Without this readiness and determination, it is very difficult to get out of the swamp of everyday life.

That's how I changed my lifestyle and started saving for my first long trip. It was something revolutionary for me back then. It was a rebellion against normalcy. I was burning from the inside. I saved everything to get out.

The funny thing is that later, when I was traveling, I realized that there was nothing revolutionary in this gesture. Read my story of how I decided to give up everything and go traveling, it’s really ordinary. If people want something, they just go for it. So you want a good wide-screen TV, or a car, or an iPhone, and you buy it. The desire to travel is of exactly the same order. It’s really possible to get out for two weeks. The task is the same, only a little larger.

You have a goal. Goal has its price. You want your goal so much that you are willing to take action and pay the price. Pay. You get a goal. As they say, if there is a desire, the road appears under the feet of the walker.

People ask me what I do with my bills, if I take care of my pension, work experience, etc, etc. But when traveling you don’t have these problems, they just disappear, you don’t think about your retirement, you practically don’t think about what will happen next. You are happy and in the present. Now I don't have any bills, just daily expenses. I am one of those who are sure that it is pointless to spend your whole life on an unloved job and be unhappy, for the sake of some semblance of well-being. I have seen such happy people on public transport in the morning. Damn happy guys, you know. I feel sorry for spending best years of my life so that in some distant future my pension would be a little higher living wage. Is this what happiness is?

Of course, travelers also have some money for a rainy day, but they don’t worry about the future, because they have such a wonderful present. Take care of the present while it still exists; worry about the future when you live to see it. When I stop traveling, if this happens, then I will decide what to do next.

Therefore, when you ask travelers what their secret is, they do not lie, answering that there is no secret.

Any path is like climbing a mountain. If you have decided to travel quite recently, and now you are only at the stage of saving money and studying as much information about travel as possible, and you don’t know what will happen next. Do not worry. As you move a little higher on your journey as a traveler, new doors and opportunities will open up for you. This will definitely happen. This happens to everyone. It doesn't matter if you want to travel longer or become good specialist. It's always the hardest at the beginning. It seems like your efforts are in vain, you don’t know what will happen next, you may be wasting your time, money and effort. But that's not true. The main thing in such periods is to continue your journey and very soon, you will definitely (!) see new opportunities.

• Travel is destructive to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, which is why it is so urgently needed by many. © Mark Twain
• If there's one thing I've learned during my travels, it's this: the only way to get things done is to get out there and do them. No need to rant about going to Borneo. Buy a ticket, get a visa, pack your backpack - and it will happen. © Alex Garland
• Travel teaches more than anything else. Sometimes one day spent in other places gives more than ten years of life at home. © AnatoleFrance
• When preparing to travel, lay out all your clothes and all your money. After this, take half the clothes and double more money. © Susan Heller
• Time constantly surprises us; it is impossible to get used to its tricks. The vacation ends as soon as it begins: as soon as you check into the hotel, it’s time to head back. But once you return, it feels like you haven't been home for ages. © Claudia Hammond

• Traveling means living a much more interesting life if you follow sudden impulses. © Bill Bryson
• In twenty years, you will regret more not what you did, but what you didn’t do. So throw off the knots and sail out of the quiet harbors. Catch the wind in your sails. Explore. Dream. Open it up. © Mark Twain
• It's a wonderful feeling to board a train. long distance no luggage. It’s as if, having left the house for a walk, you suddenly find yourself in a curved space-time - and find yourself in the cockpit of a dive bomber. And there is nothing more. No visits to the dentist scheduled for a week on the calendar. No problems piling up on the table awaiting your arrival. Not all these “social relationships” from which you risk not getting out for the rest of your life. No false friendliness on the face to gain the trust of others... I just send all this to hell for a while. All that remains are these old tennis shoes with worn out soles. Only them - and nothing else. They have already grown firmly to my feet - scraps of unclear memories from another space-time. Well, it's not scary anymore. Such memories are easily banished by a couple of beers and a ham sandwich. © Haruki Murakami
• A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. © Lao Tzu
• If a person remains the same on a journey, it is a bad journey. © Ernst Simon Bloch

• Travel helps you understand the beauty of space and the pricelessness of time.
• Travel develops the mind, if, of course, you have one. © Gilbert Chesterton
• Knowledge of the countries of the world is the decoration and food of human minds. © Leonardo da Vinci
• We travel not to escape from life, but so that it does not escape from us.
• It is very correct to arrive in a foreign city in the morning. By train, by plane - it’s all the same. The day begins as if from scratch... © Sergey Lukyanenko

