Photo credit

There’s plenty of travel articles written about the joys of turning up to a new city, and walking around to find a place to stay. You take in the sights, get a feel for the area, and you can pick and choose your hostel in person, maybe even negotiate a discount during low periods. And that’s sound advice. But here’s a few reasons why I book my hostels online

• Being the tightarse backpacker that I am, I tend to fly the budget airlines, which tend to get me to my destination at 2:30 in the morning, at an disused military airbase 200 kilometres from the city centre (Frankfurt, Rome, Melbourne – I’m looking at you). The last thing I want to do is catch a bus into the city, traipse around town waking up guest house owners asking for a bed all the while lugging around a heavy backpack. If you already reserve a room (even if it’s just until you get your bearings) you know you only have to do one thing before sweet, sweet sleep – and that’s check in. The hostel might even offer a airport pick up service.
• Not every place is a backpacker Mecca like Khao San Road, catering to your every whim. I could hardly expect to rock up to a place like Los Angeles and walk around until I found an oasis that not only offers a bed, but a tour desk, bar and breakfast in the morning for less than $20. Booking online and at least you’ll know exactly what’s on offer, what the nearest sights are, possible tours and if you read the reviews left by other travellers, you’ll know if the hostel has bed bugs, annoying low flow showers and if the coffee is any good.
• I’m a fastidious planner, and if I’m going to a city for the first time, I’m likely to have booked my accommodation weeks ahead, giving me more time to get out and see the sights, and less time standing around deciding which hostel has more value for money.
• Turning up to a popular city without a booking, especially during holidays and other peak periods might not be a great idea, unless you like the idea of sleeping in a broom closet or paying through the nose for a place that’s sub par – all the good places are bound to fill up first, leaving you with a crumby hostel far from the sights. Also, some countries require proof of address at immigration -  like a booking confirmation and not just a scrawled address on the entry card. If you’re visiting a country you haven’t been to before, it’s best to hit the forums like Lonely Planet’s Thorntree to see what the go.

And something I just found out the other day…

• You can get %50 of your deposit back just by booking with HostelBookers.

Now, I use HostelBookers as my online booking portal of choice, primarily (amongst other reasons) as they don’t charge a booking fee. If you’re on a round the world trip, or away for a long period of time, those booking fees add up. But I recently stumbled across their current deal, where they will select 1,000 customers to receive a 50% deposit on their next booking (I’ve included the HostelBookers media release at the bottom of this page).

This is huge, one of my last bookings was for a week in Amsterdam – not exactly the cheapest place in the world- and my 10% deposit which I paid at the time of reservation was greater that the GDP of New Zealand (but lets face it, that’s not hard). They’re also offering everyone who’s previously booked with HostelWorld 10% off their first booking with HostelBookers, which is sure to make a lot of backpackers very happy, and a lot of people at HostelWorld pretty pissed off, but hey, that’s business, baby.

HostelBookers Rewards Loyalty in Backpackers

Once again HostelBookers highlights several reasons why their customers remain loyal to the backerpackers accommodation specialist. They are 8.7% cheaper than Hostelworld*, don’t charge you a service charge or booking fee, offers a lowest price guarantee and will pay you double the difference if you find the same deal cheaper elsewhere **.

To thank their current customers for their loyalty, HostelBookers has launched a great promotion to demonstrate their appreciation. HostelBookers will randomly select 1,000 customers to receive a 50% deposit refund on their next booking. In addition to this, to really help backpackers in achieving budget travel, they are even offering customers of HostelWorld the same deal when they make their first booking with HostelBookers***. For more details visit the  HostelBookers Gives Back to Travellers page.

David Smith, CEO at HostelBookers, states: “This promotion is a great opportunity for customers both new and old to fall in love with HostelBookers and to realise that we have the best deals and rewards. We believe that HostelBookers represents the best value for money for budget travellers and this promotion is part of our ongoing efforts to engage and support them.”

