A Cheap Travelling Guide: Low Fund, High Fun!

Let me take you back to SMANSA DAY 2015, an annual event of SMA Negeri 1 Bogor. On E-week, we were honored to be visited by Adis Takdos, a travel blogger who developed the low-cost traveling strategy. More than just talking, he came with a round-trip ticket to Bali for whoever meet his expectation on a selfie. Sumayyah and I, being two adventurous buddies, fought hard to take a decent selfie and posted it on Twitter. Minutes after minutes, it was confirmed that we won the competition and got the ticket. As young, jobless students, we were reckless, yet broke. We definitely could go there, but we were worried about our survival percentage. Sometimes, we thought about selling the ticket to our friends (illegally). But, later on, we decided to go, stepped out of our comfort zone, and lived the uncomfortableness for three days. Here some of our tricks to help you suppressing the spending on tickets, accommodation, transportation, and food for the sake of low-cost traveling experience.

For those who are interested in going to Bali and not as lucky as we were, finding the cheapest ticket is the most important step to do. You can start by choosing airlines providing cheap tickets. They usually give the promotion for a limited amount of time, thus, we need to keep updating their websites for a sudden promo. Do register yourself on the website and keep your balance safe to expedite the transaction process. Changing your departure city into any other city rather than Jakarta and changing your destination into somewhere rare can also help you getting cheaper tickets. If those tips are not working, being a travel blogger can help you get free tickets and free money every time you travel or write reviews on places. Last but not least, join a competition which gives the winner free tickets can work, too.

For accommodation, I recommend you to rent a hostel which only cost around Rp30.000,00/night. You can also collect any hotel voucher to get discounted room or even a free one. On Takdos’ blog, it is also recommended to sleep on the airport to suppress the spending. Sumi and I were lucky enough have Sumi’s mother’s best-friend to provide us a free room for three days. It is significantly important to widen our network in order to get help for several occasions, for instance, a free room!

To travel around Bali, I prefer using a motorcycle. It is available for rent, starting from Rp50.000,00/24 hours up to Rp70.000,00/24 hours. Lucky us, again, we were allowed to use Sumi’s mother’s best friend motorcycle and only had to pay Rp40.000,00 for the gas. With the motorcycle, we were capable of visiting several beaches along the south of Bali island, starting from Kuta, Legian, Seminyak, Tanah Lot, Nusa Dua, Uluwatu, Jimbaran, and others.

For foods—the hardest part—, we tried our best not to eat too much. We only had the breakfast that was provided by the host and meatballs for the lunch. The meatballs were incredibly delicious, halal, and also cheap. It only cost about Rp10.000,00/bowl. We did not have our dinner to save money. We also never forgot to bring water bottles to prevent further spending on water.

Travelling is not about spending a lot of money on luxury. It is all about learning something new and challenging your own limit. By learning something new, we can see things from new perception and accept difference. By challenging our limit, we finally can see a big picture of our capability. By traveling, too, we could develop our inner peace and reconnect with the society that we belong. And, does it require a lot of money? No, it does not. It requires bravery, and a backpack.