Thanks for your timely and informative piece today about Airbnb. The only thing I would suggest is that some Hosts including my wife and I do specialize in the breastfast portion of airbnB. The next time you are in the Boulder, Colorado area try us at The Goldminer Hotel (goldminerhotel.com).
Lucas: Seth's food choices tended to the pretty awful: fried, breaded, starchy, greasy. It seemed like he was often unintentionally making the point that frugal travel and healthy travel were at odds. Very much looking forward to some new perspectives from this somewhat tired column!
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That's kind of the reality for how much of the world eats (even much of the US)...especially if you're trying to be frugal.
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I completely agree with the commenter who noted that Seth Kugel's Frugal Traveler column, while excellent, would be significantly different if written by a woman. Many of the things he recommends--traveling at night, taking buses or trains in rural areas, bicycling alone, accepting spontaneous offers to be driven somewhere or travel with a new friend--are simply not an option for women traveling alone and on a budget. The example he gives of arriving at 1 AM in a rural train station in the Brazilian Amazon and then being driven around by a local male taxi driver--a complete stranger--for an hour looking for a hotel would be completely unworkable, and downright dangerous, for a female traveler.
Does that mean women are not able to have the kind of authentic budget travel experiences he praises? No, but it does mean that many of the options he gives or adventures he extolls are available only to male travelers. Does the Times care about the other 50% of their readership? Or are male travel experiences just seen as the default form of travel?
Does that mean women are not able to have the kind of authentic budget travel experiences he praises? No, but it does mean that many of the options he gives or adventures he extolls are available only to male travelers. Does the Times care about the other 50% of their readership? Or are male travel experiences just seen as the default form of travel?
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Thanks for this comment, Rachel. I'd like to see more columns, articles, and posts devoted to what SENSIBLE single women do when they travel abroad on their own. And if they are in the "senior" age group, as I am, that would be even better! No way would I have undertaken most of the adventurous activities of Seth even when I was young. Now, there is even less chance that I would.
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Right on, Susan! I am extremely lucky that my adult son still seems to like to travel with me (maybe it's the subsidies?) and consequently, we have inexpensive experiences I would never be able to have on my own as a slightly infirm, older woman. And I agree - I would never have been able to do the things my son and I have done and that frugal traveler columnists extol even as a younger, healthier, single woman, due mainly to safety concerns. Please, NYT, run some columns from our perspective. Some of us have the time and enough resources to go to wonderful places (inexpensively) and I, at least, don't want to go on tours even if they're branded "adventures." Speaking from experience, usually they don't offer a fraction of the adventures you have when you're on your own.
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Thanks, Seth, for the vicarious travel opportunities over the past 5-6 years. Good luck.
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In addition to saving money, frugal traveling is more likely to put you in situations where you have more interaction with strangers. Others are often just as curious about you as you are of them. Language differences is one of the main reasons US travelers too often seek a more insular form of travel. In my experience lack of conversational language is not a barrier to traveling frugally and much more interesting.
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I loved Seth's column! One of my favourites was the frugal trip to NY with his daughter.
This conversation was also a good read! Looking forward to Lucas' take on it all.
This conversation was also a good read! Looking forward to Lucas' take on it all.
Love your column, Seth, thank you. Lucas, I look forward to what you'll be providing as well! Good luck to you both.
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It's interesting and encouraging that someone who travels for a living values most the off-the-beaten track moments and places he has experienced. And I think him for not bracketing those recollections with possessive or braggart phrases or words. I am so tired of hearing people go on and on about the little place in the north of wherever, a hidden gem that they discovered before the tourists ruined it (the puffed-up speaker is never a "tourist," but a vagabond or something very grand). And it's too bad you never got to see it back then, because it's just horrible now. You know the type, I'm sure. For me, traveling means talking to strangers I meet along the way. When I look back at all the places I've traveled though in my long life -- some of them adventurous and some comfortably touristy -- what I remember most clearly are the people I met along the way.
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As Robert Louis Stevenson said: "It is not the destination, but the journey."