• A person is able to change his life by just changing his point of view. © William James
• Although we travel all over the world in search of beauty, we must have it within ourselves, otherwise we will not find it!© Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Whatever You want for Yourself, give it to someone else...If you want to be happy, make someone else happy. If you want to be successful, help someone else succeed. If you want to receive more Love in your Life, make sure that someone else has more of it. Do it sincerely - not because you are looking for personal gain, but because You really want the other person to have it all - and everything that You gave will come to You.Why is that? How it works? The very act of giving makes You feel that You have, that You have something to give. Since You cannot give away what You do not have, Your mind comes to a new conclusion, a New Thought about You, namely: You have something, otherwise You could not give it away. This New Thought becomes part of Your Life Experience. You begin to “be” like this. And once You begin to “be,” You activate the most powerful machine of creation in the Universe - Your Divine Self. © Neil Donald Walsh

• I could spend my whole life walking around a new city every day. © Bill Bryson
• The world is a book. And whoever has not traveled along it has read only one page of it. © St. Augustine
• Travel only with those you love. © Ernest Hemingway
• Travel, as the greatest science and serious science, helps us find ourselves again. © A. Camus

• Everyone in their hearts wants to suddenly pack up and leave...Where? For what? And what does it matter? Just leave and be far from this noisy, constantly running somewhere society.
• Travel is a great remedy for loneliness.
• I travel not to arrive somewhere, but to go. The main thing is movement. © Robert Louis Stevenson
• There are only two ways to live life. The first is as if miracles do not exist. The second one is as if there are only miracles all around. © Albert Einstein
• Travel only with those who are your equal or better. If there are none, travel alone. © Dhamapada

• It's never too late, or in my case, never too early to be who you want to be. There is no time limit, there are no rules: you can change or remain as you are. I hope you do things that scare you. I hope you are experiencing feelings that you have never experienced before. I hope you meet people with different points of view. I hope you live the life you deserve. If not, I hope you have the courage to start over.
• Half the fun of traveling is the aesthetic of being lost. © Ray Bradbury
• We only feel the charm of our native speech when we hear it under foreign skies. © George Bernard Shaw
• Regretting about wasted time is a waste of time.© Mason Cooley

• Traveling has its benefits. If a traveler visits the best countries, then he can learn how to improve his own. If fate takes him to worse countries, he can learn to love his country. © Samuel Johnson
• If a person moves confidently towards his dream and strives to live the life he imagined, then success will come to him at the most ordinary hour and completely unexpectedly.
• Traveling is a flirtation with life. It's like saying: “I would like to stay with you, I would like to love you, but I have to go out, this is my stop.” © Lise Saint-Aubin-de-Teran
• Well, where we do not. We are no longer in the past, and it seems beautiful. © A. Chekhov
• Freedom begins when you stop limiting yourself to someone else's ideas. © Amu Mom
• While we are young, we should arm ourselves with a toothbrush and go wherever our eyes lead us. Laugh, do crazy things, go against the system, read as much as you can’t seem to fit into your head, love as much as you can, feel. Just live. © Stanislavsky

• Trains are amazing; I still adore them. Traveling by train means seeing nature, people, cities and churches, rivers - in essence it is a journey through life. © Agatha Christie
• If you are young, healthy and eager to learn new things, then I implore you - travel. And go as far as possible. Sleep on bare ground if you have to, but be true to the idea. Learn from people about life, learn from them how to cook, how to cook and everything in general, wherever you go. © Anthony Bordian
• No one realizes the beauty of travel until he comes home and rests his head on an old familiar pillow. © Lin Yutang
• The pleasure of life is drawn from our encounters with new things, and therefore there is no greater happiness than constantly changing our horizons, meeting each day under a different sun. © Jon Krakauer

• He set out to conquer new lands only with what he was wearing, because he did not want to carry anything with him from Chester Mill. Except for a couple of pleasant memories, but for them he didn’t need suitcases or even a backpack. © Stephen King
• The highest goal of travel is not to see a foreign country, but to see your own country as a foreign country. © Gilbert Chesterton
• When you travel, you rediscover yourself.
• I now understand that the most the right way to find out whether you like a person or not is to go on a trip with him. © Mark Twain

• Traveling is the best activity in the world. When you wander, you grow rapidly, and everything you see is reflected even in your appearance. I recognize people who have traveled a lot from thousands. Wanderings purify, intertwine meetings, centuries, books and love. They make us related to the sky. If we have received the unproven happiness of being born, then we must at least see the earth. © Konstantin Georgievich Paustovsky
• It is not guided tours that come to God, but lonely travelers. © Vladimir Nabokov
• Travel – the ability to gather, move and not be afraid.
• For those who have just walked out the door, the hardest part is behind them. © Dutch proverb
• Tomorrow there will be what should be, and there will be nothing that should not be - don’t fuss.

• Travel is the thing that, if you buy it, you will only become richer.
• Three things make a person happy: love, interesting job and the opportunity to travel. © Ivan Bunin
• 93% of people have a dream that can be fulfilled by the end of the week, and they make it the dream of their whole life.
• A train ticket raises more expectations than a lottery ticket. © Paul Moran
• Sometimes you really want to become a hedgehog, collect all sorts of crap in a rag, hang it on a stick, put the stick on your shoulder and slowly go into the fog.
• Life is like a delivery service: we get what we ordered. © Stephen Covey
• I think that everything in life is art. That you do. How you dress. How you love someone and how you speak. Your smile and your personality. What you believe in and all your dreams. How do you drink tea? How do you decorate your home? Or how to have fun. Your shopping list. The food you cook. What does your handwriting look like? And the way you feel. Life is an art.

