Sarahs On A Shoestring

Hi everyone!

Thanks for following our adventures on sarahsonashoestring!

After five months of travel, the Sarahs are temporarily parting ways.  Sarah H is moving to NYC to reunite with her beloved pit-bull and return to the work force and Sarah M is continuing to explore and experience Bangkok.

Thanks for reading!

Sarah H and Sarah M

The Sarahs love a good overnight bus ride. From South America to Asia, we can say that we’ve mastered the arts of comfort and entertainment during gruelingly long overland travel. As we mentioned in our last post, we recently met up with our friend Claire who has found herself out of practice when it comes to the tedious and bizarre world of overnight bussing.

We managed to convince her that at best, an overnight bus trip is an excuse to eat junk food and listen to every song on your iPod; at worst, it’s a little uncomfortable…Don’t get me wrong, we recognize that bus travel comes with risks. In the last four months we have pleaded with bus drivers at 4 a.m. to pull over so we could pee on the side of the road. We have woken up with babies on our laps and we have demolished king size packs of Oreos in one sitting. On one particular 22 hour bus ride, the driver decided to BLAST, and I really mean blast, disco music from dusk to dawn. When Sarah M decided at 3 am to ask him to turn the music down, he looked at her, turned the volume from 25 to 24, and then cranked it up to 26 when she started to walk away. We were abruptly roused from our slumber on another early morning in Laos because our bus had hit a pig. This became inconvenient when the entire town blocked the road to investigate whose pig we had killed before we could leave.

Despite these annoyances, the bottom line here is that bus travel has always been our friend. 20 hours of transportation is half the price of a ride from Boston to New York! We were confident that 16 hours of bussing from Phuket to Bangkok would be a breeze.

We were wrong, and unfortunately Claire paid the price when we were for the first time faced with a bus-related situation we weren’t sure how to handle. What do you do when you are sitting next to a stranger who is violently puking into a plastic bag for 16 hours straight? Now this may sound insensitive. Someone who vomits for 16 hours without a break must be really sick and we should feel empathy, right? Maybe, but let me pose a few questions for you before you decide whether or not we are heartless.

1) If you were THAT sick and knew you’d be sitting next to a stranger for 16 hours, would you feel comfortable exposing them to that illness and all the vomit that comes with it, or would you maybe wait a few days to travel?

2) If you did decide to reject consideration for spreading said illness by traveling anyway, wouldn’t you get up and empty your plastic bags full of puke in the bathroom on the bus located just a few rows from where you are sitting?

3) If, for some reason, you decided that you were unwilling to use the bathroom on the bus, but WERE willing to get off at rest stops to presumably walk around, get fresh air, etc., wouldn’t you bring your bags full of puke with you and dispose of them rather than letting them precariously pile up on the floor next to your seat?

4) If you did decide to hoard your puke bags, wouldn’t you at least RESPOND when Sarah M, the vigilante of etiquette, politely suggests, with the help of a nice, bilingual Thai woman that you dispose of at least two of your three full-to-the-brim-with-liquid-puke-bags?

5) Finally, when you exit the bus once and for all, hours before many of the guests have reached THEIR final destinations, wouldn’t you take your 16 hours worth of puke off of the bus rather than leaving it on the seat for someone else to throw away?

These are the questions that were swirling through our heads as Sarah H, the weak of stomach, tried not to lose her own lunch at the sound of every heave. The moral of the story? Travel is ideal for gaining perspective. If someone was puking into a clear plastic bag for even one minute on the DC metro, the entire car would instantly clear in horror and metro police would likely respond with force. But a little puke never killed anyone, did it? Let Claire be an inspiration to you this holiday season and brush off the little (even horrifying) stuff.

Family and friends often ask: how can we afford to do what we do? Our travels are somewhat of a mystery to people, as we don’t have jobs, we’re not wealthy, and we certainly don’t have some sort of travel allowance. How do we do it? Good question…

There is no real answer to “how much money we spend per day.” Expenses depend entirely on which country we’re in and whether we’re in a big city or quiet rural area. It depends on whether it’s peak or off season, whether we need permits or visas, and how we see our comfort zone in any place we visit. In boiling hot Malaysia, we’ll probably spend the extra 3 dollars for the room with air-con.

On average, we can expect to sleep in guest houses in Asia for three to ten dollars per night. This range accounts for where we are, but also whether we’re traveling alone, willing to share a room, or willing to skip out on comforts like cleanliness or a private bathroom. We’re especially lucky because we can always split this cost! We’re traveling on a shoestring, of course, but safety is still very important. We try to avoid a city’s most inexpensive, dingy hostel without a safe for obvious reasons. Bottom line? We estimate about 5 dollars each per night for a comfortable, clean room.

Now onto eating. The price of food varies everywhere, and some places are easier for eating on the cheap. We can get 1 dollar pad thai from Thai street vendors, but we spent about 6 dollars to eat lunch in reputable Nepali restaurants where the vegetables are washed in iodine and the refrigerators stay on 24 hours a day. If you’re especially frugal and adventurous, and if you avoid overeating, you can probably get by on about 5 dollars per day. Just don’t count on getting a latte fix anytime soon.

Planning to travel? Whether you spend four or fourteen dollars a day on accommodations and meals, you will still need to save money before you go and manage it once you’re on the road. Here are our tips for preparing for a big trip and saving the money you have, and some signs you’ve gone too far!