Last fall I (a 75 year old woman) traveled to France by myself for three weeks.
I hiked the Robert Louis Stevenson Trail in south central France. About 110
miles. Not speaking a word of French, I must admit was a challenge; but I was lucky enough to meet a French couple, who invited me to hike with them. He spoke English. It was a wonderful trip of a lifetime. Being solo allowed me to change plans and go where I wanted to go.
Last fall I (a 75 year old woman) traveled to France by myself for three weeks.
I hiked the Robert Louis Stevenson Trail in south central France. About 110
miles. Not speaking a word of French, I must admit was a challenge; but I was lucky enough to meet a French couple, who invited me to hike with them. He spoke English. It was a wonderful trip of a lifetime. Being solo allowed me to change plans and go where I wanted to go.
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Helen Byrne, you are my heroine! What an amazing trip to take. I'd love to hear more--perhaps you should take over the FT column.
can't wait for the new articles on this topic;
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Please do not take this personally, Lucas and Seth, but the Times should have made a woman the Frugal Traveler. A woman often has a different travel experience, and different concerns, than a man, when she's on a budget. Safety issues on a budget impact women's travel in a completely different way.
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I disagree. If you want articles solely directed at women, they exist elsewhere. This column is aimed at a general audience (though I do think it skews too young to be of use to me). If Frugal Traveler was meant to be all things to all people it would be a bland service piece, with sidebars on how to avoid being robbed or assaulted, and so one. But it's a point-of-view thing, and that's why it's interesting.
Maybe the Times could alternate between the male writer and a female one? But then if you really want to be fair, shouldn't they alternate among people traveling in every status -- male, female, old, young, middle-aged, transgender, same-sex-coupled, married-with-kids, single-parent, etc. -- to appeal to all?
No.
I (female) have done a lot of traveling alone, including the backpacking variety when I was young. The thing about solo travel -- and this goes for all genders and ages -- is to know your limits and avoid putting yourself into situations that make you uncomfortable. Feeling fearful increases your vulnerability. I read several international newspapers online every day, and I assure you that young, male travelers are also attacked with regularity, sadly.
Maybe the Times could alternate between the male writer and a female one? But then if you really want to be fair, shouldn't they alternate among people traveling in every status -- male, female, old, young, middle-aged, transgender, same-sex-coupled, married-with-kids, single-parent, etc. -- to appeal to all?
No.
I (female) have done a lot of traveling alone, including the backpacking variety when I was young. The thing about solo travel -- and this goes for all genders and ages -- is to know your limits and avoid putting yourself into situations that make you uncomfortable. Feeling fearful increases your vulnerability. I read several international newspapers online every day, and I assure you that young, male travelers are also attacked with regularity, sadly.
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"Shouldn't they alternate among people traveling in every status?"
Yes, why not? The single male travel experience is not the only one worth writing about, nor does it reflect the Times readership.
Yes, why not? The single male travel experience is not the only one worth writing about, nor does it reflect the Times readership.
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Seth thank so much for all your inspiring articles in this column, happy travels for you. And good luck to Lucas, the job is not easy but exciting.
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we have been frugal travelers for 40 years, and think Seth's third reason is ours, though when starting out as poor students, it was to save and make the money last for the longest walkabout possible. Our trip to South America 20 years ago brought it fully home for us. If we had paid up in Trinidad, Bolivia, we would have missed Nilo and his sometimes pompous stories as we floated the Rio Ibare with a French brother and sister as the only other tourists, all hanging in hammocks in the open air of the small boat; we would have missed the piranha stew cooked in river water, riverside in a vast cauldron; and missed sharing our dinners with remote finca workers at night. We would have missed living for a week in a hotel/boarding house with middle class yet poor wage earners in Buenos Aires, sharing communal fridges and and hot plates, and using and incredible Argentine bathroom. Having the newcomers to a room full of dining boarders in Puerto Natales greet us with "buen provecho" (bon apetite). And on and on. I do not want to get too old to continue this kind of traveling...
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