* Survey by Reed Business Insight click for more info

** Terms and Conditions apply

***Terms and conditions apply, booking eligibility must be verified and customers must book using the same email address.

- END –

Don’t hang out in San Jose

Allegedly there are some nice areas and cool sights in San Jose. I wouldn’t know because I was too busy trying to fend off muggers, not step on heroin shooting junkies on the sidewalk, all while pretending not to look at the hookers literally earning their money in the alleys.

The taxi drivers also refused to take me anywhere cool because I didn’t want to pick up one of their prostitutes.

Do stay in Alajuela

Assuming you are flying in to SJO (Juan Santamaría International Airport) Alajuela is much closer than the actual city of San Jose. A taxi will run you around $25 to San Jose or just $3 to Alajuela.

There are plenty of small hostels / guesthouses in Alajuela and it’s very safe compared parts of San Jose. It’s not a bad launching pad for the sights and activities around the Poa volcano either.

Don’t take the Interbus shuttle

Nothing against them personally. I’ve heard nothing but good things but they run around $35-40 to the destinations I scoped out.

Do take a local bus

Most of the buses in Costa Rica are very nice and comfortable and they’re also considerably cheap. Last time I checked, it cost around $4 to go from San Jose to La Fortuna or $6 to go to Quepos. Both rides are around 4 hours so that’s not a bad deal for such a long distance.

This schedule should help but get there early to make sure it’s accurate.

Don’t reserve a hotel online

It’s true that Costa Rica is a major tourist destination, especially for backpackers, but it’s not as crowded as you would imagine. If you arrive late a hostel might be booked by the time you get there, but if you have the time, consider checking out the area for good deals.

Do just show up and look at a few rooms

I booked a private hostel room for three last year in Quepos which ran about $50. Not bad for three people, but when we took the bus to the beautiful Manuel Antonio beaches we found that there were plenty of hotels with amazing views of the Pacific Ocean for $25-50. These exact same places were listed online at a minimum of $100 per night.

Talk about slashing prices.

Don’t eat anywhere listed in the Lonely Planet

It’s not that the places listed in the guidebooks are bad by any means, but it appears they double or triple their prices once they get published. If it was listed as a budget restaurant in the Lonely Planet it ran around $10-15 for a standard meal. That’s around the same price as a standard meal where I live in Southern California–one of the most expensive areas in California I should add.

Do find the local soda

Soda’s are your typical Costa Rican eatery. Smaller than most restaurants, most soda’s only have a couple of tables and chairs outside. Many soda’s operate on the street corner with nothing more than a window for you to order your meal. They’re a step or two above food carts on the street.

The best meals I have had in Costa Rica cost around $3 from local sodas. The menu usually isn’t very large and will feature several comidas (typical meals) with your choice of meat. One night it’ll be fresh vegetables and rice, the next it’ll be french fries. It all depends on what they have on hand and what’s fresh.

Don’t party and drink your vacation away

I’ve met plenty of backpackers who sleep most of the day and party most of the night. That’s fine every now and then, but Costa Rica has a lot more to offer visitors than $1 Imperial beers and happening clubs.

Do get out and enjoy the scenery

There is too much to do in Costa Rica to list them all here. Consider white-water rafting, zip-lining through the rain forest, a beautiful hike, or even renting a surfboard and chilling on a beach.

Follow Jeff on Twitter or read more of his travel tales at Have Pack, Will Travel

Learn Chinese Mandarin on your iPod

An abundance of borsch, cranky provanistas and desolate, snow capped pine forests that stretch forever. Riding the Trans Siberian rail is probably the most amazing thing I’ve ever done. I often recommend it to travellers I meet along the way, but Soviet bureaucracy (amongst other reasons) stands in the way of a lot of people thinking they can do this on a backpackers budget. There is a ton of paperwork you need to fill out, and even more companies willing do complete this for you in exchange for your life´s savings. The thing is, with a bit of forward planning you can do it yourself for a fraction of the cost that a lot of people pay to ride the worlds longest railway.