How To SAVE for Long Term Travel:

1) Open an ING high interest saving’s account. Set it up to autmatically take a predetermined amount from each paycheck so you can’t cheat. Don’t make changes to the account unless you get a bonus or a raise, and then just immediately move the extra money into ING and out of your reach. If it’s money you never had, you won’t miss it! Be diligent and if you ever find yourself with a cushion, raise the amount automatically being saved. The less involved YOU are in your savings, the MORE you will save.

2) Be shameless. Do you vaguely know someone from high school who teaches abroad? Do you have an estranged grandparent who retired to the Domincan Republic? Does your coworker have a friend who runs a hotel in Bulgaria? Email them all. Take any contact available and assume that all offers are sincere. And the more flexible you are about where you go, the more likely you will be to have an authentic and affordable experience. If said friend of friend invites you to Mexico City and offers you a free place to stay, see it as a sign and use that as a starting point.

3) Sell your stuff. Sell your books, your furniture and the clothes you don’t wear. Your time abroad is more valuable and by the time you get home, everything you owned will be out of style anyway.

4) Don’t buy expensive things for you trip. You should assume when packing that anything you bring may not return, so why splurge? Most things will cheaper overseas, anyway, and you definitely don’t need the extra baggage. Even for the things you just can’t live without, you can always cut corners. Sarah H’s 300 dollar Acer Computer from Costco was the perfect computer to bring on the big trip.

5) Think about your bank. Don’t wait until you get abroad and feel the panic associated with soul-sucking international fees (like we did) to find the right type of ATM and credit card for your trip. I admit this is something we aren’t experts at but we are figuring it out and paying, literally, for our lack of research. Two very helpful resources we’ve been using in our attempt to right this wrong are below.

www.moneyland.time.com/2011/11/11/the-best-low-interest-and-airline-miles-credit-cards

www.nomadicmatt.com/travel-blogs/

Ways to save money on the BIG TRIP

1) Take overnight buses. Trains and planes are quicker, more pleasant and come equipped with bathrooms so we certainly get the appeal, but coming to peace with the 20 hour bus ride is the first and most significant way to save money. Once you load your ipod with books and purchase serious snacks and one of those travel neck pillows, the rides can be, dare we say, enjoyable? Embrace them 100% of the time and shave off hundreds of dollars from each change of location.

2) Eat where you volunteer. If you are doing long-term travel, you will likely be parking in your favorite places and investing time in volunteer causes that are important to you. Rememember that in exchange for free labor, most volunteer opporunities offer lunch for the volunteers, which saves money – and it’s also a great time to get to know people.

3) We really can’t reiterate this enough: be shameless. You will undoubtedly meet people along the way who want to share their home and culture with you and they may invite you a meal. Say yes! This will not only account for some of your best memories, but also provide a rest for your wallet. As you’re traveling, accept all NEW contacts you are given and follow the chain of connections wherever you can.

3) Remember you can’t do everything. This can lead to severe FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) but you just have to learn to be OK not doing every single thing the world has to offer RIGHT NOW. There is a fine line between denying yourself all pleasures (in which case why not just stay on the couch in the Good Ol’ USA) and spending recklessly for the sake of doing it all. Know yourself as a travelor and make the right choice for YOU, while tuning out the backpacker’s bar bantor – “you HAVE to make that 15 day trek, bro.” One person may dream of trekking to Everest Base Camp, while another might prefer spending that money scuba diving in Malaysia. Neither choice is wrong. Stick to your gut instinct, tune out the peer pressure and splurge on what you’re dreaming of – not the guy in the bar.

Signs You’ve Gone Too Far:

1) You are aggressively bargaining with a sixty-five year old women over a difference of forty cents for the hand weaved, naturally dyed blanket she is selling on the street. Yes, you’re traveling on a shoestring, but as you’re bartering in boho baggy pants with that SLR camera hanging from your neck, you’re probably not on as much of a shoestring as the blanket weaver. Be savvy, but also keep some perspective while agonizing over the forty cents.

2) You are showing signs of scurvy. It’s easy to get into the noodle broth and chicken skewers from the local street vendor when the price is right. Splurging on healthy items like fresh fruit is not only OK, but also essential to staying healthy when on the road and far away from the nearest doctor’s office.

3) You are ashamed of sharing your expenditures with the more hardcore shoestring backpackers in the bar. The challenge to “be the most frugal” makes no sense to us and as long as you are comfortable with what you are spending, who cares if you want to stay at a guest house with air conditioning? If you don’t feel safe, or you aren’t enjoying yourself, what is the point of traveling? Everyone’s money will run out at some point so you may as well spend it how you want, for as long as you can. And don’t let the dreadlocked, mega-chillers make you feel guilty. We think not showering for three weeks is weird, so, to each their own!

JUST REMEMBER:

Don’t let money rule you. If you are feeling nervous about cash, prioritize making more of it! Get certified to teach English and look for a job in one of your favorite areas, using that as a base from which to take shorter trips. Look into non-profit jobs and fellowships that will allow you to stay overseas. Many friends we have traveled with supplement their funds by tutoring a few times a week through BuddySchool. This allows you to connect with students from all over the world via Skype and create one-on-one teaching opporunities where you can name your own price.

Money comes and goes, and when you are determined you can almost always make more of it. Try to prioritize your experiences over your bank account. One of our favorite travel gurus, Rolf Potts, advocates redefining wealth to mean time and not money, and we very much agree.