If you have decided to become an "unorganized" tourist, first you need to do two things: decide on a route and open a bank card. Of course, experienced travelers can easily afford to go to the Amazon jungle or Easter Island, but beginners should realistically assess their strengths. It's still better to start with calm Europe or the same Turkey. By the way, this tourist Mecca is an ideal starting point for independent tourists.
- A visa is issued at the border, it's not far to get there, charters are inexpensive, transportation, food, and accommodation are dirt cheap, - says Valery Shanin. - At the same time, Turkey combines Asian cheapness with almost European comfort and hygiene levels. And most importantly, you can feel like a pioneer there. You'll laugh, but 99.9% of tourists are kept in "tourist ghettos" in Antalya and Alanya, and once you go even 100 km away, you end up where no traveler has set foot. You can rent a hotel there for $5-10 per day.
As for a bank card, it should be "in the arsenal" of every independent tourist. Without it, you cannot book a hotel or rent a car. The only condition is that the card should not be an electronic one (most often payroll cards are like that), but at least Classic or Standard.
Transport
So, we arm ourselves with patience and begin to closely study internet sites that allow you to choose flights and book airline tickets online. There are many such portals, and the .rf zone already represents them. But according to Sergei Vinsky, the most authoritative is the international one - expedia.com.
The next step is to search for and order an airline ticket, preferably at the minimum price. With all the variety of transport, the airplane remains the most universal for starting a trip.
- When it comes to "dropping off" into an interesting region, it's better to use an airplane, - says Valery Shanin. - And then travel locally by trains and buses.
And Sergei Vinsky explains why it is necessary to purchase tickets first:
- In many embassies, having a "round-trip" ticket is mandatory for issuing a visa. In addition, it sometimes happens that a tourist who decided to go, for example, to Thailand, finds a sale on airline tickets to Kenya on the booking site and decides to change the route.
In a package tour from a company, the price of the airline ticket is included in the total cost of the trip. Therefore, it is impossible to find out its amount, let alone influence it. It's a different matter if you plan the route yourself. In the off-season, most airlines hold various sales, making it possible to fly to Europe and the Middle East for €150-200, to Southeast Asian countries for €300, and to the American continent for €350-600.
In addition, when you book the ticket yourself, you can reduce expenses by choosing an indirect flight of a foreign airline. The cheapest option for traveling to Europe is "hot" charters, tickets for which are sold at prices from $50 to $150. This way, you can fly to Spain, Italy, Greece, Montenegro. Even if these countries are not the final destination of your route, they can become a transit point from which any European state is within easy reach.
Roof over head
The issue of accommodation, which we solve next, is the simplest component of traveling "rough." Firstly, in the low season, hotels are half-empty, and secondly, for the same reason, prices will be reduced. Then it's a matter of taste. You can (and if you need a visa, you should) book a hotel while still at home. Using the most popular service for independent travelers, Lonely Planet (www.lonelyplanet.com or the website www.hotels.com), you can choose a hotel that suits your comfort level and budget.
Some sites through which hotels are booked take about 30% commission from hotel owners and about 10% from customers. Therefore, it is not superfluous to contact the hotel directly and clarify the cost of accommodation. If they give you a price without markup, it makes sense to book a room directly at the hotel. However, there are many sites on the Internet that offer discounts up to 50% if you book a room through their mediation. Such agencies are generous exclusively thanks to the World Wide Web, where they operate, thus saving on office and employee costs. But there is a risk of being cheated.
- You can take care of the roof over your head on the spot, - shares his experience Sergei Vinsky. - Any airport in the world has a hotel service where tourists are helped to choose the right hotel. And the offers can be very tempting. For example, a new five-star hotel is running a promotion and is ready to give you a 30-50% discount.
In Latin American countries, Thailand, it is generally enough to take a taxi and ask to be taken to a good hotel. Even in a tourist area, the room price will not exceed $50, and most likely will range between $15-30 per day. In poorer areas, an overnight stay will cost about ten dollars.
In addition to traditional hotels, independent travelers often use low-budget hotels. These can be chains of inexpensive hotels like Formule1, Etap, Ibis, or student hostels (dormitories). In such establishments, there is usually a minimum of comfort. Several people are packed into a room, beds are bunk, toilet and shower are on the floor. But such "amenities" cost €10-30 per night.
More comfortable conditions, close to home, are offered by guesthouses. These are small private houses designed to accommodate 20-40 guests at a time. They operate on a Bed-and-Breakfast system; guests live in separate small rooms, sometimes with a bathroom. In Cuba and Australia, you can rent half of a private house. “This is the most comfortable accommodation option,” says Sergei Vinsky. “You get a garden, a hammock, bamboo at your disposal. The owners feed you very tasty breakfasts, and you pay less (by 10-20%) than for a hotel.”
