Budget Travel the Jamie Z Way

[Great! Like to hear it. What laundry soap tip are you referring to? The rooting-around-in-the-trash to find detergent?]

Yup, that one.

[Who are you, Jessica Simpson? It's just called Chicken of the Sea. :huh ]

I may not be the sharpest tooth on the saw, but there really is chicken in a can. With the processing it tastes much like tuna though.


[$15 meal!? :eek1 And you had us all fooled into thinking you were a budget traveler. A $5 sandwich from Subway is dinner and lunch. I know what you mean though. Often, it's best to order the larger dish and use it for two meals for just a fraction more than something smaller.]

I don't run quite as tight a budget as you. Was out 30 days on $2000, including a new set of Anakees. During cold weather riding it is hard to stay warm unless you eat regularly. Plus I like to eat.



[Scott also drinks the drain-water from his canned tuna. ]

That's too hard core for me.

Great Post
Another thing that will go a long way and takes up little space is grits. I just add some salt to mine with hot water and have a quick and warm breakfast.

I also use the single coffee bags but find it takes two to make it to my liking.

One more thing to add: trial runs. Although this seems very obvious, sometimes it slips through the cracks due to time constraints etc.

If you're prepping for a large trip, try and do a trial run, even if it is only overnight. This holds for the experienced and inexperienced alike. A trail run can be one of the most important trip preparations you can do. The best way to shake out gear, figure out what works/does not work etc is to use it. Or to need it and not have it. That tends to be the way I add gear.


My $0.02.

Cheers,

Having the pleasure of room on the Connie, I carry an old Grasshopper stove. I generally stop somewhere in the afternoon to pick up ice, beer, salted in the shell peanuts and a TV dinner, plus a little sumpin for the next morning, usually rolls of some sort.

Will be using an XT225 for camping soon, gotta reduce my stuff.

Jamie-- Cool idea about camping at Churches... In the South there are churches of one kind or another about every 50' and they are generally well lit, safe , etc etc....

Sort of related side story about real adventure travelers.... I have a hunting camp in the Miss Delta...just off Hwy 61...A couple of years ago, me and a college age cousin showed up for a weekend of hunting to find some guy camped out in the nearly fallen down barn.....

Cuz was scared to death, but I went over to talk to the guy thinking, if a serial killer he might find it harder to slash our throats if we were kind and he had seen our eyes...I know ..Im romantic like that sometimes..lol....

Paul shared that he was from Wisconsin and was walking to Key West ! He had camped in the barn a few days....he had a small propane stove and had been mixing ketchup packs with hot water ..So he was definitely down and out ....I told Paul he could stay until we left Sunday...During the weekend we talked more to him about his life, problems and so forth....and shared some fresh duck meat that he happily cooked in a pan on his little stove...We shared some pop tarts and bottled water with him.... and off he went on Sunday afternoon...Heading down Hwy 61 , headed for Key West I guess.....Now Paul was a REAL Adventure Traveler...Check out the pic below...

I've met a couple of "Pauls" in my travels. That's pretty cool. He's definitely not traveling light! Holy cripes.

Yeah.. I almost forgot. Though I'd carry oatmeal. Looks like I'll be a cook by the time this thread is done. Cool.

Jamie

No kidding...took him an hour to break camp and load his things on that dolly....He had an obvious Wisconsin accent So Im sure he was from the Great North....and I cant imagine him hitching with all that stuff.

Oatmeal is one of my favorites too...In fact on backpacking trips I love chicken stock Ramen noodles with some foil packaged cooked chicken....one pack of noodles and chicken will feed 2 people....and with some seasoning is mighty tasty....requires no refrigeration....and not terribly expensive.. throw in some granola bars....and some of those small several serving peanut butter packs...and a guy can eat pretty well on the road ..or in the mountains ...or wherever...

Nice thread ....Might be time for us to pull out our copies of Jack Kerouac...On the Road....or Pirsig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.....Both seem to ignite my sense of wanderlust... My dad tells stories about as a child moving back and forth between North Alabama where his dad was from and Southern California where his mom was from...in late 30s Packards...no air...pulling home made trailers...with those canvas water bags hanging on the fenders to keep the water cool....draping wet cloths over the open windows to provide some semblance of air conditioning .....Camping on the side of the road between here and there....heating bricks in a fire to put in your bedroll to keep your feet warm at night...and I think he said he remembers the road to Yuma Az from So Cal being not much more than railroad ties buried in the sand.. to cross the dunes/sand....

