Top 10 Cheap Backpacking Tips

For the traveller’s soul, backpacking is an adventure unlike anything elsethat helps them experience the unexpected, broaden horizons and simply breathe away from the complexities of an urban lifestyle. Backpacking is both liberating and terrifying. Terrifying because it’s usually a solo effort where you’re mostly just on your own. Liberating because, the best part of backpacking is that you make the rules! You pick the destinations, the budgets, the modes of travel and any little detours in between. Besides, like the title proclaims, you also travel light, with just a backpack stuffed with only the barest of bare essentials.
A lot of people look at backpacking despite the light load, as an expensive, luxurious affair not meant for everyone, but this not necessarily true. Here we bring to you the top 10 tips for cheap backpacking around the globe!

1: Travel light:
Backpacking is all about travelling with just a backpack.
The lighter you travel, the easier it is to get from one place to another and make detours. Lugging around suitcases will simply restrict you and make the whole experience pricier and more complicated.
Your backpack should just include the essentials, some clean t-shirts or shirts, a pair or two of jeans or shorts, a sturdy pair of sneakers, navigation, sunscreen, a first aid kit and plenty of water, just to mention a few.

2: Choose your destinations wisely:
Avoid choosing pricy, luxurious destinations if you’re trying to save a pretty penny. As an Indian, I would advise my fellow Indians to travel and explore the nooks and crannies of our own country before a trip around the globe. Take trains for they are the cheapest mode of travel in India.

3: Try to snooze while travel:
Try to fix your schedule in such a way that you travel in the nights, allowing you to sleep aboard buses or trains and hence cut costs that come with booking hotel rooms and hostels.

4: Camp out:
During the times that you simply can’t travel overnight, try to find places to camp out instead of again booking hotel rooms. This will save you quite a lot of money!

5: Carry multipurpose tools:
Carry things in your bag that can serve more than just a singular purpose like a Swiss army knife, Lighters that also act as flashlights (excellent for camping out!), hair ties for both your hair and even compressing packages, socks that also serve as a safe spot to store important things like cash, or a camera lens, disposable plastic zip lock bags etc.

6: Avoid tourist traps:
Don’t go only where the tourists go for a lot of times places that act as simply tourist destinations and pricy and tacky. Watch where the locals go, where they eat, where they shop etc.  It is especially useful to have a localite friend or acquaintance that can show you around and stop you from being engulfed by the tourist traps and wasting more money than necessary.

7: Bring your own snacks or eat with the locals:
You can save quite some money if you bring your own chips and energy bars as opposed to buying them off the streets for the local vendors always tend to quote a higher price to tourists. If you can’t manage to arrange snacks, try to eat at local joints as opposed to expensive restaurants. India is especially known for its wide range of street food.

8: Walk more:
Try to walk as much as possible and take cabs or ricks only when strictly necessary. This will both prove a way to get in some exercise and keep yourself fit, and also help you save some money.

9: Carry less hard cash:
While it is important to stock up some emergency cash at the bottom of your bag, make sure not to carry too much for all cities have some form of pick pockets or scam artists that can take advantage of you.

10: PLAN:
Plan an itinerary and an estimated budget before you travel. This will help you avoid confusion and also spending more than you had planned.

Finally, have fun! Backpacking is quite the experience of a lifestyle so make sure to relax and enjoy yourselves and soak in all the different cultures and activities and visuals you see. Also, make sure to take a lot of photos so you never forget.