In many countries, owners of private apartments, houses and guesthouses wait for their potential guests at airports and train stations. Valery Shanin recommends paying attention to signs reading "Zimmer frei" ("Room free") or "Privatzimmer" ("Private rooms"). By the way, these are written in German not only in Germany but also in other countries, primarily counting on German tourists.
Stamp in passport
Many people do not dare to travel independently, fearing problems with visas. But, first, there are countries where no entry permission is needed at all, and there are those where the coveted stamp in the passport is placed right at the border. Second, even if a visa is required, you can also obtain it on your own.
To obtain a visa, for example, to Europe, a tourist must provide the embassy with a hotel reservation, confirmation of which is sent by fax. Remember that an email coming to you is not proof of hotel payment. “Embassies usually require that the hotel be paid for the entire duration of the trip,” says Sergei Vinsky. “But they rarely check whether you paid for all two weeks, just one day, or simply gave the hotel your bank card number from which only one dollar was charged for the booking service.”
As the experience of our travelers shows, collecting papers and dealing with the embassy will take one to two weeks.
The most difficult is to obtain entry permission to the USA, Canada, Australia. You must prove to consular officers at embassies that you have a compelling reason to return home – business, property, small children. The presence of such “treasures” must be confirmed with photocopies of relevant documents. At the Australian embassy, you will have a better chance of getting a visa if you can draw your planned travel route on a map.
Experienced travelers recommend using the services of an intermediary firm for a first trip to Europe or the USA – there will be less chance of doing something wrong and getting rejected. Processing a visa through a travel company will cost €100-200. This amount includes the cost of the visa itself and the hotel booking. However, the choice of intermediary firm also needs to be treated carefully. “For example, it happens that in some countries visas for residents of our country are canceled. But, looking at travel companies' price lists, you may find that many still charge money for it from clients,” said Grigory Lapshin. And Sergei Vinsky advises believing in your own strength.
“When the US consular officer asked me about the purpose of my visit, I replied that I wanted to see the Statue of Liberty, and my wife added that she dreamed of taking a photo with Mickey Mouse,” shared Sergei Vinsky. “After that, they asked us two more questions and put visas in our passports. The dumber your answers to the questions, the greater the chance of success.”
By the way, it often happens that obtaining a visa for some countries is easier abroad than at home. While in Brazil, you can get a visa for Argentina without problems; in Thailand you can safely apply for a Cambodian visa.
Tips for beginning travelers
HEALTH Buy insurance. It costs little – $7-15, but will help avoid many problems. Take a first aid kit with all kinds of medicines: for headaches, toothaches, colds, motion sickness, allergies, intestinal disorders. Don't forget bandages and iodine.
Do not drink raw water in Asian and African countries. When traveling to African, Latin American and Asian countries, get the necessary vaccinations, and also buy antimalarial tablets, which should be started two weeks before departure. Detailed information about infections, their geography and vaccination can be obtained at www.privivka.ru.
MONEY AND DOCUMENTS Do not take a lot of cash on a trip. Let it be a thousand dollars, distribute the remaining amount equally among two or three bank cards.
When going for a walk around the city, leave large sums of money and original documents in the hotel – either in a safe or in locked suitcases.
COMMUNICATION There are telephone cards created specifically for travelers. For example, the Ekit card (www.ekit.com) allows you to save up to 70% on calls from one country to another.
In cell phone stores you can buy SIM cards from European mobile operators. Their advantage is that in most European countries all incoming calls will be free for the subscriber, and outgoing calls will cost 40 cents (check the list of relevant countries in the store).
USEFUL LITERATURE A map is the main attribute of an independent traveler. Take a map of the country, maps of the cities you plan to visit, as well as a road atlas with motels, gas stations and campsites. Buy guidebooks for cities to organize your own leisure time.
Basically, knowledge of English will be enough to communicate with the local population. However, experienced travelers advise buying a phrasebook of the language spoken in the region you are going to.
USEFUL LINKS Before setting off on an independent trip, it is worth studying the successful and not-so-successful experiences of predecessors, as well as asking them all your questions. All this can be done, for example, on the forum of independent travelers – http://forum.awd.ru; www.rubackpacker.ru - Russian backpacker (a person with a backpack); www.avp.travel.ru - Academy of Free Travel; www.bpclub.ru - Club of Independent Travelers.