Frommers.com Podcast: Traveling Smart on the Cheap

Tim Leffel: Hi; thanks for having me.

David: That was a mouthful.

Tim: [laughs] Yes, I'm juggling too much sometimes it seems, but it keeps life interesting that way.

David: Yes, absolutely. I was reading through a lot of the sites you contribute to and sites that represent the different books that you've written. The one core element that I think that goes through all of them is earnest travel without breaking the bank.

Tim: Exactly, yes. I feel like no matter what your budget's like, you still should try and get the most for your money and get a good value wherever you go. That kind of drives a lot of the things I write about.

David: So what you're really saying is that even when the dollar is being beaten up in the world market -- even when the economy is tight -- that it's still actually possible to take a trip out of the United States and have a good vacation, a real experience, and not spend thousands of dollars.

Tim: Yes, absolutely. I think one of the points I was trying... In one of the books I put out, the subtitle had the words "the contrarian traveler" in it. I think people just often need to change their strategy or tweak their strategy depending on what the situation is.

We're in a situation right now where the dollar is in the toilet against the Euro. The obvious solution to that is: don't go to Europe. I mean don't fight the tide, so to speak. There have been times when the dollar was worth a fortune against the Euro, and there will be a time again I'm sure at some point.

But right now you can still get just as great a value as you always could in Latin America. It's almost uncanny how stable the dollar has been in almost any country between Mexico and the bottom of Chile. There's been a little bit of deterioration in Chile and Brazil and some other places. Overall those economies are pegged to the U.S. so closely that their currency is either officially tied to ours, or it's unofficially tied to ours, so there's not a whole lot of fluctuation.

If you went to Mexico five or six years ago and changed dollars into pesos and then you went back this year, you're getting pretty much the same exchange rate. That makes a huge difference in what you pay for a hotel, what you pay for a taxicab, what you pay to go out and eat and have a few beers.

David: One of the points you make too is to save money and to have a better experience, eat like the locals do. Do you want to explain that a little bit?

Tim: Yes, I think people a lot of times get into this trap where they go into a tourist trap [chuckles] meal after meal, and get stuck in these places that everybody else is going and the whole place is full of tourists. Often times those are some of the worst meals you can have in a place and the most overpriced. They are pricing everything for tourists -- and they are a lot of times toning it down for tourists when it comes to the local dishes or how spicy things are, how flavorful they are.

I think you really get a much better experience and much better meal if you can follow the local lead and ask people who really live there where they eat. Or just wander around, eat at the local market. Eat at neighborhood restaurants where people actually live, instead of the center where it's nothing but tourists.

I think in all these cases you're going to have great memories and you're going to get a lot more for your money as well.

David: You're recommending that people wander around?

Tim: Well, depends on where you are of course! In the middle of Bogata that might not be the best idea always, but I think you find so much by exploring on foot or bike or some other slow means.

When you walk around the neighborhood you find places that are not in any guide book and not on any website, but have the chalkboard menu out front or whatever, you're going to get a fantastic meal, cooked by somebody who really cares. A lot of times using fresh, local ingredients instead of things carted from several countries away. There are a lot of advantages to doing that.

David: Are you a cook yourself?

Tim: Not so much. I have a wife though who is quite skilled at it and gets very excited about it, so I usually let her take care of that. I do some baking now and then but...

David: OK, I was going to say it's sometimes nice too when you discover these out of the way places... I think there's no better compliment to the person who's doing the cooking for you in the restaurant than to ask them how they made the dish.

Tim: Yes, definitely. A lot of times they'll let you come back and look around and see what they're doing. They like to show it off.

David: Absolutely. I've had a couple of meals where, you know, I had those exact conversations and then tried to come home and recreate it, much to everyone's displeasure. I don't think I'm a horrible cook but it doesn't actually always come out the same way.

Tim: No.

David: But it's that connection of that place you've been. You want to bring some of it back with you and share it with your friends.

Tim: Yes, and I think it's important to note too that people have this automatic reaction that they worry about local little restaurants or food stalls or market stalls or whatever. As many people before me have said, there's a big advantage to seeing your food cooked in front of you. You know what you're getting.