• I want to give up everything and just travel the world with someone who wants it as much as I do.
• I feel so cramped under the spring sky,

That, hoping to catch a wave,

One day I'll go out for bread

And I will accidentally leave the country.

• All journeys go in circles. I rode around Asia, writing a parabola on one of the hemispheres of our planet. In short, a trip around the world is just a journey for a curious person back home. © Paul Theroux
• A person who travels a lot is like a stone carried by water for many hundreds of miles: its roughness is smoothed out, and everything in it takes on soft, rounded shapes.
• If you do something beautiful and sublime, and no one notices, don’t be upset: the sunrise is generally the most beautiful sight in the world, but most people are still sleeping at this time. © John Lennon
• My opinion about travel is brief: when traveling, don’t go too far, otherwise you’ll see something that will be impossible to forget later... © Daniil Kharms
• I'm so angry because I don't have my own wine cellar and small house in Italy.
• Life has taught us that we need to combine extremes. Love people, but be indifferent. Do good and expect evil. Hope for the best, but expect the worst. Believe in people and don't trust anyone. Be an optimist with realistic views. Live with an open heart and don’t let anyone in. Part of you should love the world and admire it, while the other should wait for the blow and be ready for war. © A. Solovyova

• The benefit of traveling is the opportunity to adapt your imagination to reality, and, instead of thinking about how things should be, see everything as it is. © Samuel Johnson
• A simple sandwich with cheese, eaten on a picnic, on the top of a cliff overlooking the stormy sea, seems to us tastier and more important than any restaurant delicacies. © Alain de Botton
• You set your own boundaries. And they are only in your head. And no more. You choose where you will work and how you will study. What grades will you get and what color will your diploma be? Your work is your choice. The choice of your dream city is yours. And only you will choose your path. What do you want - an easy, carefree life or a narrow road full of adventure?If you don't have a dream, it means you're working for someone else. Do you want this?The choice is yours. You set your own risk level. You set the limits of your ceiling, above which you cannot jump. You choose where to develop and what to delve into. What is important and what is not worthy of your attention. You choose how to think about people or not think about them at all. Every day is a choice. And he's behind you.
• – Don’t you think it would be wonderful to leave everything and go to a place where no one knows you? Sometimes that's what you want to do.- I want it unbearably.© Haruki Murakami
• Don't tell me how educated you are - just tell me how much you've traveled. © Muhammad

• There is nothing more beneficial for the nerves than visiting a place you have never been before. © Anna Akhmatova
• Many people don’t budge because the feeling of reliability is important to them or because the very thought of having to do something unfamiliar scares them. Change is outside their comfort zone and frightens them. But the reality is this: all of life's rewards are outside your comfort zone. Deal with it. Fear and risk are required stages if you want to live a successful and interesting life. © Jack Canfield
• Often it is easier to become yourself somewhere on the road or in a foreign city, but not at all at home. © Alain de Botton
• Each journey has its own secret destination, about which the traveler himself has no idea. © Martin Buber
• For him, there were only two favorite moments left in life: when he approached the big city and when he left it. © Peter Hoeg
• Anyone planning to travel two days before travel should see a psychiatrist. Normal people they stuff their things into a bag when they have to leave the house. © Tony Hawks

• A tourist, as soon as he arrives somewhere, immediately begins to want to return. And the traveler... He may not return... © Paul Bowles
• Only roads can delay old age. When you drive all the time and go to bed, knowing that the alarm clock will wake you up at night in order to catch a plane that is going God knows where and in general God knows why you are flying on it, then time stands still. © Yulian Semenov
• Conquer yourself. It is better to defeat yourself than to win thousands of battles. Then victory is yours. Neither angels nor demons, nor heaven nor hell can take it away from you. To conquer yourself, you need to conquer your mind. You must control your thoughts. They should not rage like sea waves. You may think, “I can’t control my thoughts. A thought comes when it pleases. To which I answer: you cannot stop a bird from flying over you, but you can certainly stop it from building a nest on your head.” © Buddha Gautama
• To live, you have to struggle, get confused, struggle, make mistakes, start and start again, and give up again, and fight forever. And calmness is spiritual cowardice. © Leo Tolstoy
• The window of the carriage is the main entertainment for the traveler. In it, as in a kaleidoscope, stops, villages, forests flash by, bridges fly by under the metal whistle of riveted beams, fields open up, changing their color from white to black and from green to yellow.

In motion, everything seems so cute and a little toy-like, as if it weren’t real. Looking out the window, the passenger becomes a little child, discovering with surprise how huge the world is, how much space and air there is in it, and not just the usual streets and houses.

