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Today We are Sharing an Amazing Journey of “Karthikeyan Palanisamy” Who traveled 25 Countries Within 25 years of Age, Shared his amazing Experience Exclusive With Scoopearth. How a Person Who belongs to a middle-class Family Travelled to a 25 country in less budget? So let’s have a look his experience shared exclusively with scoopearth.com.
Indian Traveler and backpacker, Karthikeyan, made his lifetime achievement of Traveling to 25 countries before turning 25. The video beautifully captures his journey to these countries. He says, as a backpacker, behind each frame it consisted of constant planning, saving up for expenses and sometimes even pavement chair naps to skip hostels and hostels.
“You are lucky!” – “You must be from a rich family” – “Did you really do this on your own savings?” were the messages I received when I shared my achievement of “Traveling to 25 countries”. It wasn’t just to travel to 25 countries, I wanted to do it before I turn 25, Says Karthikeyan Palanisamy
Coming from a middle-class family in India, it was close to impossible for me to achieve it. Travel is not synonymous to luxury but to experience which comes at a cost. Just like any other cost, it can be minimized but you need to put a lot of time on planning. I would like to share more on the planning part of my travel than my experiences and memories as I cannot confine my memories in a finite post.
Generally, there are three types of cost in travel and below were my ideas to minimize the travel cost.
Transport between places
When we talk about travel, we talk about the places we visit and not the flight or the bus we traveled in. I did hitchhiking a lot of times to save on travel. It’s a great experience every time. Choosing late night buses is also a clever option since they are way cheaper than general tickets and you can skip the hostel stay. When you fly, take as many long-transits as possible. I have had up to three transits during few flight journeys. They are less expensive and gives you the option to explore new cities at zero transport cost.
2. Stay
Stay in hostels they are way cheaper than hotels. And you get to meet so many amazing people that inspire you. I met an Australian that started a month long trip to SE Asia and ended up traveling the world and never went back home since 4 years. He inspired me to push myself to my limits.
Take late night buses. Cheaper and you can skip staying for the night.
3. Food
Never ever compromise on that. I cut the costs in travel and stay and spend much on food and try the authentic local food. Skip food at city centers. You just find expensive touristy food. Go to suburbs and you will find less expensive authentic food.
My favorite? – Its francesinha (you can find only in Porto, Portugal) and Poutine (Canada).
Tip: Sometimes the food that doesn’t look very attractive is tastier.
But Money?
“I could actually save up to 70% of the travel expenses by cutting down on transportation and stay, ” Says Karthikeyan
Another tip? – JUST STOP BUYING THINGS. You will be surprised to see that you could actually save so much if you stop buying things that you don’t actually need. At a point, I realized that most of my life memories come from the travel experience and not from the things I owned. I skipped branded stuff, stopped shopping. Started saving up for many many months. There were few months I restricted my breakfast and lunch to just a few bananas just to save up for my upcoming travel. Skipping on a high-end phone could get you to travel to a new country. So, STOP BUYING and start TRAVELING!
Please note: ” I thought I should share my thoughts on saving up for traveling so that anyone can travel. These are my personal views” Says Karthikeyan Palanisamy
My Facebook Profile Link: https://www.facebook.com/karthikn.palanismy