David: What are some other tips you have, not just for eating out but how to save on a hotel? Is it a good idea to make your reservations ahead of time, or are you one of these guys who just sorts of wings it and goes building to building?

Tim: I do a little of both depending on the situation. It's funny; I did this column last year for MSNBC called "Reservations about reservations." The idea was that sometimes it is better to just wing it.

I got such adamant replies from some people like "oh my God, how in the world can you do this?" They were just aghast that I would even suggest such a thing, which I think is kind of funny because backpackers do that for a year nonstop and think nothing of it. They never know where they're going to stay.

Depends on the situation. I go on vacation with my family quite a lot, and for the most part we make reservations ahead of time -- though not always. I think the key really is trying to stay at locally owned places, where first of all the money is staying in the country.

I think that alone is a benefit, but you often get a lot more for your money by staying at a place that's not part of an international chain. Business travelers love places with no surprises, but for those of us who are traveling for pleasure that's not always the best thing.

It is nice to stay at a place that has some character and some personality and a real sense of place. You definitely get that by getting out of the rut of staying at a Marriott or a Hilton or whatever and actually going into places that are designed by a local, run by a local and have local employees working there. A lot of times they are far more interesting and those people have a really good sense of what you should do in the area, what's going on. They will turn you on to things you hadn't even thought about.

David: Right. That's interesting. I never considered the idea that staying at that locally owned place actually benefits that destination far better because you are keeping the money within that economy; it is not going to a corporate chain. Even though the employees may work at a Hilton or a Four Seasons or a Radisson, and while they may be excellent employees, there is still the corporate veneer that every employee has to put on that does put them one step removed from being a local.

Tim: Don't get me wrong. Those international chains do employ a lot of local people and help raise the standard of living, and there is a lot to be said for that. But, if it is a locally owned place all the profits are staying in that area, and they are getting plowed back into more construction and more development. It is actually benefiting the local economy more.

So there is an altruistic reason for doing that as well, but also there is a selfish reason. You end up getting usually a lot more space for your money, and you end up having a lot more of an experience at the place.

David: When you travel in Latin America, is there one place that you like above all others? What really stands out for you in Latin America that you recommend people see now, before we start sending more people there and it changes?

Tim: That is a sensitive question. There are places like Machu Picchu and the Galapagos where people are wondering whether they are still going to be in really good shape 10 years from now. Who knows? Then that creates a problem in itself: if everyone rushes there to beat the rush, then you end up hastening that demise.

I probably spend more time in Mexico than the other places in Latin America, just because it is close and it is easy to get there. It is pretty well set up for tourists. It is easy to get around. You can take your family there without having to really go through any worries or hardships or anything like that.

But I've had a fantastic time in Argentina and Peru. I just got back from Honduras which was really nice. So there are places that I haven't been yet that I am still getting out there and exploring. There is a lot to see and do and a lot to experience in all those places. The personalities are quite different a lot of times when you go from one country to another.

I think there is something to be said for nearly any destination in Latin America that makes it a little different than the others.

David: What are those little nuances that you notice when you cross a border from one to another?

Tim: Some of it is geographic. You just have different opportunities in terms of jungles and outdoor adventures and mountain climbing and white water rafting and that kind of thing. Some places are better for sports and outdoor adventure than others. The level of development is quite different -- which is interesting, because sometimes the countries are side by side.

Costa Rica is so much further along than Panama or Nicaragua, even though the three are neighbors and they have very similar ecosystems and that kind of thing. But it is just that they have gotten such a head start in Costa Rica and the population is better educated. They really have got it down as far as tourists coming down there to do any kind of adventure activity, whereas if you go to Nicaragua you feel more like an explorer. There is not so much there. You can pave your own path. You are not running into any tour buses anywhere.

That is refreshing for some people and scary to others. It depends on what you are into.

If you go down to Peru, it is all about the Andes and mountains and indigenous people. You go over to Argentina, and people usually go to experience great nightlife and food, eat steaks and drink wine, all those kinds of things.

