Travelling for free! Possible?
#3
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jul 1999
Location: ORD/MDW
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#4
Join Date: Mar 2004
Location: Wenatchee, WA
Programs: Lifetime AA Gold-1MM
Posts: 4,909
Where are you leaving from and going to? Seems like you're going to run into some serious issues as soon as you hit an ocean you want to cross. You should check out the Budget Travel Forum here, there are many good tips for traveling for less (although not for free.) http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/budget-travel-597/
#8
Join Date: May 2005
Location: London, England, United Kingdom
Programs: Marriott (Lifetime Titantium), whatever other programs as benefits make sense.
Posts: 1,920
People haven't just thought about it, people have done it. Matador has an article on it, and here is a guy that did it for 400 days. Somewhere I came across a site of a guy who was travelling continuously without any cash.
I have personally met some people travelling on what I consider ridiculous budgets. I met a guy in Costa Rica who was trying to do $US 10 a day on average. he was camping, mostly, and had a fishing rod to catch his own dinner. I met him in Montezuma. He ended up trading a fish he caught with a camp ground owner in exchange for 5 days free camping, saving himself $10 ($2 a night camping fee, I believe).
Of course, with miles and points I have had a few trips where my only expense was taxes on the rewards tickets and food and beverage, but that probably isn't exactly the same thing.
I have personally met some people travelling on what I consider ridiculous budgets. I met a guy in Costa Rica who was trying to do $US 10 a day on average. he was camping, mostly, and had a fishing rod to catch his own dinner. I met him in Montezuma. He ended up trading a fish he caught with a camp ground owner in exchange for 5 days free camping, saving himself $10 ($2 a night camping fee, I believe).
Of course, with miles and points I have had a few trips where my only expense was taxes on the rewards tickets and food and beverage, but that probably isn't exactly the same thing.
#11
Join Date: May 2007
Location: NYC
Programs: UA, AA, AGR
Posts: 327
Hitchwiki has a lot of useful general and location-specific advice on hitchhiking, including an interactive map of places where people have tried hitching and reports of the results. In many parts of the world this is a great way to travel for free while seeing more and interacting with more people than one otherwise would when travelling. I've found it can be as fast as travelling by bus, and get you places buses don't go. (Even crossing an ocean isn't a dealbreaker if you're willing to hang around marinas for a few weeks offering to help sail/cook/etc, though I haven't tried this.) The associated Trashwiki might be useful for the "food and beverage" side of things, though it is much less extensive as yet (Hitchwiki itself occasionally has info on missionary food and the like). Couchsurfing of course has been discussed in this forum many times (though if you're hitchhiking you should also be prepared to camp in the middle of nowhere if necessary).
For a completely different approach to travelling free, Free Frequent Flyer Miles and Frugal Travel Guy (as well as the miles&points forums here at Flyertalk) provide advice on racking up thousands of frequent flyer miles and hotel points entirely through credit card offers and similar promotions. Sometimes just opening a checking account or making a single purchase with a new credit card yields enough miles for a free roundtrip flight.
Of course, neither of these approaches works perfectly reliably in all situations. I find it most effective and rewarding to combine the two, e.g. arriving in a city hitchhiking in the back of a pickup and departing on a business class award ticket (though I've never found hotel rooms to be worth the points or money compared to hostels/camping/couchsurfing). Even then, it's pretty difficult to NEVER spend money, but I've definitely travelled for much less than I would have spent if I had stayed home.
For a completely different approach to travelling free, Free Frequent Flyer Miles and Frugal Travel Guy (as well as the miles&points forums here at Flyertalk) provide advice on racking up thousands of frequent flyer miles and hotel points entirely through credit card offers and similar promotions. Sometimes just opening a checking account or making a single purchase with a new credit card yields enough miles for a free roundtrip flight.
Of course, neither of these approaches works perfectly reliably in all situations. I find it most effective and rewarding to combine the two, e.g. arriving in a city hitchhiking in the back of a pickup and departing on a business class award ticket (though I've never found hotel rooms to be worth the points or money compared to hostels/camping/couchsurfing). Even then, it's pretty difficult to NEVER spend money, but I've definitely travelled for much less than I would have spent if I had stayed home.
Last edited by lexande; Oct 20, 2010 at 10:54 pm
#15
Suspended
Join Date: Oct 2010
Posts: 2
Anyone actually tried Couchsurfing?
Hs anyone in this forum actually tried couch surfing? I like the idea of it but obviously there are safety. I'd like to think i'd have the trust in humanity to give it a go but i'd like to hear some personal experiences.