Whoever says traveling as we are for 8 months is like a long vacation is severly mistaken. While it has been the best learning experience I’ve ever had and we have had a wonderful time along the way, it is by no means a relaxing vacation. Up until this point, Chris and I have lived off only $29USD per person per day including food, transport, acomodations, and activities etc. We’ve been eaten alive by mosquitos, crammed 40 people into a 14 person bus, slept in places that wouldn’t even be considered adequate housing the States, been haggled and harassed because we’re white, and eaten food that could make your gag reflexes react in an instant.

Don’t get me wrong, there is a sweet satisfaction in saving money and it’s even better when we recognize that we’re getting the local experience by submerging ourselves in the foreign cultures. I have learned more this trip than I have in traveling to Europe and Asia combined because we are doing almost everything at a local level. And to my surprise, the cheaper the accomodations we stay at, the more interesting and outgoing people we meet. If we hadn’t lived the cheap life, we would never have learned the language. We would have never have cooked the food. We would never have seen the hardships. We would never have learned the rituals and cultural traditions. Our trip would be a long, posh, series of uneventful experiences and people.

Traveling on the cheap has come with it’s own obstacles, but I can’t recommend it enough. It allows us to only begin to see the world from a lifestyle that more than 90% of the population lives… in poverty.