There is a secret charm in the carriage window, when you look at the lullaby rocking of the wheels and do not hold your gaze on anything. The pictures fly by, as if blurred by a brush, and from this measured movement and constant change of impressions you plunge into a light drowsiness in reality, and thoughts come to your mind by themselves and just as easily disappear.

Sometimes you want to go to nowhere. Just drive and listen to your favorite music, look at the flickering lights, look at all this city bustle. Forget about all the problems and just enjoy.

• It's not people who create trips - it's trips that create people. © John Steinbeck
• I dream of traveling so much that airport workers recognize me and ask:-Where to this time?

• Our doubts are our traitors. They make us lose what we could possibly win if we weren't afraid to try...
• The true destination of your journey is not a place on the map, but A New Look for life. © Henry Miller
• A good traveler does not have precise plans or intentions to get somewhere. © Lao Tzu
• Tell me, what changes in a person’s life after going to the mountains? Worldview. He begins to look at life differently. Values ​​change. There is no money, no usual amenities. Returning home, newcomers begin to understand and appreciate the delights of simple things, people begin to have a different attitude towards the benefits of civilization. After all, up there, far from home, everything that happened before the hike seems like a fairy tale. In the mountains, completely different demands are placed on people than in the city.
• There are three traps that steal joy and peace: regret about the past, anxiety about the future, and ungratefulness for the present.
• Never save on something you can't repeat. © Tony Wheeler
• - Why do you immediately abandon people as soon as they make a mistake? You will spend your whole life alone.

- You know, I’m used to hunger, but not to bad food.

• Traveling means debunking other people's misconceptions about other countries. © Aldous Huxley
• We will only regret two things on our deathbed - that we loved little and traveled little. © Mark Twain
• You will never cross the ocean unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.
• Everything in life is temporary. If everything goes well, enjoy it, it won't last forever. Well, if everything is lousy, don’t be sour, it won’t last forever either. © F. M. Dostoevsky
• When you travel without knowing English, you begin to understand what it means to be born deaf and dumb. © Philippe Bouvard
• This happens to me too. I look at the map - and suddenly a wild desire arises to go to God knows where. As far as possible from the conveniences and benefits of civilization. And see with your own eyes what the landscapes are like there and what’s happening in those parts. To fever, to trembling. But you can’t explain to anyone where this desire came from. Curiosity in pure form. Inexplicable inspiration.
• Remind yourself often that the purpose of life is not to accomplish everything you set out to do, but to enjoy every step you take along the path of life.
• It's easy to love life when you're abroad. Where no one knows you, and you are alone, and your whole life is in your hands, you feel like a master like never before.
• You also get used to loneliness. It’s even possible to have a completely harmonious union with him: you live alone with yourself, cook dinner for one, fall asleep in front of the TV and don’t wait for the savior to appear, which anyway only happens in books and films. Yes, this loneliness is painful, frosty, but it is honest - it is better to be alone than with just anyone. © Elchin Safarli

• Once a year, go somewhere you have never been before.
• I decided to go on a trip, a real, big trip that probably everyone dreams of, but never has time to decide on. Every day I felt the need for this more and more clearly, and not because I wanted to see new interesting places, but because he did not feel attached to any place. Andrey Sidorenko.
• Losing your way while traveling is unpleasant, but losing the reason to go further is even worse.
• Life is a journey. For some it’s the way to the bakery and back, for others it’s trip around the world. © K. Khabensky
• You know, when I woke up this morning and looked back at my life, I thought: “Should I be afraid to take risks and do what I really want to do, not paying attention to other people’s opinions and criticism of me? Not paying attention to the imaginary fears that my “smart mind” draws, distancing me from the realization of my desires?” Death happens to a hundred people out of a hundred, not to ninety-nine, but to a hundred people. Is it worth worrying about her if the moment comes when she knocks on my door and says: “Well, it’s time!”? I think the worst thing is when she knocks on my door, and I, looking back at my life, will very much regret that I had the opportunity, but I didn’t take the risk. That I could approach the girl and meet her, but I was afraid that she would send me away. That I didn’t have time to tell my parents how much I love them and don’t want them to fight. That I didn’t quit a job that was boring and uninteresting to me and never took the risk of opening my own business. I will regret that I did not travel much and did not take care of my health. Etc. Now, whenever I have any doubts, I ask myself one question: “What am I afraid of?” and there are no more doubts. © Alexey Demidov
• Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember that you have the strength, patience and passion to reach for the stars and change the world.
• Each of us probably wanted to pick up and leave. Leave your old life, take the first train you come across with a one-way ticket.

• Life is a journey. Choose who to go with! © Petr Soldatenkov
• Personally, I don't travel to be somewhere, I travel for the movement and fellow travelers. Movement is the most beautiful thing in life. © Robert Louis Stevenson
• We only have a few decades left to live on this earth, and we are wasting so many irrevocable hours thinking about grievances that in a year we will forget about, and everyone around us will forget about them. © Dale Carnegie

• Salvation is in wanderings. The sign “Fasten your seat belts” lights up and you are disconnected from your problems. Broken armrests rise above broken hearts. © Alex Garland
• If you are crazy enough to do what you love, you are destined to live a meaningful life.
• – What do you need to enjoy life?

