Rewards credit cards are a great way to earn a few percent cash back or frequent flyer miles for everyday purchases, but they’re geared against the consumer’s rate of purchase — the more you spend, the more rewards you earn.
Intrinsically this concept conflicts with the budget traveler. Sure, 2 miles for every dollar spent would be great, but few people spend enough money each month to make the miles worthwhile. If one spends 300 dollars and earns 600 miles per month, for example, it would take 41 months to save enough for a free flight on most airlines.
But a few savvy consumers have learned to game the system, all courtesy of the US mint. On their website, the mint advertises free shipping for over $500 in purchases of presidential $1 coins — at cost. This means that a user can show up at their online store, purchase $1000 worth of dollar coins on their rewards card and have them shipped to their front door for free. A quick walk to the bank puts that money back into circulation (hopefully for the payment of one’s credit card bill) and the user emerges a few miles richer. At that point, the user can repeat the cycle.
Sounds like a cash advance, right? Sort of, but mileage hounds have found that the neither the credit cards nor the IRS view it in that way, so they’re still buying dollar coins and reaping the rewards.
As to any impact on one’s credit score or the value of carrying 20lb boxes to the bank every day, the jury is still out, but for those with time and a bit of financial flexibility it seems like a great trick to earn miles.
You can read more details and extensive discussion over at Flyertalk and Milepoint.
Not all the glowing stories about Colombia’s travel revival are true: a visit to Bogota can still be dangerous. I actually found myself in peril my first day in Colombia’s capital when I went for some authentic lunch. As I sat down for my first Colombian meal, a friendly local recommended the “Bandeja Paisa,” a hearty Colombian dish. Why not, I thought? Except his innocent meal was not what it seemed – the dish that showed up at my table looked downright terrifying: a dangerously delicious heart-attack-on-a-plate of ground beef, a fried plantain, a chorizo sausage, rice, a fried egg, avocado, crispy pork skin (are we done yet?), beans AND an arepa to top it off in case I was still hungry. As I consumed the tasty fare, I began to feel dangerously lethargic – my breath slowed, and I literally had to fight from slipping into a nap as I later explored Bogota’s nearby Museo del Oro. In other words, I was loving every minute of my time in Bogota.
Bogota, Colombia is still a dangerous place to visit these days. It’s just that it’s not dangerous in the way you’re probably thinking. In place of drugs and violence, this delightfully accessible Colombian capital is now “dangerous” for lots of good reasons: the dangerously gorgeous streets of colonial Candelaria, the city’s sinfully exotic tropical fruit juices and mouth-watering culinary delights and, most importantly, its threateningly inexpensive costs for North American budget travelers.
This past February, I made the remarkably easy five hour non-stop Delta flight down to Bogota from New York City to find out just what everyone was talking about. My mission: to explore the city on just $75 a day. Wondering what I discovered in this dangerously intriguing South American capital? Keep reading below.Orientation
The sprawling city of Bogota rests on a high mountain plateau set against the Eastern Cordillera of the Andes Mountains. Within this metropolis of over seven million residents lie several distinct neighborhoods of interest to the budget traveler.
Visitors on a tight budget head for La Candelaria, an atmospheric neighborhood of gorgeous colonial facades and many of the city’s hostels and guesthouses. Though not quite as atmospheric, Bogota’s more upscale neighborhoods to the north, including Zona T, Zona G and Parque 93 offer equally leafy, park-laden confines swarming with restaurants, cafes and nightlife. Chapinero, just to the south of Bogota’s swanky commercial areas is an increasingly attractive option as well.
Where to Stay
Given my travel budget for Bogota, my initial search led me to Bogota’s cheaper Candelaria neighborhood, where I considered renting private rooms at Hostel Sue ($15/night) and Anandamayi Hostel ($30/night). Cheaper mixed dorm beds were also available. At the recommendation of Jeff, a Colombian expat who runs Career Break Secrets, I ended up checking out La Pinta, slightly further north in Chapinero, with private rooms for $27/night.
