Budget Travel Tip: Cooking While Traveling

If I can, I usually opt to stay I hotels that offer the use of a kitchen to their guests. Cooking your own meals keeps you healthy and helps to save money. In Guatemala this has been a particularly important factor. Here food is ridiculously priced. A cheap meal here averages 20-30 Quetzales. Most meals in restaurants are way above that though, especially if you want to leave the place with a full belly. If you eat this way, before you know it you are spending $10 or more on food daily. This is well over the budget of my pocketbook as a backpacker. With hotel and all, my daily budget is usually $10. Spending money on expensive food eats up traveling funds quite quickly.

If you have access to a kitchen, or even any sort of stove and a pot, you can cook a tasty meal for cheap. In the market fruits and vegetables are cheap. Rice and beans, an absolute staple, are cheap almost everywhere in the world. Eggs usually aren’t too pricey. Meats can be more expensive, but humans only need a little bit of meat per day. This is what you need to eat to survive. This is what local people are eating. Plus, markets can be really fun and colorful experiences!



Junk food, chips, snacks, pre-packaged food, processed food etc. is expensive and usually lacks nutrition value. If you are on a small budget, don’t buy these frivolties.

Cooking my own meals, I can eat for around 5 Quetzales for each meal. This adds up to 15 for 3 meals, about $2 USD. See the money we are saving already? You can hardly find a meal for 15 Quetzales anyway in Antigua!

The second advantage is the health aspect. Montezuma’s Revenge, Dehli Belly, Jaipur worms, bizarre fevers, food-poisoning, all are not fun. One of the biggest dangers and problems with traveling is the getting sick part. Most people get sick due to some sort of bad food preparation; the meat isn’t fully cooked, the vegetables weren’t washed, there are flies landing on everything in the kitchen, you food was prepared in dirty water.

When you cook your own meals you have full control over the sanitary conditions. In many other countries, their ideas on cleanliness and health are different. A lot of people honestly just do not know that they should wash their hands. If you make your own meals you know if the cook scratched his butt and didn’t wash his hands before preparing your food. You know if your dishes were washed prior to your use. You know if your food was dropped on the grimy floor. You know if the water used to make the food was clean, or if it came from a polluted nearby sewer. Health is important. After getting really sick a couple of times, you will be begging to make your own food.

Of course one should always eat out to try the local delicacies and not be too overly anal about sanitary conditions. Yummy foreign food is all part of the traveling experience. And no kitchen, not even in the USA is completely clean. But if health has got you down, or if money is tight, consider a hotel with a kitchen. Even if it’s only for breakfast, cornflakes will cost you a lot less than eating out.

Travel Tip for Women: Don't Wear Short Skirts

While traveling a woman needs to be aware of the way she is dressed. Appropriateness of clothing varies from country to country, but by following a few restrictions she is less likely to get unwanted attention.

The fact of the matter is that the majority of the world thinks white western women are sex objects. They think we want sex all the time, we are easy to get into bed, and we have loose morals. The media all over the world portrays us in this manner, so of course every horny boy worldwide is going to target us pale skinned beauties.

The problem is, much of the time traveling girls do not really do much to sway this stereotype. I have seen girls in halter tops in Hindu India, girls with short skirts in Muslim Morocco, and girls in booty shorts in Catholic Central America. These sexy clothes may not be the best wear if in countries with stricter moral codes.

(This naked girl in Costa Rica attracts a lot of attention)

At home in America these clothes are normal, and no one even thinks twice about wearing them. Abroad, it is a little different. Yes many countries have a hot climate, but that doesn’t mean you should flounce about naked.

In India I knew an American girl who always wore skirts, but did not know how to keep her legs closed. I would glance over and always see her panties sticking out, no matter how long the skirt was. We would be in the company of all types of Indian men, but she just couldn’t keep her legs closed. She wondered why she was grabbed by Indian men so often. Plain and simply, she was showing them her vagina half the time. Indian men really do believe that western women just want to have sex all the time and will have sex with whoever asks them. The best thing to do is to dress like an Indian woman, or at least cover all of your body parts, including stomach, shoulders, and legs. It is common decency.

In Costa Rica a fellow female student was having a lot of trouble because of unwanted attention from the local boys. Cat-calling, whistling, and hooting is normal here. Every boy you walk passed on the street will make some sort of noise at you. As she was explaining to me her difficulties while sitting on the couch I looked down to see a very distracting sight. She was wearing shorts so short that I could see her vagina. She wore shorts everyday. Everyday her shorts were too short. Everyday boys were hitting on her. There was an obvious correlation between her rear hanging out and the boys’ comments. This is common sense. Cover your vagina.

(Photo of a woman wearing a head scarf in India. She is safe from harrassment)

The best thing however is not to engage boys when they start yelling. The girl with the short shorts decided one day to yell back at the boys who hit on her with her vagina hanging out. The boys of course got angry. The boys yelled back, calling her a slut, and followed her down the street in their car, threatening her. They thought she wanted the attention. Prostitutes wear sexy clothes to get attention. Girls dress up to get attention. Do not yell back at the boys. This is stupid. Do not wear revealing clothes if you do not want attention. This is stupid.

Obviously, in our Politically correct American suburban world we have forgotten about the implication of clothes. If you were revealing clothes you are trying to attract males. If you are wearing revealing clothes you want the attention of males. Remember this. It is important. Don’t be stupid. If you are getting too much attention, put more clothes on.

Dumpster Diving and Trashpicking Tips: Thrift Shops

More Scavenging techniques!
Bottom Line- People throw things away. This is a very bad thing for the environment, but can be a very good thing for the scavenger. In more wealthy countries (i.e. consumption-based societies: The USA and Western Europe, etc.) trash-picking and dumpster diving can provide an abundance of stuff!

The most successful trashpicking and dumpster diving can usually be found where people are moving large quantities of junk in short periods of time. Junk is junk, right? No! One man's junk is another man's treasure!

There are many sources of good garbage opportunities.

Tip # 1: Thrift Shops!
Not inside the store dummy! (Well, okay, maybe you can look inside the store too, but thats not where the free stuff is!) Thanks to all of the people who donate to thrift stores, they are in a continual state of overflowing junk. Not all of this junk makes it to the rack. A majority of it is weeded out and chucked into the dumpster out back. The dumpsters are particularly ripe for the picking at the change of the season, when the old summer clothes are exchanged for winter clothes or vice versa.

Good Luck and Happy Dumpstering!