– Start traveling!

• Live with joy, a smile, don’t be upset by little things, love life, then she will love you. Don’t think about time, don’t count the days, don’t listen to other people’s opinions, and don’t think that maybe I’ll be happy later, but think that “later” may not come, happiness won’t wait. Be happy now.
• Don't be afraid of change - otherwise your dreams will remain dreams.

Life will fly by in an instant,

Appreciate it, draw pleasure from it.

As you spend it, so it will pass,

Don't forget: she is your creation.

• Don’t forget that the earth enjoys feeling your bare feet, and the winds want to play with your hair... © Kahlil Gibran.
• Don't sit at home, move more, travel. The world is magnificent and beautiful, you should see much more than the monitor screen.
• And there is one thought in my head: “You only live once, only once”

Top 10 travel quotes from movies

1. 1. See the world around you, experience dangers, overcome them, look through walls, be closer, find each other, feel. This is the purpose of life. © K/f « Incredible life Walter Mitty"
   2. Everyone says that they dream of getting out of here, seeing the world, but when it comes down to it, they won’t stick their beak further than their birdhouse © Cartoon “Fly the Wing”
   3. To change the world, you need to see it © t\s “Missing”
   4. - Will you come with me to America?

      Yes, even to Africa. © Brother-2

   5. - If you had a lot of time on the clock, what would you do?

      I would stop watching. I can say one thing, if I had time, I wouldn’t waste it. © In Time

   6. Life is a tango, in which the main thing is movement. If you stop, the dance will stop, if you stop, life will stop. © Scent of a Woman
   7. It's the journey, not the destination, that matters. (From the movie “Step Up 3-D”)
   8. The most pleasant moment of the trip is getting ready. A dog's bark is worse than the dog itself. And a woman is often more beautiful from the back. The sight of me can destroy your dreams. (from the animated film "Spice and Wolf")
   9. While traveling, it is important not to forget the main thing - when one thing ends, something else begins. From the movie “Love Happens”
   10. The people you travel with are just as important as the place you travel to. These people can make your trip unforgettable. From the film “Lost in Translation”

Proverbs and sayings about travel, road and tourism

• He who travels learns.
• There is a will for the free, a way for the walker.
• The eyes do not see, so the soul does not know.
• If you want to get to know a person, take a trip with him.
• If you love your son, send him to travel.
• It's not the one who knows anymore lived longer, and the one who walked further.
• Dunno lies, but know-it-all runs far.
• Don't be afraid of the road, if only your legs would be healthy.
• Anyone who has been to the sea is not afraid of puddles.
• The one who walks will master the road.
• If you go on a journey, you will find companions.
• If you don’t have enough strength, then it’s commendable, but at least, wish.
• On the road you can even call your enemy your own father.
• The road is full of riders, and lunch is full of pies.
• If the sail is left without wind, it becomes an ordinary cloth.
• If I don’t go myself, who will go with me?
• If you are sitting in a boat, do not fight with the boatman.
• If you can climb the mountain, don't stay in the valley.
• If you want to go far, start with something close to you.
• It's better to see once than to hear a thousand times.
• He who has seen a lot knows a lot.
• The road is winding - the truth is straight.
• Every step of the way adds a piece of wisdom.
• Whichever people you come to, that’s the kind of hat you’ll wear.
• First shoe your horse, and then figure out the road.
• You eat for a day, but take bread for a week.

This summer I ventured on the most adventurous trip of my life: my friend and I decided to repeat the alpine travels of various travel bloggers from Instagram. We armed ourselves with pieces of paper and a hitchhiking marker, contacted residents of alpine towns on the CouchSurfing website, loaded our backpacks and rushed to conquer the mountains. This was my first such experience. And, I’ll admit right away, it’s the last one.

Today I will talk about what to expect from such free entertainment, and also debunk or confirm some myths about couchsurfing and hitchhiking. So, let's go! Brief clarification: our 5-day itinerary ran through the Eastern Alps, starting from Munich and ending with Graz (Austria). Every day we spent the night with the coaches, covered short and difficult distances by bus, and long distances by hitchhiking.

Myth No. 1: Couchsurfing is an obvious analogue of a dating site. And sometimes it's dangerous

Myth No. 2: Thanks to couchsurfing, you get to know the country from the inside

Myth No. 3: Guys only host girls, girls only host guys.

Myth No. 4: With couchsurfing and hitchhiking, you don’t spend any money at all.

It’s clear that this cannot be done without Photoshop, but I still want to emphasize the idea that they “process” not only the photos, but also the whole behind-the-scenes of the trips: stories about adventures, tips and parting words about how easy everything is . So don’t blindly believe and envy travelers’ profiles on social networks.

