5 Reasons why it's better to travel on a budget

Most of us would like to take that much-needed break from our routine life, explore the world and live that change. Travelling is also a great way to reunite with friends and family who live far away, but most of the times we have to say no to these plans due to various reasons and the predominant reason we avoid going on those trips is that it becomes an expensive affair especially when you don't plan it in details.

Budget trip is a popular term today and it has made travelling possible for a lot of people out there. Travelling can be as expensive and as cheap as you want it to be. It needs some planning to cut certain expenses which are not as important as going on the trip. The budget trips really help you to explore the places more and the experience things which you would have missed otherwise.

Here are 5 reasons why it's better to travel on a budget

1. You get to travel more

When you know the trip is not going to create a hole in your pocket, you feel like doing it more often. When we plan a trip with a group of friends, some of them will definitely opt out because of the expenses and we end up cancelling the plan most of the time. A budget trip really helps you to meet more friends as everybody can afford it.

2. You get to stay at the offbeat locations

Travelling is all about coming out of your comfort zone, exploring a new place and still having fun. While visiting a new place we often like to stay in the middle of the city to avoid travelling and end up missing a lot. On the other hand, a budget stay will always be full of surprises as the places will be a little away from the city and offers breathtaking views from the balcony, peaceful surroundings and unexplored places.

I am fortunate to stay at some of the best budget home-stays on my trips like the one in Bhutan which was really luxurious with a view of a monastery on one side and the valley on the other, another home-stay was located next to a river flowing through the mountains or the one in Munnar which was in the middle of a tea garden with a fireplace in the back yard.

3. You get to make new friends

Booking a budget stay like hostels or home-stays really helps you to get around with people from all parts of the world as all the travelers stay under one roof or one room.

On my visit to Varanasi, I stayed in a hostel where 5 other people shared the room with me like two sisters from Denver, a guy from Russia, another from Kerala and the 5th one was once an IT engineer turned Yogi who was also an artist doing freelancing nowadays and I am still connected to all of them.

Travelling on a budget leads to a lot of time spent on trains, buses and shared cabs which helps in meeting new people and making friends during the journey. On one of my trips with a friend of mine met a guy in a shared cab in Bhutan and they ended up sharing their interest in painting and since then he has become her mentor.

4. Get to know the real place and culture

The best way to know a place is by interacting more with the locals and travelling on public transport gives you enough time and opportunity to do that. Locals are most of the time happy to interact with the travelers as they are also looking to kill time during the journey.

Booking a home-stay is also a great way to live their life, eat what they cook and just ask them anything about the place like the best places to eat, must visit places nearby and which ones to escape.

5. Get time to come out of the travel zone

It's amazing that a 24 hour train journey can be done in a few hours of flight, which saves a lot of our precious time, but it's a fact that these flight tickets doubles our travel budget. This may not be true for all of us, but another reason I am not a fan of air travel is because once I realized that just an hour ago, I was sipping my hot tea looking at the snow-capped mountains of Manali and now I am stuck in a traffic jam looking for a cold drink to beat the scorching heat of Delhi. It doesn't give me time to acclimatize to the polluted, busy and noisy city life.

A slow journey on the other hand like a bus or a train always gives you ample time to those fresh memories of the amazing time you have spent on your vacation, prepares you mentally to go back to your 9-6 job and reduces your travel cost by 40 percent.

These are some of the things that luxury of a 4 star hotel can't give because their aim is to make you comfortable and give a homely feeling, but the fact is you have traveled miles to live a few days of change and experience a world different from yours.

Thanks for reading

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