Not all of these will be applicable to your own situation, but kudos to Budget Travel Magazine for this “Free Travel Guide” in their current issue. Some of the tips are a bit obscure and finding a housesitting gig is not exactly easy. But house-swapping and hospitality exchange programs are quite easy to pull off.
For a list of direct links to house swap programs and where to find a place to crash for nothing, go here .
Maybe it’s just me, but Budget Travel magazine seems to be getting better and more useful all the time. And I like the attitude. Editor Erik Torkells notes in the beginning of this issue how he was recently a guest speaker at a roundtable lunch of travel magazine editors. He represented the only magazine that is not going after the five-star travel crowd. An (unnamed) panelist is quoted as saying, “That’s the secret of our business. In an advertising-based industry, you don’t want to promote inexpensiveness…”
Most people don’t travel the way most magazines present travel. The publishers just like to act that way so they can pull in ads for luxury sports cars and diamond-studded watches. Treat those other magazines as eye candy, not as something that will really help you plan your own journeys.