Myth #5: Thanks to couchsurfing, you make a lot of new friends around the world.

Myth #6: Hitchhiking is Russian roulette

So, is my experience worth repeating?

Article writing idea Travel cheap: how to see a lot and spend little first appeared to me in November 2014, when, while in South America and reading Russian news about the collapse of the ruble exchange rate, I decided to systematize my experience of economical travel - in the hope that this will help someone to travel a lot and at the same time “not fly to pipe" and not get into debt. Let me make a reservation that all the recommendations below relate specifically to “ independent travel” - an interesting, but also very tiring and not cheap event, and not a “mattress holiday abroad” - these are very different things. I hope that this article will be useful to those who want to see as much as possible on our planet, but whose opportunities (like mine) depend on the “health state” of the Russian currency.

So, if you don’t want to postpone your travels until better times, and you feel sorry for wasting time waiting for an improvement in the economic situation, which may not come in the foreseeable future, then the only way out is to master science travel cheap, which is what this text is devoted to.

Travel cheap - before your trip

Adequate selection of travel destinations is a very important part of the cost minimization process. At the stage of planning your route, determine whether you can afford the price level in a particular country - for example, Switzerland or Norway, for all their beauty, are very expensive countries, and a week in Switzerland will cost you the same amount of money as a month in or . Of course, a trip to Switzerland may be a lifelong dream, but in the current economic realities the question may be: go to Switzerland and then never go anywhere else, spending a year patching a hole in the personal/family budget or for the price of one day in Switzerland, spend ten days in economical travel in Vietnam, having gained exotic impressions and almost not noticing any prices due to their extreme lowness. And after a couple of months, go on an independent trip again with the money you saved.

When planning a complex, long independent trip, I recommend purchasing a large and detailed map region and use a marker to draw a preliminary route on it (if you are comfortable with Google maps, you can draw the travel route there too). There is a high probability that such “visualization” will help you optimize the logistics of your trip and correct some mistakes that were not noticed before. For example, in some area you planned to fly by plane, but looking at the map, you will understand that it is easier and cheaper to go by bus or train, or you will see that you do not need to go there at all, but need to go to another place. By the way, from my experience, if the distance between points is no more than 700 km, you don’t have to bother with an airplane; by bus/train it will be cheaper and almost the same in time (since when using an airplane you will first have to go to the airport, and in at least 2 an hour before departure, then time for the flight - provided that the flight is not delayed, then about half an hour to collect luggage and some time to get from the airport to the city). As an illustration: it is easier and in most cases cheaper to travel from Moscow to St. Petersburg by train than by plane. It also makes sense to take into account that if you depart at 9 am, you will have to wake up at the latest at 5 am and rush to the airport, and when traveling by bus you can sleep for up to 7 hours.

It is not advisable to plan a long independent trip through climatic zones that differ greatly from each other. Let me explain with a recent personal example: I traveled for a month and a half in Argentina and Chile, and then went to the tropics. As a result, I was forced to travel around Brazil with a suitcase more than half full of warm clothes, necessary in Patagonia, but useless in Brazil. The things were good, solid, it was a pity to throw them away - so I carried them everywhere.

It is very useful in advance, before purchasing tickets, to check the cost of living and travel along the route, so that it doesn’t turn out like what happened to me in the Chilean national park, where a bed in a hostel cost $74 per night plus a ticket for access to national park, products and more. Of course, it’s very beautiful there - but since we decided to save, then we save.

The situation will be approximately similar with the Cuban island of Cayo Largo or the Brazilian archipelago of Fernando de Noronha: due to their “exclusivity”, housing prices and other expenses will be significantly higher than average. For example, a 4-star hotel in Cayo Largo costs about 80 euros/night - there is simply nothing else there. Conclusion: if you decide to travel cheaply, we try to avoid “exclusive”, “fashionable” and generally overly promoted places. I’ll make a reservation: the same Cayo Largo is one of most beautiful places on Earth, I personally love it very much - but this article is devoted to the topic of reasonable savings, which, unfortunately, is not very compatible with trips to such paradises.

Travel cheap - money

When traveling, keep a file on your tablet or smartphone where you reflect your daily expenses - separately for travel, housing and food. This will allow you to understand whether you are within your budget or not, and if on some day you happen to spend more than planned, you will know exactly how much you need to “squeeze” later. I first started using this technique during my first winter in Thailand and, strictly following the budget, I managed to clearly meet the amount allocated for the winter and even save a little.

