A few years ago my mother got an estimate from her dentist on all the work she needed to have done on her teeth. Implants, crowns, a bridge, and more were going to add up to $80,000. “Screw that,” I told her. “Go get it all done in Costa Rica. You’ll get a vacation out …

Somewhere, somehow, people got it into their head that Australia was a cheap place to go backpacking for a while and like a conspiracy theory that refuses to die, people keep getting on a plane believing it. As I mentioned in this earlier post, different takes on the cheapest places to travel, you often can’t …

The Eiffel Tower, the Vatican, St. Marks Square, Tower of London, Ankor Wat, Machu Picchu, the Great Pyramids of Egypt, the Taj Mahal, Chichen Itza, the Great Wall of China: the images of these places are etched in our minds. We’ve seen a hundred pictures of each before we even hit an age where we …

I just wrapped up my journey biking down the Katy Trail in Missouri, a converted rail line that is the longest (and in some ways the easiest) of its type. It goes most of the way across the state, but I only did a 105-mile stretch of it over a few days, based on where …

It’s important to remember one key point when you are traveling: your hotel rate is negotiable. This is especially true with non-chain international hotels. Whether you are booking a hotel, a hostel, a guesthouse, or a bed and breakfast, the price you will pay for your room is probably open to bargaining.  Most backpackers figure …