La Pinta proved to be the perfect match. Its pleasant backyard, proximity to nearby pubs filled with students and central location made a great base to explore Bogota’s northern neighborhoods as well as easy access to La Candelaria in the south.
Getting Around
Bogota’s progressive approach to city planning comes through in the city’s extensive transportation network. From the airport, it was within my budget to grab a regulated taxi, run by a dispatcher, for flat fare between $8-13. Make sure to look for the stand when you exit the terminal.
Once you make it to Bogota proper, getting around is fairly cheap as well. Even a typical taxi ride between the Northern and Southern parts of Bogota never cost me more than $10. Make sure to look for a regulated cab with 411-1111 or 311-1111 on the side to prevent scams. Though I typically took taxis, Bogota’s extensive and reliable Transmilenio express bus system is another attractive option at under $1 per ride.
My Bogota Experience
With little time to spare on my short weekend trip to Bogota, I headed straight out of the airport and right into Bogota’s buzzing weekend nightlife. I spent my first evening downing one dollar Aguila beers in the scruffy bohemian bars lining Carrera Septima (7th Avenue) near La Pinta. It was a delight to watch the energetic student patrons shuffle along to vintage Cumbia music inside the bars, their walls lined with Colombian flags and peeling Che Guevara posters.
The next morning was Sunday, a day many Bogota residents use to partake in the city’s Ciclovía: a weekly event when the city’s main road is closed off to cars and cyclists, walkers and joggers take to the streets in the beautiful 70 degree weather. I walked all the way from Chipinero to La Candelaria along the Ciclovía route, stopping for lunch at Sabrosita, a local Colombian chain, where I stuffed myself on a plate of hearty Bandeja Paisa ($3 for a plate) before continuing to Bogota’s famed Museo Del Oro.
It was at the Museum of Gold (Museo del Oro) that I began to realize what a gem of destination Bogota had become. The museum’s collection, housed inside a sleek, artfully arranged facility downtown, is composed of literally thousands of pieces of gold jewelry and ceremonial objects, each more stunning than the next. Best of all on Sundays, the museum is free of charge.
Thanks to a long weekend, I had one more day to enjoy in this cosmopolitan city in the Andes, and I truly made the most of it. I wandered my way back to Candelaria, stopping to take in the sprawling plaza at Plaza de Bolivar, and explore the nearby cobblestone streets lined with colorful facades, ornate woodwork and unique street graffiti. At this point my energy was flagging – a situation that I remedied with a drink made of a unique Colombian infusion of sugar, chocolate and…cheese (?) called Chocolate Santafereno at a famous Candelaria sweet shop called La Puerta Falsa.
I had read about Chocolate Santafereno, but couldn’t fathom why anyone would put a hunk of creamy cheese in a perfectly good cup of hot chocolate – until I tasted it. The salty, creamy queso blended perfectly with the sweet & spicy, thick pudding-like texture of Colombian hot chocolate. It was a pick-me-up, culinary novelty and comfort food, wrapped into one.
Much like that first taste of Chocolate Santafereno, my experience in Bogota was not what I was expecting. Colombia is indeed dangerous…dangerously addictive, that is. Take a quick taste for a weekend, and you’re likely to come back wanting more.
Hungry for more budget travel ideas? Be sure to check out Gadling’s budget travel archive.
A well-done spa treatment, especially a facial, during a vacation can lift a weary traveler straight out of their jet-lagged funk. But hey, lets not be so easily sold here: spa treatments, particularly those available at destination hotels, are expensive. The good news? You can work yourself up a little D.I.Y. facial with the stuff your hotel offers you for free. Call it resourceful; call it low-class. The fact remains: this stuff works.
Gather what you’ll need from your hotel’s breakfast bar and retire back to your room for some You time, courtesy of You.
What you’ll need:
Your in-room coffee maker
A packet of sugar (pure cane is best)
Yogurt
Uncooked oatmeal
Uncooked egg
Lemon or Orange
WaterOnce you’ve completed your hotel scavenger hunt, you’ll be ready for a self-made facial.