It is highly undesirable to use credit cards with a ruble account when traveling (“cheap” or not, it doesn’t matter). Let's say you withdrew a certain amount of reals from such a card in Brazil. Firstly, the bank will transfer these reals to you into dollars, and then the dollars into rubles - and you will pay them for this double conversion. Secondly, for withdrawing cash you will pay a double commission: to the bank that owns the ATM and to the issuing bank of your card. Of course, sometimes there are situations when you have to use such a card - let’s say you are with a heavy suitcase, the nearest exchange office is five blocks away or does not work at all, and the local ATM does not recognize your debit card of a Russian bank with a dollar account as a card and requires you to insert something into it. something more impressive. And you take out from the bins a good old ruble credit card, for example, Raiffeisen or City, and, shedding tears, withdraw reals from it. But without emergency It’s better not to do this; banks will charge you an additional 15-20 percent of the amount.

Spending money in your independent travel, you should calculate expenses in such a way as not to be without cash on Saturday or Sunday - for example, on Latin America Finding a working exchanger these days is almost impossible. Of course, it is very difficult to calculate in advance on what specific day the money will run out and you will have to change more - but in any case, it is better to spend 10 minutes on Friday than to run around the whole city on Saturday/Sunday without a guarantee of getting desired result. For example, on Saturday I was unable to change money ANYWHERE. I had to take them off my ruble card and then change them a little more at the airport at an extortionate rate with a commission. By the way, when exchanging money, always check the exchange rate IN ADVANCE - it may vary depending on the amount - as well as the presence and size of the commission. For example, in Prague, the most adequate exchangers are run by Arabs, and almost all exchangers in tourist places indicate one rate, but in fact it turns out to be much less profitable - they say, the rate on the sign is from 10,000 dollars/euro and above. And one more thing - in Brazil, for example, only one ATM out of five accepted my Sberbank card, and the CITY card was accepted everywhere, so it makes sense to get debit card with a dollar account of some decent international bank, cards from Russian issuers may be useless abroad.

Travel cheap - flights

Pros: often much lower prices.

Minuses: more stringent requirements for the size and weight of luggage, less convenient airports, lack of food on board, attempts to charge a fee for choosing a seat in the cabin and other unnecessary frills, attempts to impose all sorts of additional services such as insurance. There may also be individual problems, as, for example, with the Irish Ryanair: the client is obliged to register for the flight on their website and print out the boarding pass himself. If you come without a ticket, they will print it out for you, but for a hefty sum in euros - often more expensive than the ticket cost. The operating philosophy of low-cost airlines is the following: to attract customers with super-low prices, and then try to trick them into a bunch of different surcharges - this is what, for example, Ryanair, Airbaltic or AirAsia do. Our task is to find the cheapest fare and buy a ticket using it, resolutely stopping all attempts to sell us something unnecessary for an additional fee. I agree, there are many disadvantages and comfort at times leaves much to be desired, but the same AirAsia has very short flights. South-East Asia I have repeatedly happened to buy air tickets for 20-30 dollars. It can be very useful when searching for tickets for low-cost airline flights. Momondo flight search engine- unlike most other similar services, Momondo in its search results it very often takes into account not only the offers of traditional airlines, but also low-cost airlines operating in this direction.

Baggage: For independent travel with the help of low-cost airlines and saving on flights, I recommend purchasing a small suitcase on wheels, but with backpack straps - these are sold both on the Internet and in specialized stores.

The presence of wheels allows you not to carry everything on yourself (I, for example, really don’t like this), and the presence of backpack straps allows you to turn your “suitcase” into “carry-on luggage,” which makes it possible to significantly save on the cost of tickets from low-cost airlines. For example, an air ticket on the route Bangkok—Singapore by AirAsia cost me 50 US dollars, provided that I fly without checked baggage - only hand luggage measuring 56x36x23 cm and weighing no more than 7 kg. If you buy a regular ticket with checked baggage, the price can increase significantly, often several times; during long independent trips with big amount flights, the total savings on “baggage” can be comparable to the cost of food along the route. How to travel with the above-mentioned backpack-suitcase: make sure that total weight(including the suitcase itself) did not exceed 7-8 kg; During normal movements, we naturally roll it on wheels; we only need straps during check-in for a flight at the airport. We cover the wheels with a cover, put the “backpack” on our shoulders and answer all questions from airline employees (and most likely there will be none in this situation) we answer that this is our hand luggage. I traveled with such “luggage” to, and to, and to a bunch of different places: difficult, but possible. Only once did an overly zealous lady at New York's La Guardia Airport get to the bottom of me, declaring that “carry-on luggage cannot have wheels.” But there it was my own fault, I relaxed and approached the reception desk not with a “backpack on my shoulders”, but calmly I it's like a suitcase on wheels. If the entire procedure was followed correctly, no questions ever arose.

If, nevertheless, your things do not fit into this small suitcase or exceed the permissible weight (which is not surprising during long independent trips), then I can offer this life hack: go to a motorcycle and biker equipment store and buy a waist belt with several large pockets there (I’m like that bought yourself in Sicily), stuff everything small but heavy into your pockets (usually photo and video equipment, GPS navigators and other electronic gadgets and their chargers) and during check-in for the flight, make a friendly face and answer that “nothing I know these are my pockets.”