David: And nothing bad about that.

Tim: No. It depends on what you are into. The food, of course, varies. There is an undercurrent of beans and rice and tortillas that runs through a lot of those countries, but you do have pretty major variations once you get past that. Of course, some places have a lot more seafood than others which can change the dynamic quite a bit.

David: The point you just made: you don't see a lot of tour buses in Nicaragua. Is that also just because the physical infrastructure is not developed for that yet?

Tim: That is part of it. They may get in 20 years to where Costa Rica is now -- and that's always been the joke with Panama, too. They say it is Costa Rica 20 years ago, but they have been saying that for 20 years. You know, it just always stays 20 years behind. [laughs] That is part of it and in Nicaragua definitely.

In Panama the infrastructure is quite good. It is easy to get around, and they do have a good tourism infrastructure. They just haven't promoted it very well up until now. They are getting much better about it, but it is mainly a matter of marketing more than it is what's actually there and available.

Almost anything that you can do in Costa Rica you can do in Panama for less, but people just haven't heard about it. They don't know about it.

David: Americans have a tendency to change their perceptions very slowly. The last thing that may be on their mind about Panama is Noriega...

Tim: Exactly.

David: ...back in 1989 and '90, and they haven't really updated what is going on.

Tim: I find that that colors people's opinions of a lot of Central America. They still think the Contras and Sandinistas are fighting and there is a civil war going on in Guatemala and all of that stuff -- because, let's face it, we are not the best nation in the world in terms of keeping up with real international news. We tend to get our news from bad 24-hour cable channels.

David: Very navel-gazing...

Tim: Inward-looking.... Exactly. We tend to look inward more than outward. But in all fairness I do see that changing drastically in the past five or six years. You never used to hear about people going on vacation to Thailand or Indonesia or Cambodia to see Angkor Wat and now you hear about that pretty routinely.

Those destinations are getting a lot more coverage, as are the ones in Latin America in the mainstream, glossy travel press -- which is good because it used to all be about Europe and the Caribbean. And that was about as far as it went.

David: And the occasional exotic story of some place that was not in those two regions.

Tim: I do feel like people are branching out a little more which is nice.

David: On that point, do you think that might be curtailed in the near future because of soaring fuel prices? I think it was United and American last week that raised their fares across the board $60.

In addition, American started charging $15 for the first checked bag. There is a trick to get around that. If you are not a member of their frequent flyer program, sign up for it. It is free and then you are automatically waived that first bag fee.

Tim: I think it's only for the elite members, but I could be wrong. I think everybody's getting hit with it, unless they've hit the 25,000 miles a year level or something.

But the airlines have done a lot of dumb things over the past few years. I'll be the first to chide them for it, but the reality is that they are in a situation where fuel is at a record high and something has to give. [laughs] So, I would certainly prefer them to just put all this in the ticket price so we know up front what we're paying. That's my main beef with it.

David: Exact quota.

Tim: I think we're going to be stuck with these high fares for awhile and I do think it probably will have an effect on how far people go. I think there will be some good effects and some bad effects.

I think one of the good effects might be that people stop taking these 3-day get aways that are somewhere 1,000 miles away, which just is kind of nuts. It's bad for the environment, it's just not a good way to travel. I would much prefer people save up their time and take a real vacation -- and leave their Blackberry at home too, but that's another story. [laughs]

David: Right.

Tim: I don't know how much it's going to affect things, but I do think we'll probably see a little reduction in the number of people going to far-flung places in Asia, or going down to Patagonia in South America -- just because those prices are going to have to keep going up. Because it's just impossible for the airlines to break even if they don't raise their fares at this point.

David: The flip side to that probably too, is that they're going to be looking at bringing over people that are not Americans to the United States to justify the existence of those routes as well. Especially Europeans whose currency does so well.

Tim: Yeah.

David: In the United States, they're increasing those routes, and cutting domestic routes.

Tim: But I think another outcome of this might be that people do travel more to Mexico and Central America, because it is so close. A lot of times, the fares aren't much more than a domestic flight. Maybe $100 or $200 more, which is not that big of deal.

