Where Are We Sleeping Tonight? – Year 1
Anyone that really knows us could confirm that we are both big planners. Sal and Gisela never do anything without having a plan! Well, traveling for a long time and on a tight budget, we realized that having certainty over some things is way too costly. In fact, sleeping on overnights buses, trains, planes, and even airports became the best way to save on accommodation expenses. So, in order to extend this dream, we needed to adjust to the fact that not knowing where we were going to sleep any particular night was the best deal for us. The anxieties at the beginning smooth quietly as we learned that not having hotel reservations was way more profitable than having them. We know, as crazy as it may sound, that it has been one of the best lessons and opportunities of our journey. And now, not knowing where we should be spending the night is not a worry but in reality, a priceless opportunity to make this adventure a truly memorable one.
We have countless stories on this daily subject. Just to list a few from our first year traveling, let us tell you about the time we walked until three in the morning in Bangkok looking for our hotel. We have arrived late that night from the Philippines and had made hotel reservations. After being drop off by a taxi driver, who pointed us in the wrong direction, we walked for over 3 hours, and decided to keep walking after being offered by a tuk-tuk driver to take us to our accommodation for what seemed an unfair price. It wasn’t until we got back to the same point where the taxi had left us that we found our hostel just on the opposite direction the driver had pointed. This experience taught us two things: 1) That having a reserved bed for the night is sometimes not really a safe solution but a constrained to more feasible possibilities along the way, and 2) That saving our pennies is more important than saving our shoes soles 😉
Another memorable story happened to us in Laos. We had just arrived to Vientiane, the capital of the country, after spending one of the worst rides in our entire trip, an overnight trip from Luang Prabang on the cheapest local bus we found. It was a zigzagging road in the middle of mountains with a seat that was damaged and kept moving, which made the idea of sleeping on our butts impossible. Well, after such a “lovely” ride and arriving before 5am, we were tired but the budget was still a priority. Despite Gisela’s desire to take a taxi and avoid walking, Sal pushed for taking a walk, as the Lonely Planet said the bus station was only 2 km away from the city center. We ate some food, rested a little, and started to walk. The sun got stronger and stronger, the 2 km became longer and longer, we seemed to never reach downtown. 10 km later and after an inevitable argument between us, we found out that our “reliable” travel guide was wrong, and we kept going. After walking this long, under the sun, without proper sleep, paying someone to take us to a hostel did not make any sense. We kept going until we found a hostel in the city that could fit our budget. This experience helped us confirm that: despite how tired we are, we will always agree on saving to the end! We were both too cheap and stubborn to pay a car in the middle of the way, if we start walking, we will walk to the end 🙂 Â
We have found the best accommodation when we do not arrange it beforehand. We got to the town of Ubud in Bali, Indonesia, and we were guided out of the bus by a stranger into the nicest homestay, with a breath-taking view of the rice fields, breakfast, internet, and a private bathroom for just a little less than $15US a night for the two of us.
In a similar manner, without any planning, we spent one of the most memorable nights of our trip, completely FREE, sleeping in one of the towers of the Great Wall of China. Many times, the best part of life are those things that happen without any preparation, the moments that occur when you are ready to allow the process to take care of itself! Traveling without a plan could be at times the best plan!
The following is a random list of a few places we have slept in, feel free to ask more about them if you are curious, there is always a story behind them:
$8US a night in Kanchanaburi, Thailand hostel with a river view, one of our best value accommodations
Cheap Penang hotel with the sounds of rats walking on the roof
Darwin hostel with a drunk Irish roommate
Having a nice experience in our first hostel in Auckland, New Zealand
Renting and sleeping in a campervan all around New Zealand
Nicest homestay in Legaspi
Slept a night with a nomadic family at their ger in central Mongolia
Couchsurfing in almost every country!
Three people sleeping on a bed in Cambodia
Sleeping on a kitchen floor in ritzy Gangnam, Seoul
Spending a lovely night at a traditional minshuku in a tatami room in Japan
One night at a five-star hotel in Jaipur, India courtesy of Sal’s parents of course!
Being hosted by a congregation of the Catholic Church in Japan
Sleeping in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Cebu, Philippines airports