The same motorcycle belt on the Larnaca beach

In this way I stuffed 8-10 kg into the “pockets” of the waist belt, sometimes this raises questions, but rarely; there is nothing to get to the bottom of here; according to the rules of air transportation, this really cannot be considered luggage or hand luggage. Well, the obvious: we put on our outerwear, filling our pockets with things as much as possible.

An important point: when purchasing air tickets, you should be extremely careful when purchasing tickets with departure times earlier than 8 am - usually these are the flights with the most tempting prices. Let's say if the departure time is at 7:45, then you need to be at the airport at 5:45, and leave the hotel at 4:30 (if you travel far) or a little later. To travel to the airport, you will have to order a transfer or taxi, because buses, as a rule, do not run this early. Both taxis and transfers will cost significantly more than the daytime - night rate. Thus, the savings on the price of an air ticket will be negated by the cost of traveling to the airport. For example, an Airbaltic airline ticket Moscow-Stockholm with a transfer in Riga on Momondo may cost about 5,000 rubles, but with a return flight from Stockholm at 7 am; At this time, you can only get to the airport by taxi, which will cost about 100 euros - that is, about the same as a round-trip air ticket! As a result, the cost of air tickets, including a taxi ride to Stockholm airport, is even more expensive than tickets from regular airlines (not low-cost airlines) at regular prices. In addition, in the described case you will have to wake up at 4 am or earlier, which may have a negative impact on your further well-being during the day, especially if the night before was spent in a hostel, where it can be problematic to go to bed early.

And one more thing: before connecting flights, it makes sense to go to the supermarket and buy food for the day - because if you have to spend it all at airports, you will have to buy food there (they don’t serve food on low-cost airline flights) and overpay compared to prices in city supermarkets. For example, in Brazil, far from tourist trails, conventional food will cost about three times cheaper than at the airports of Rio de Janeiro or. IN Thailand the difference in prices will not be so noticeable, but it will also be there. Eating at airports is extremely unwise from all points of view - both price and quality. And if there are a lot of flights (for example, I have up to 20 flights in one trip), then the cost of food at airports becomes noticeable. By the way, the recommendation to buy food in advance is also appropriate for long journeys by bus. Buses, as a rule, stop for lunch in places where prices are again above average, since the price already includes commissions for the drivers who regularly supply the establishments with hungry customers.

Travel cheap - accommodation

Important point: When staying in hostels, it is still advisable to be able to communicate in English, even at a certain minimum level, because you will have to establish, albeit fleeting, but no less important relationships with staff and roommates. This is quite simple; hostel guests are almost always reasonable and friendly people. In addition, from such acquaintances there may be practical use: for example, my roommate invited me to go with him to the Chicago Museum of Art for free - as a member of some American museum association, he had a two-person pass. And one more recommendation: it seems to me reasonable when traveling on your own not to get too carried away with hostels and dilute them with regular hotels in the proportion “3 nights in a hostel - 1 night in a hotel” - this will allow you to reduce the accumulated fatigue from living in unfamiliar groups and with very limited personal space.

In general, the dilemma between hostels and hotels is similar to the choice of “how to go to work - by private car or by public transport.” For some, it is unthinkable to “hustle” on the subway, and for others, it is the height of idiocy to spend hours stuck in traffic jams, while paying for a car, insurance, gasoline, parking, etc. I, once an avid motorist, have been living in Moscow without a car for several years now and can comfortably travel by metro and scooter - I made the same choice in the case of hostels. To select and book places in hostels or hotel rooms, you can use specialized portals like Hostels.com or Booking.com.

Travel cheap - rent a car

Personally, I really like traveling by car, but let's consider the situation in the light of the need to minimize costs. Avoid renting a car unless it is clearly necessary. For example, in Cuba or Norway you definitely need a car, but in Chile you can do without it (if you don’t plan trips to remote national parks) - traveling there by bus will be much cheaper, and in cities in general a car is often more trouble than it's worth. Renting a car with all the accompanying expenses cost me $533 for 5 days - this amount can be used to live in Thailand for a month. Moreover, it was the most cheap car from Hertz, and at a discount too. Renting a car becomes more or less economically justified if you are traveling in a group of three or more people - it is definitely cheaper to use buses/trains alone.

Travel cheap - insurance:

As for good working insurance, it was not easy to find before, but now it has become even more difficult due to the constant jumps in the exchange rate of the ruble against world currencies. For the last few years, I have been purchasing insurance for my travels through an online service - here you can compare the products of different insurers and choose exactly what suits you best in terms of price and insurance coverage:

Traveling Cheaply - Epilogue

In my experience, refusing the services of travel agencies in organizing a trip allows you to save from 10 (on mass destinations) to 50 percent (on destinations that are not very popular among “package” tourists). And simultaneous compliance with all the above conditions, of course, will not allow you to travel around the world for free, but will make it possible to reduce costs by another 30-40%, which will help compensate for the devaluation of your native “wooden” currency and will give you the opportunity to travel a lot and interestingly.