I have 3 children and I can admit, as hard as I try to avoid it ...they are soft and spoiled...each generation seems to become progressively more so....To me....it seems that traveling with some creativity, on the cheap, or in adventure mode...however you might phrase it .....adds some authentic "texture" to the experience, and will etch that memory on you and your psyche much more memorably than some trip to DisneyWorld, or a 12 story concrete condo at the coast... I think it is worth noting for all of us, that my fondest memories as a child arent of the nicest hotel I stayed in, but of camping in a canvas tent with no floor on St Andrews Bay near Panama City Beach and sailing in the bay in a small sailboat my dad built in the garage...catching and boiling huge pots of blue crabs, etc etc etc...

Thanks again for the interesting thread....

I discovered nearly free Powerade the other day. McDonalds..I had bought a small drink..drug store across the way that I was thinking I should hit for some Gatorade..didn't want to leave the bike and gear alone in this particular town. I'm staring into my cup of...POWERADE..my camelbak is sitting next to me. 8 free refills later my camelbak was full.

Right? Wrong? Don't care, it was almost free.

Nice job Jamie

Speaking of sleeping for free...well, I've been known to pitch my tent in cemetary's before. Now before you your curl your lip up and dismiss the idea, think about it. Many are located next to churches. They're quiet places with not much traffic around. Also easy to stealth camp in if you have low profile tent.

I've also pitched a tent several Walmart parking lots, both hidden in the bordering woods, and in plain view in between two RV's with the motorcycle parked in front. Never had any problems from management. They probably don't like having tents in the parking lot though.

OLive garden has small packages of romano cheese they pass out with the salad. Stash a few in your food bag, they make a great addition to instant mashed potatoes and packages of ramen noodles. Instant coffee or teabags work well in the morning. Cup a soup is good for lunch. Many flavors these days too, like asian beef and cream of mushroom. I use my camping stove all the time to keep costs down, otherwise I would spend lots of money on hot drinks.

Tang. There's a reason the astronauts brought this stuff into space. Cold Tang is great for breakfast. Put some in your camelback for the ride. Heat it up for a hot drink, can also make tang tea with a teabag added to a thermos of hot tang. Mix with vodka or rum for an evening toddy.

If you want to risk zombie bites that's your business.

They don't mind.

Mmm, estudiantes con carne... delicious!

Pretty good article. Having a little hitchhiking experience, I would never pitch in for gas. You can always just get out and wait for another ride that doesn't need money from you. Also eggs are a good travel food if you have a stove (or a flat hot rock).

Eggs, good idea. I carry hard-boiled eggs with me when I'll only be on the road for a few days.

As for hitchhiking, I cringe when you say you'd "never pitch in for gas." My first reaction was being frugal doesn't give you license to be a cheap bastard. Wouldn't you want to offer something to someone who helped you out when you asked?

I've never formally hitchhiked, though I've taken unsolicited rides from people on a number of occasions. I've sometimes offered gas money, and sometimes not. My limited experience shows that most people will decline the offer.

I've picked up about 20 hitchhikers in my lifetime. A couple have offered gas money. And five or six of them have asked me for money or other things. (In light of another thread in JM, I should point out that "other things" means material stuff, like one guy wanted to 'borrow' my gloves.)

Perhaps if I had more hitchhiking experience, I might better understand, but why would you "never pitch in for gas"? In some less developed countries, for example, it's standard practice that you give the driver the same as bus fare or a taxi ride for the same distance.

Jamie

go Jamie!!

I personally like carrying a stove and rice and the little cans of chiken and baby v8 juice and hotsauce packets and making jambalaya...

My own hitchhiking experiance has only been in my own country and only after something "bad/interesting" has happened. I have the serial killer look going on so am usually picked by someone doing something "bad/interesting." So far an exchange of stories has been sufficient but I always offer some gas money,sandwhich or whatever.Great thread and cool license plate by the way!

I think it is safe to say that when hitchiking, people assume you have no money. They don't pick you up expecting you to contribute gas money. They pick you up because either they feel sorry for you, they want someone to talk to, they think you have weed you will share, or they want sexual favors. (Needless to say, get out of the car if its the latter) But I don't think you are a cheap bastard for not pitching in money.

I've never hitched in a third world country, but I would be much more inclined to pay a driver in one.

Umm...they are quiet for a reason..no one gets up in the morning....

Great article Jamie - I'm completlely down with this style of travelling. I thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail in 2000, and my wife and I paddled the Mississippi River in 2005, and both trips had to be done on the austerity budget. Off the top of my head, I spent about $3000 over six month on the trail, and about the some for both of us over 75 days on the Mississippi.

I wrote an article awhile back you might want to check out on budget travel, called Thru-hiking on the Cheap. The URL (right now) for that is http://sourcetosea.net/wordpress/thru-hiking-on-the-cheap

I'm converting the site over to wordpress, and still need to get rid of "wordpress" in that URL, but the article will always be somewhere on www.sourcetosea.net