This here is an abbreviated Let’s Go how-to travel manual, a budget travel primer clueing y’all in as to how to travel in style, in the know, and on the cheap. Like much of Western civilization, most of what travel entails is actually reducible to a single basic trinity:
1) flexibility,
2) planning, and
3) budgeting.
To be totally accurate, let’s throw in:
4) gastrointestinal happiness.
Packing the pink stuff solves 4). Since flexibility and planning seem to be at opposite ends of the preparatory steps spectrum, I would add that another thing crucial to stylin’ budget travel is the ability to strike a balance between what may appear to be contradictory behaviors. Plan, but don’t overplan. Take risks, but don’t be foolish. This means you should stray from the beaten tourist track. Just don’t smuggle grass along its borders. Know where you’re going, roughly, and have a backup plan. But always be willing to take deviations from what you’d originally planned. You’ll come across festivals you didn’t know about, monsoons arriving earlier than expected, a hostel owner closing for the winter, museums closing for construction (hi, Paris, anyone?). So allow room in your schedules for deviations.
