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Pathfinder: Budget Travel

Getting Started

This guide is designed for people interested in discovering how to travel on a shoestring budget. Since one person's bargain can be another person's luxury, many of the recommended resources here primarily target students and youths of university age where cheap travel means less than $75 a day. However, anyone with a frugal mindset and an itch to travel can find the following information useful; simply keep an eye out for age-specific guidelines regarding discounts and other perks.

There are a few good places to start exploring for budget travel information. Many colleges and universities have international centers that offer a wealth of information on overseas travel including books, magazines, factsheets, and travelogues on every region of the world. Although much of these centers' offerings are geared toward work- and study-exchange students, there is plenty of information relevant to anyone simply interested in cheap travel.

A variety of resources on the topic of budget travel can also be found at your local bookstore, library, and on the Internet. The following list highlights some of those resources and should serve as a great starting point for people interested in traveling the world on a shoestring.

Books

A plethora of books are available on the general topic of travel with several targeting people with limited budgets. If you want to visit your local library, the appropriate Dewey Decimal Classification System number for travel books is:

910 Geography and Travel

The following titles - available at your local bookstore or library - offer useful overviews of traveling cheaply with plenty of tips and recommendations. An online bookstore like Amazon.com is a more immediate way to browse titles relevant to the subject of budget travel.

Guidebook Series

There are many guidebook series that offer a comprehensive, country-by-country listing of accommodations, transportation, restaurants, attractions, and nightspots geared toward the budget traveler. They also provide historical and political backgrounds, language and currency information as well as travel tips for each region. You do NOT want to leave home without one of these essential resources. Even before the trip, guidebooks can give you a good feel for what kinds of places fit in with your interests and needs as a traveler. Lonely Planet is particularly helpful - if not in its sheer honesty alone! The following series titles provide editions for every continent and sometimes country-by-country volumes as well. You can find these at your local library or in the travel section of most bookstores. Excerpts can be found online. There are many more series than are offered on this page, such as Fodor's, Cheap Eats & Sleeps, Frommer's, Rick Steve's, Mr. Cheap's, and Michelin Guides. Please refer to Amazon's Guidebook Series Page in their Travel Section for more Series options and descriptions.

Magazines

These are three good print publications that you can check out on the Web for highlights:

Organizations & Travel Agencies

Internet Resources

The Internet can be a budget traveler's dream. A search for "budget travel" on a search engine like Alta Vista can produce a variety of good sites devoted to the subject. The following recommendations are great starting points:

This pathfinder was created by Andrea MacAdam. Updated by Sena Roth.

You may also wish to see IPL: Travel and Tourism Resources

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