What a Room Costs
A mid-range hotel in central Mumbai runs at least about $60 a night. In Jaisalmer, out in the desert, a room can cost $5. Same country. The gap between those two numbers is the whole argument about budget travel in one line.
India is doable on very little if you accept the shape of the place. The expensive cities are expensive. The small ones are not.
The $10 Benchmark
There is a class of backpacker who lives on $10 a day no matter what. That is the shoestring end of the shoestring spectrum. It is not a figure most people hit, and it is not a figure you have to hit.
The more useful range is the one between $200 a day and $50 a day. The difference between those two numbers is not sacrifice. It is strategy. You can eat konbini meals and cheap ramen in Japan and get by on ¥2,500 to ¥4,000 a day, which is $17 to $27. You can spend $45 a day somewhere and still afford to party every evening and put real money into boat trips. Both of those are the same trip, differently arranged.
South America sits between Asia and Europe on cost, with enormous variation inside the continent itself. Bolivia and Nicaragua allow genuine shoestring travel at under $30 a day. Costa Rica and Chile come close to Western European prices. That is a $30-a-day country next to a $90-a-day country, often on the same itinerary.
Getting From A to B
In Thailand, buses stop at the bus station in the centre of town. Shared taxis take you to Laem Ngop Pier or Laem Sok Pier for about 150 baht, which is a bit over $4. Which pier you get depends on which ferry leaves first. Boats to Koh Kood go from there.
That is the pattern worth internalising. The last leg of a trip is where small money gets spent, and it is where people get caught out, because the price is quoted in a currency they have not thought about and paid in cash they have not withdrawn.
Where the Money Actually Goes
Bali is cheap enough that you can do a great deal on very little. One traveller spent $225.73 on activities over a trip and got a lot out of it. That number is worth sitting with. $225.73 is not nothing. It is also not the thing that wrecks a budget.
What wrecks a budget is the fixed costs. Accommodation, transport between cities, and the fees you did not plan for. Bank charges sit in that last category. Comparing what your bank takes against travel-specific options before you leave, rather than after, is worth the hour it takes. Over two or three weeks, the difference can cover a few extra dinners or a pair of shoes.
Which brings us to shoes.
Buy the Shoes
Good walking shoes are probably the best travel purchase you will ever make. Your feet will not care how stylish you looked after 25,000 steps. That is the whole case, and it does not need elaborating.
The people who skimp on footwear are the people who end up buying replacement footwear abroad at whatever the local price happens to be, in a town where they do not know the shops, on a day they had planned to spend walking. Pay for the shoes at home. Pay for them before the trip, not during it. The savings you generate elsewhere, from the cheaper room and the konbini dinner and the shared taxi to the pier, are what fund them.
The math is not complicated. A $5 room in Jaisalmer instead of a $60 room in Mumbai is $55 a night. Three nights of that is $165. That is a serious pair of shoes, or a boat trip, or a week of dinners, depending on what you decide you came for.
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