In the U.S., we commonly think of flying as expensive and ground transportation as cheap. Most of us don’t even consider trains or buses as legitimate options.
Nonsense. Pure nonsense.
It’s not that way overseas. Planes are often cheap (beware the fees) while trains and even some boats cost a bundle. This is why I urge people to keep all transit options open when planning.
Here are important considerations for all of them.
Planes are the least interesting option of the big four. There’s less space and flexibility, higher luggage fees, more hassles and virtually no scenery. There’s also no meaningful mingling among travelers.
Planes are inevitable though, starting with your first day. North America is, after all, an island. A very large, very isolated island, and nobody’s leaving by boat.
There will be times when ground transportation simply takes too long or the views aren’t worth it. I had aspirations to bus it from Buenos Aires to Mendoza, but it would have taken a full day of painful flatness. A plane took a few hours and was so cheap that I consoled myself with a steak.
I also choose planes when ground transit go through risky areas. This can either mean unsafe terrain, like the spectacularly beautiful but incomprehensibly dangerous Yungas Road in Bolivia, or regions prone to violence. Planes can be cheap overseas and even save you a substantial bit of money, which I explain here. This is not true for around-the-world fares though, which are the silliest scam of all unless you win one on Wheel of Fortune. Wanna know why? Read about it here.
Planes also save huge amounts of time when you don’t want to cross borders by land, which you definitely want to avoid in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
When you book a flight, there are a few important considerations for nomads that you can learn about here.
All train rides fall into one of two categories: those you take for the joy of the ride and those that you take to travel between two points. Sometimes a train is both.
For simple transit, most countries have a passenger rail system, though comfort, safety and reliability varies. For an insanely rickety, bumpy ride, you have a train in Myanmar that is literally nicknamed “Death” whose full far north to south costs less than a Dominos pizza. In Japan, trains literally float and speed like bullets and are so cush you almost wish they’d last longer.
Somewhere in the middle is everyone else, like India. A remnant of British colonial subjugation, the South Asian rail system is sometimes nice, often not, usually confusing and always cultural, kind of like everything in India.
There are four primary ways to book a train, and the options vary by system.
1. Pre-order online
2. Third-party and/or station agent
3. Direct-pay to conductor after boarding
4. Rail passes (which I strongly discourage in Europe)
Reservations guarantee a seat, but reduce flexibility. Generally, I reserve in advance, especially for sleeper cars.
Sleeper cars are my favorite for overnights. They’re often social, and they gently rock you to sleep. They also spare you the cost of a night’s accommodation. If you’re looking to cover some distance and you don’t care about being awake for the views, there’s no better way to travel.
Sadly, those tickets sell out fast, so once you know your dates, reserve that ticket. Sometimes they’re only available at the station, so I call a local travel agency in advance or buy my ticket to leave town on the day I arrive.
If you’re curious how classes work, check out my breakdown here.
Buses stir a lot of loathing in the minds of Americans. What’s that about?
If you share that sentiment, revise it. Buses are usually cheap, flexible, comfortable and direct. When there are no flights available and the trains have too many connections, I can guarantee there will be a bus from point A to whatever point you want to be.
Booking a bus is straightforward, but where it gets tricky is the seat. Keep your eyes on my blog about where to sit on buses for maximum safety and comfort.
Spoiler: For safety, stay close but not too close to the exits, and for comfort, consider the direction and time of day to avoid cooking in the sun.
There’s a magical, yesteryear quality to maritime travel. It conjures images of steamer chests, fog horns spooking dyspeptic seagulls, breezy strolls along the bow, formal dining, ports of call and ladies being kissed on balconies as their silk scarves blow off their necks and into the sea.
Such a nice tableau. Too bad it’s dead.
Modern boat travel is completely different. Most people tell me they find modern boats boring. The time passes slowly, there’s nothing interesting to do and the views are dull.
I couldn’t agree more, and that’s why I love it.
Traveling by boat is blissfully uneventful — or at least I always pray it will be. This makes them perfect for overnights. The wifi is usually expensive and spotty, so I don’t even bother. Reading is also hard because it makes me seasick. Behold, the perfect excuse to just shut off your brain and chill the fuck out.
On a good boat, one gets a private stateroom. I choose the windowless because there’s no point in paying extra for a window the size of a dinner plate with views of a flat, watery horizon at night while I’m sleeping and my eyes are closed.
Boats also have better lounge areas than most trains. My overnight cruise from Oslo to Copenhagen had no fewer than four restaurants, a coffee shop, a couple bars and a duty-free. This is typical for bigger boats. Some even have casinos.
The cost of a ticket can be high, but if you factor in the money you save on a night’s accommodation, it balances out.