1. Wash your hands well.
2. Squeeze the lemon or orange into a cup of water. Using the corner of a washcloth, rinse your face with this mixture.
3. Spread the sugar over a clean corner of the washcloth. Wetting the washcloth just a bit, gently exfoliate your face with the cloth.
4. Rinse your face clean of the sugar.
5. Fill your coffee maker with water, but add no coffee. Turn on the coffee maker. Once the water is boiling, carefully lift the coffee maker’s water receptor so that you are exposed to the steam from the coffee maker. Place your face 5-10 inches from the steam, depending on what is most comfortable for you. Allow the steam to hit your face for a few minutes.
6. Once your face has been steamed, you can treat it with a mask. Make an easy mask by mixing the uncooked oatmeal with the uncooked egg. Spread the mixture all over your face using a cloth. Remove the mixture once it has hardened.
7. On a clean face, gently apply yogurt, focusing on the under-eye area. Let it sit for 1-2 minutes.
8. Rinse the yogurt.
And now? Enjoy. Because you really don’t have to pay top dollar to rejuvenate your skin at a hotel. In fact, skin rejuvenation can be complimentary.
I ended up in Kuching, the capital of Sarawak, Borneo, after I had to change travel plans at the last minute. I’d just finished researching a guidebook on the Malay Peninsula and my visa to Myanmar, where I’d planned to go next, got denied, so suddenly I had five days of free time and a day to plan it. A flight to Kuching from Penang was around $60 round-trip on Air Asia and they still had seats, so off I went. I had no clue that I was about to have one of the most tranquil yet exhilarating travel experiences of my life.
The trip started poorly. As the lone patron of my Hostel World-recommended guesthouse, I wasn’t meeting a soul in Kuching. Although it was filled with temples and delicious seafood restaurants and cut by a winding river out of a Maugham novel, the town offered little in the way of activities and I was getting dispirited wandering around by myself. My guidebook said that Bako National Park was an hour and a half from Kuching and was packed with wildlife. The sleeping options were reportedly grim (“dank bathrooms” and “torn mozzie nets”), but I had to get out of Kuching or I’d start talking to myself. I wasn’t sure I’d meet anyone at Bako, either, but hanging out with monkeys sounded better than feeling like a human loser in Kuching.
After an hour ride to a boat dock in a clunky yellow bus and a wet half-hour in a rusty speedboat, I traipsed from the boat up to Bako’s beach through warm waves, pants rolled up to my knees, backpack on my head. The all-local transport made me feel like an intrepid solo adventurer rather than alone and lost, so already I was happy to be there. Bako’s park headquarters are in mangrove swamps on a gray stretch of sand littered with rubbish; although beautiful, it’s not pristine.
I walked up to the front desk and signed in, then asked the ranger if it was possible to get a hiking guide. She looked at me blankly, as if I was the first person who had ever asked this question.
“Don’t need guide,” she said flatly. “Sign here when leave. Sign when get back. You don’t come back, we go look for you. No one get lost.”
A couple who were signing out at headquarters and about to catch the boat back to Kuching chimed in and told me that they’d been hiking for a few days and the trails were very well-marked. “But what about wild animals and rapists?” I asked. Everyone smiled and said I’d just have to watch out for poisonous snakes, most of which are nocturnal anyway.
With my bags dropped off and no guide or friends to walk with, I decided to trail-test this hike-on-your-own-in-darkest-Borneo theory. After a series of boardwalks over mangroves, the trail went straight up a well-trodden rocky path leading over giant tree roots in the shade of gnarled, vine-covered trees. It was so hot that soon I had saturated my T-shirt with sweat for the first time in my life. I was red-faced, clammy and probably smelling pretty bad, but when you’re alone, who cares?
