What’s your best tip for budget travel?
My best tip for budget travel is simple: pack light.
Whether I am going away for a week or a month, I try to take no more than about three days’ worth of clothes. That sounds improbable until you actually do it. I have found it works just as well for a warm, wet holiday by the sea as it does for snow, storms and sub-zero temperatures in the mountains.
The secret weapon is a small tube of travel wash.
After the second day, I start dunking things. Socks, underwear, T-shirts, base layers: wash something each evening and hang it up. By the sea in summer, the wind and warmth can dry clothes remarkably quickly. Up a mountain in winter, the air may be freezing, but altitude and low humidity can leave surprisingly little moisture in clothes by morning — particularly if they are hanging somewhere warm and ventilated.
And the saving is much greater than simply avoiding the cost of putting a suitcase in the hold.
You can move quickly through an airport. You can get on a train or bus without wrestling with a huge case. You can walk to where you are staying. You don’t have to spend the first half-hour after arriving unpacking your life into cupboards, or the last half-hour trying to squeeze it all back in again. A small bag sits in the corner and you get on with the holiday.
There is something liberating about travelling with only what you can comfortably carry.
Clearly, this doesn’t work for every trip. A wedding, an expedition requiring specialist equipment, or a holiday where you really do need a wardrobe is another matter. But it works often enough that my starting question is no longer, “What shall I take?”
It is: “How little can I get away with?”
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