That savings can be quickly undone by on-board dining though, so I always smuggle food for dinner and enough booze to keep things interesting. I also never eat breakfast on board, because something far better always awaits as soon as I disembark.
Despite being a gear head, I’m not fond of driving abroad.
The times when I’ve rented cars overseas have gone smoothly, but I’ve heard stories of fraudulent damage claims, broken fuel gauges and empty tanks, tires blowing with no spare, shakedowns by police and more. There’s also the pesky issue of insurance, surprise moving violations and time spent navigating foreign bureaucracies when things go wrong.
And I haven’t even mentioned parking. I have friends who nearly had to cancel a week through the Ligurian Riviera because they couldn’t find a place to put their Fiat.
Should we talk about the cost of fuel?
Despite all that, a car is often the only way to reach places you really want to go. I used one to risk my life on the road to Amalfi, which is as terrifying and as amazing as everyone says. I also crisscrossed Jordan from Petra to the Dead Sea to Roman ruins in a car that constantly wanted to die. Fun times.
If you want to do likewise, you can learn how to rent right here.
Che Guevara proved that traveling great distances on two wheels is not only possible, it can bring enlightenment. Motorcycles and mopeds may not be suitable everywhere, but in the places where they are, the experience can be the best way to, in the words of my friend Christine, “feel like you’re really there.”
Unfortunately, I don’t know this from experience, because I didn’t get my motorcycle license before I left. In fact, I didn’t even know such a thing existed. I just wrongly assumed my ordinary driver’s license covered that.
Even if you can obtain a motorbike, your travel insurance policy may not cover the cost of injuries if you’re not a licensed operator (and even sometimes if you are).
If you don’t already have your license, make sure you get it well in advance of departure, so it has time to arrive before you get your international driver’s permit, which notes motorcycle licensure.
In some places, hitchhiking is so common that there are informal pickup points. In others, people just walk along a highway with their hands out like hobos.
Call it bourgeois paranoia, but I grew up with too many horror stories and teenage runaways on milk cartons to take my chances hitchhiking. After hearing stories from friends who got across Asia with only their thumb, I can’t wait to try it.
All of them offered the same advice before I do this: ask the hostel staff. They tend to know where it’s safe to hitchhike and how to do it.
My friend Jeremy, a master of the art, did mention one small pitfall of hitchhiking in a foreign place I’d never considered: language barriers. Generally, people pick up hitchhikers because they want company. If the guy who picks you up is some old Bulgarian delivery driver and you’re just some kid from Nebraska, odds are high you won’t be as entertaining as he’d hoped. Maybe leave him a few bucks or buy him lunch to offset the annoyance.
My privacy policy is simple: I don’t share your information.
Yea, it’s just a name, email and nationality, but I’m sure there are people who would pay for it. My thoughts on that: fuck those people and fuck those fuckers who sell personal information to them. You’ll find none of that monkey business here.
If I get hacked and your info get stolen, I’ll shoot you a note to let you know. I don’t deal in passwords, credit cards or anything like that though, so there’s almost nothing for anyone to take.
To see the full privacy policy — it’s pretty boring and cost me a lot of money — you can follow the link at the bottom of the page or in the confirmation email.
Domestic American air travel is a racket run by three major companies and a few smaller ones who effectively collude on prices to screw passengers and support their bloated executives and corporate structures.
Even regional jets, which are technically independent, are fucking death traps that I literally never, ever fly.
It’s not this way in other countries, because most people are sensible and see transportation as akin to a public utility. It’s therefore common to find flights on foreign carriers for under $100. I frequently see fares less $50.
Booking far in advance is therefore unnecessary, except of course in places where tickets sell out. Avoid the temptation to book months or weeks out if you’re just trying to save money. Not only will doing so lock you into dates you might regret, you may end up paying. Why? Booking sites now sniff for your computer’s location and display higher prices for foreigners.
Rude, right? Blame the mirror. We invented that.
First, some bad news for most Americans: automatic transmissions are as rare overseas as manuals are in the US. Unless you want to seriously overpay, make friends with someone who owns an old Miata and learn.
Second, anyone who wants to rent a car should obtain an international driver’s permit. This is easy — just 30 minutes at AAA.
When it’s time to rent, don’t get tempted by lower prices with small, local companies. Go with a big multi-national.
Understand your insurance situation through-and-through. Know the limits of your credit card’s automatic coverage and have a printout of the policy. If you can get a translated copy, even better. If you’re still in doubt after all that, just pay for their coverage.
Research the scams. Before you drive off the lot, walk around the vehicle and video record it. When you return the car, do the same. Also record yourself locking it and depositing the key in the night box if you return after hours.
If you get a notice from the rental company later saying you owe for damage or not returning the car, you can send them those videos with an E-vite to go get fucked. You might also copy tourist law enforcement, so they get fined to oblivion.