At the top of the hill was a map with distances to several destinations and each route was color-coded. I took a trail to a beach and soon the terrain changed to treeless and sun-scorched with white powdery soil and low shrubs. I stopped on a bench at a viewpoint and a butterfly landed on my hand. All I could hear were insects and the trickle of a river. Walking again, I started to notice a huge variety of carnivorous pitcher plants and vines in the brush. Without the noise of a chatty companion, I was soaking in every sound, sight and whiff of a breeze. With no one to wait for and no one to keep up with, what became important were the details and sensations of the natural surroundings. It was bliss.
There was a Spanish couple at the beach, so I felt safe enough to put on a swimsuit and go for a swim. The water wasn’t clear but it was warm and soft with little waves that massaged my tired back. Refreshed, I put my sweaty clothes back on and returned to headquarters.
That night in the dorms I met a few other people who had also gone hiking on their own. We ate dinner together and told our stories, but it had been so liberating hiking alone, the next day I decided to go solo even though I’d now met plenty of potential hiking partners. All the other lone travelers had the same thoughts as me and we all went our separate ways, meeting only for meals.
Over the next three days I traversed much of the park, but I saw wildlife exclusively near headquarters. Every morning I’d head down to the boardwalk and sit silently as a family of pendulous-nosed proboscis monkeys foraged for mangrove fruit. Occasionally another person would come and sit with me but we’d just enjoy the close encounter in wordless complicity. One of my dorm-mates showed me where to find pit vipers coiled around branches in the jungle, sleeping off the evening frog hunt. One afternoon I followed a troupe of silver leaf monkeys along the water where they foraged with their babies between the beach trash. One night I joined a guided group hike and saw creepy long-legged, hand-sized poisonous spiders crawling around in a cave. Thieving, mischievous macaques were omnipresent, pillaging the garbage cans and trying to steal food at the restaurant and out of people’s rooms. At night, after the usual torrential downpour, frogs came out to sing.
This was a jungle in Borneo, one of the wildest destinations on Earth, and it felt that way, but somehow, even with the snakes and spiders, it felt safer than a small town and as soothing as an ashram. Perhaps it was the human silence.
Yes, the dorm rooms were in a flimsy wooden barrack-style lodge, but they were clean, fan-cooled and mosquito-free; and yes, the cavernous shared bathrooms with coldwater stalls definitely merited their dank reputation, but they did the job.
All in all, this wasn’t a textbook paradise, but the tranquility and pervasive nature made it live up to that name for me. Thanks to a last-minute switch in plans, I’d found a place I never wanted to leave.
Where to stay
The only place to stay is at Bako National Park headquarters. Reserve by phone, online or in Kuching at the National Parks and Wildlife Centre (in the Sarawak Tourism Complex on Jalan Tuan Hadji Openg). A dorm bed costs RM16 (around US$5) per night and rooms cost from RM50-100 (around US$16-32) per night. The only rooms with attached bathrooms are the RM50 doubles.
Food and drink
There’s a decent buffet-style restaurant at headquarters serving a mix of Western and Malaysian food for around RM7 (US$2.50) per meal. They also sell bottled water, beer, juice and soft drinks.
Getting there
There are lots of organized tours from Kuching, but it’s easy and much cheaper to get there on your own. Buses leave from Kuching’s open-air market to the boat dock at Kampung Bako hourly from 7am to 6pm; the trip takes around 45 minutes to an hour and costs RM3. From here, you need to charter a boat to park headquarters. Boats cost RM50 (US$16) for up to four people and you can usually find other travelers to share the boat. The boat trip takes 20-30 minutes. Arrange a time for a return pick-up with the boat driver and try to coordinate it with the bus schedule back to Kuching.
We launched Gadling’s Latin America on a budget series last week with a post on Antigua, Guatemala. This week, we check out the impressive budget-friendly credentials of Suchitoto, El Salvador. Suchitoto is a well-preserved colonial town overlooking a scenic reservoir, situated about thirty miles from San Salvador. Suchitoto is a peaceful town that moves at its own quiet pace. It’s beautiful, charming, friendly, and absolutely picturesque, and should have a much higher profile as a tourist destination. The fact that it isn’t well known can be ascribed to El Salvador’s unfortunately poor reputation as a country for tourism.