And you've got no jet lag to deal with. And the currency issues that we talked about before with what you get for your dollar, being so much more. I think it might shift some of those travel patterns away from Europe and Asia and maybe some of those people will head south instead.

David: Right.

Tim: There will probably be more domestic travel, which isn't a bad thing either considering we've annoyed so many foreign travelers coming in, we've got to make up for it somehow.

David: [laughs] Right. It's good to point out that -- at least I think in Central America and Mexico -- visas aren't required. Just a passport. Is that right?

Tim: Right. Exactly. Yeah, you don't need a visa for any of those countries. And you can actually move from one to the other pretty easily now, too. If you want to go overland, for example, from Belize to Honduras, it's not much harder than going from the U.S. to Canada. You basically flash your passport and you're through. That's a big plus. You don't have to arrange a visa ahead of time and pay $150 or whatever.

David: Right. Well, and I think that's good for our listeners to understand: the ease of travel. It is not a daunting task to go to some place like Central America. The language barrier is not so high as they think it might be. People are willing and gracious to try and have a conversation.

Tim: Right. One thing I learned on my very first around the world trip when I was a younger man than now [laughs]: far more people speak English than you think before you leave home. It's amazing when you get out there you can be even in some little, rural village somewhere and somebody will come up to you and start practicing their English.

Because it really is the international language of students -- of academia, commerce, of so many things. So, that's part of it. But it's not so hard to get around in English in most of these places. But Spanish is a whole lot easier to get by in than Thai or Cantonese. [laughs] Or something like that.

David: Right.

Tim: So you have a big advantage travelling to Spanish-speaking countries in that it is so common and it's pretty easy to learn in comparison to a lot of languages. It's familiar to us and a lot of the root words are the same, so it's not so daunting in that sense either.

David: My five years of Latin in high school and college definitely helped me, at least, when I'd travel abroad.

Before we go, Tim, do you have any other tips you wanted to tell people about. Something they may not have thought of on how to save money when they're traveling and need some words of encouragement?

Tim: One quick thing. I just want to caution people to not give up on guidebooks, which is a very near and dear thing to Frommers' heart. [laughs] I think we get into this idea now that everything you want to know you can find on the Internet.

I write a lot for the Internet and I love it, and it sure has made our life easier, but there's a whole difference in the amount of time that goes into an article on the web as opposed to a book that somebody has spent six or eight months researching. And there's a whole difference in the quality of the research. There's a difference in the fact checking. There's a difference in all kinds of things.

So, I would just encourage people to... Even if it's going to the library and checking out three guidebooks before your trip just to kind of give you a sense of what you're doing. It's really going to take less time in the end to do that than it is to spend eight hours on dead-end websites trying to figure out what's real and what's not.

I'm not disparaging, you know, TripAdvisor or anything like that. It certainly is better than the situation we had in the past where you were going in blind. I would say just always look for multiple opinions, multiple sources of material, to plan your trip and to get around once you've gotten there.

David: Couldn't agree with you more. I'm proud of the website that we operate, but we always encourage people to look at others to get information to compare one thing to another. Really, our goal is to teach people how to travel intelligently and you can only do that by comparing and contrasting.

Tim: Right. Don't trust one person's opinion. Even mine. [laughs]

David: [laughs] Well, Tim, I want to say thanks a lot. It's been great talking to you today. If people want more information, what's the best website for them to go to?

Tim: The best resource site is called www.contrariantraveler.com.

David: OK.

Tim: A great resource site where they've got a zillion links from there to everything you'd want to use to save money. And then, if you're going to Latin America -- well, Mexico or Central America -- I have a site that's still being built out, but it's pretty good already: www.travelers-tool-kit.com. That goes with the new book Travelers Tool Kit.

David: Yeah, and that just came out a few weeks ago, right?

Tim: Yeah, it's new so we're just getting that out there. Getting the word out. Hopefully, people will use it and get a lot out of it.

David: Well, I want to thank you for talking to me today. It's been fun.

Tim: Thanks for having me. I've enjoyed it.

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