It’s tricky, but you need to basically study each country’s road laws and signs like you’re getting your student driver’s permit again. Most places have tricky rules, and they love to fine gringoes like us for violating them.
In Cyprus, for example, you can be fined for eating or drinking anything behind the wheel, even a Snickers. In Denmark, you’re legally required to look under your car before you get inside to ensure no one is underneath. In Spain, drivers with poor vision have to carry a spare set of glasses. Dirty cars are illegal in Russia, as is splashing pedestrians on a rainy day in Japan.
In some places, driving is really difficult. I pity any fool who tries to drive in Cairo. You can also very swiftly kill yourself on a German highway if you’re untrained. Driving at 120 MPH is far more complex than simply pressing the accelerator further.
Fare classes are highly inconsistent.
First class in one country is generally different to first class in any other. The same is true of second, third and so on. They vary wildly by country and system.
If it’s fiscally reasonable, I choose first for early mornings and overnights. They really are better, even just for security of your belongings.
The one time I settled for a second-class overnight, I had to physically fight a mouth-breathing Russian girl who was sweating vodka and wouldn’t stop burying her face into my lap to huff my underpants like Whip-Its. I wish I was making this up, but it’s true. I arrived sleepless, angry and ugly. It ruined my first day in Lisbon and I only had five. First class would have been worth the cost. Second class is my usual go-to. For shorter trips or anything after 9 a.m. I go second.
If I want an adventure, I go even lower. Some agents won’t sell those tickets to tourists though unless you insist.
Nomads and backpackers who don’t do the travel hacking thing usually buy cheap flights. Be careful of taking that too far.
For starters, you need to observe weight limits on baggage. In the US, no one gives a shit, but elsewhere they care. The care deeply. Never buy a ticket that forces you to pay weight overages.
Seats are also important, but not for comfort. I never take bulkhead or exit-row seats unless I pay for early boarding. Both offer less (or zero) under-seat storage, so being in a later boarding group puts you at risk of having nowhere to put your carry on — or as you’ll hear them called “cabin bags.”
I’ve even been on a flight where the attendant nearly made me check my personal item. I shut that down by threatening to create a scene and de-board, but I could have avoided it by paying $8 for priority boarding.
Countless people have asked if I used an around-the-world plane ticket for my first trip.
My simple response: Don’t ask dumb fucking questions. Also, no, I didn’t.
ATW tickets are nearly useless. They typically require you to book your stops in advance, so there’s too little flexibility. The fine print is also brutal and changes constantly.
Last time I researched them, the price was based on allotments of miles. The number of stops also changed the equation. All of them required you to choose a direction (east-to-west, for example) and none permitted travel in the reverse direction even slightly. Some airlines even insisted all departures had to occur from the same point as arrival, meaning if you traveled by land elsewhere, the airline penalized your mileage allotment.
I said airline there, but ATW tickets come come from a single carrier. Instead, you buy into an alliance, of which I believe there are still only three. Quite the lack of competition there.
ATW fares do lend themselves marvelously to itineraries where you go to a different city each month and make it the base from which you explore the region. This is something we’ll talk about later when we discuss hub-and-spoke travel.
If you have status with a particular airline, you may want to consider their ATW option — emphasis on ‘may’ — but be warned that flying everywhere robs you of some great experiences.
Domestic American air travel is a racket run by three major companies and a few smaller ones who effectively collude on prices to screw passengers and support their bloated executives and corporate structures.
Even regional jets, which are technically independent, are fucking death traps that I literally never, ever fly.
It’s not this way in other countries, because most people are sensible and see transportation as akin to a public utility. It’s therefore common to find flights on foreign carriers for under $100. I frequently see fares less $50.
Booking far in advance is therefore unnecessary, except of course in places where tickets sell out. Avoid the temptation to book months or weeks out if you’re just trying to save money. Not only will doing so lock you into dates you might regret, you may end up paying. Why? Booking sites now sniff for your computer’s location and display higher prices for foreigners.
Rude, right? Blame the mirror. We invented that.
The beauty of hub cities is the slow pace. How slow you take it will vary according to the number of side trips as well as your pace. If you commit to a month though, this introduces the possibility of renting an apartment. Even if you don’t plan to stay the full 30 days, apartment rental is generally very cheap. It can also make cooking easier, which also saves cash.
Cooking for yourself doesn’t have to mean eggs for breakfast and chicken dinners. You can dial up the adventure full throttle if you sign up for a greenmarket food tour and a cooking class right after you arrive. Not only will you know what to do with the local ingredients, you’ll eat better. Plus if you know what you’re doing, the vendors may screw you less, which will offset the price of the guide.
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