Several tour operators in Suchitoto ply tourists with brochures hawking volcano hikes, kayaking expeditions, beach trips, and archaeological adventures across El Salvador. Though the town itself does not come with a long checklist of activities and specific attractions, there are several places and points of interest that shouldn’t escape the attention of visitors. And happily for our purposes here, just about every activity in Suchitoto can be sampled for $5, tops.Admission to Suchitoto’s one church, the blindingly white Iglesia Santa Lucía, on the town’s central plaza, is free.
A smattering of galleries in Suchitoto justifies the town’s reputation as a place receptive to artists. Galeria de Pascal, which has a deep inventory of art objects, home décor items, books, and honey–mostly from El Salvador and elsewhere in Central America–is likely the best of the crop.
Galeria de Pascal is owned by Pascal Lebailly, who is also the co-owner of Los Almendros, the fanciest hotel in Suchitoto. Even for visitors on a budget, Los Almendros is a great place to stop by for a cappuccino ($2.70). The lush courtyard is welcoming and the price of your cappuccino, while about as expensive as a filling meal elsewhere in town, is still pretty reasonable.
A donation of $2 gets you into Centro Arte de la Paz, with exhibits on Suchitoto’s cultural and physical history. The center hosts a number of programs and activities designed to promote nonviolence and also build skills and competencies among locals. The center operates an exhibit devoted to El Salvador’s civil war (1980-1992), and is a very useful resource for visitors interested in the war’s history and significance.
Another top attraction is the Museo Alejandro Cotto (admission $4), a museum with lots of photographs chronicling the life of Cotto, a film director who took the lead in working to preserve the colonial nature of Suchitoto. Views of the reservoir from Cotto’s museum are quite possibly the best in town.
There are physical activities as well, none particularly demanding. Los Tercios waterfalls, dry for much of the year, can be visited with a tourist police accompaniment. (Suchitoto is very safe and the presence of the tourist police is gratuitous, but the tourist policemen often enjoy having the opportunity to converse.) There are also some waterfalls on the other side of town, which should only be visited with a local during dry weather. The path is steep and not marked terribly well. My guide led me down to the waterfalls, swam with me, and walked back with me along narrow trails, charging me $5 for his time.
And if you’d like to laze about by a pool, stop by El Tejado hotel and restaurant, where use of the pool costs $3.25 for the day. The views from El Tejado are outstanding as well.
Beds and grub are remarkably cheap in Suchitoto.
I stayed at El Gringo, a tiny hostel run by Robert Broz and his wife Tita. Robert, an American man of Salvadorean descent resident in El Salvador for many years now, is an expert on all things Suchitoto. Robert and Tita’s rooms run just $10 per person per night. The rooms are very simple and somewhat cavernous but comfortable. The toilet and shower are shared, and water from the shower is cold.
Food in Suchitoto is extremely inexpensive and in many cases delicious. Outstanding pupusas begin at 60 cents at El Gringo’s restaurant; they can be purchased for much less from street vendors. A full meal at El Gringo, including a beer, can be had for under $3.50. And while El Gringo is inexpensive, it is not vastly cheaper than many other restaurants in town. I strayed from El Gringo for a few meals; the most expensive of these topped out around $10.
One nighttime highlight is El Necio. a leftist bar filled with language students, volunteers, and locals. Shots of rum begin at $1.25. And for snacks, there is Pan Lilian, where an alfajor is yours for 25 cents.
Amazingly, a comfortable day on a budget of $20 is completely doable in Suchitoto. The only expense of note is transportation to and from the airport. It’s possible to take buses all the way to Suchitoto, with a change in San Salvador. But for anyone on a tight schedule, it makes more sense to negotiate a shuttle with your hotel. Mine cost $30 per person, and the journey took around an hour and 45 minutes. This cost seriously ate into my $75/day allotment, although costs are otherwise so low that I was able to meet my budget.
Who should visit Suchitoto on $75 a day? Couples, relaxation-minded travelers, and adventurous retirees.