When I was planning my trip I looked into getting a company to handle all the details for me. The cheapest I could find was through Vodka Train – a subsidiary of Sunlanders travel. They would take care of everything for me, and if I paid them, they would courier my passport around to all the embassy’s required and organise my ‘invitation’ to enter Russia (A requirement of all foreigners). Basically all I would have to do is sign the paperwork, submit a few photos for visas and fork over the cash. I paid them a deposit and they gave me a dossier explaining my itinerary, the places I would be staying and a cost breakdown.

I took a close look at the dossier. The journey I wanted to take departed from Beijing, visited Ulaanbaatar, Irkutsk & Lake Baikal, Moscow and St Petersburg. The trip was for 21 days (which included arrival and departure days, so really 19 full days), would be in 4 berth 2^nd class carriages on the train and dorm accommodation when we stopped along the way. The group size would be somewhere between 8 and 15 and there would be guides at stops enroute in the form of ‘Honchos’ – local students employed by the company to take us around the sites.

All up to do this trip with Vodka Train, it would cost me $3,990AUD (including a mandatory local payment of $150USD, payable to the Honcho in Beijing). As a backpacker this was an incredible amount to fork out, considering it didn’t cover any visa fees or meals, but as I was pretty naïve and hadn’t been particularly fastidious in researching, I didn’t really know if this was a good deal or not. I noticed in the price breakdown the hostel dorm I would be staying at in St Petersburg was listed as costing $70 dollars. I knew Russia was expensive but thought this was crazy, I checked it out online and the cost through the hostels website was $35!

I decided to purchase the Trail Blazers Trans Siberian handbook, and the Lonely Planet Trans Siberian guidebook. These books gave detailed information on how to purchase the tickets at each leg, the chaepest way to travel – but you run the risk of not being able to get a train for days if not weeks on the busier lines, a risk I couldn’t really run due to time constraints. Both books gave excellent recommendations for independent tour companies in many countries that can organise train tickets and one company they both mentioned was Real Russia– Based in Moscow with an office in London.

I requested a quote and was it was prepared for me in a few hours. 1^st class tickets (in a comparatively luxurious two berth compartment, including meals on the train) and the Russian visa invitation letter came to $3000AUD. For a 2^nd class 4 berth compartment the cost would be about half this. I opted for first class – the equivalent of 7 days travel on the trains without stinky cabin mates appealed at the time, but in hindsight I do regret that I missed out on this opportunity to share food, beers and interesting conversations with other travellers.

I had to organise the visas myself, but all this involved was filling out a few forms and sending my passport off to the embassy’s. My accommodation for the trip came to about $400 dollars (all in private rooms, twin share) so in the end I saved over $400AUD, travelled in style and got to stay in some really cool guesthouses, in some of the most amazing cities I’ve ever visited, for duration that I chose, not one decided for me. If I chose the 2^nd class cabins, I would have saved $2000AUD, more if I stayed in dorm accommodation along the way.

I’m not saying these sort of package tours are bad. Obviously these companies need to make a profit otherwise they’d be bankrupt. If you are short on time and don’t want to do all the research yourself then go for it. But if you’re a budget traveller with a desire to step into the unknown and figure it out yourself, then forget the tour, do the research and plan yourself one of the best trips you’ll ever take.

Hints and Tips

• The Trailblazers and Lonely Planet guides compliment each other. Fork out the dough and get both. The maps are better in Lonely Planet and the format is familiar, with good recommendations for accommodation and the history of the route, but the Trailblazers guide is full of interesting sights to see and practical information (like if you are a UK resident, bring along your triangle gas meter key, it fits exactly to the toilet lock so if you find yourself busting to go during the 8 hour border crossings you can sneakily let yourself in. Just be warned that it all goes onto the train tracks below…) the Seat61 website is a great source of information for all things rail.

• Bribe the Provanistas– they’re the cranky carriage attendants that make sure the water in the samovar is always full and piping hot. Bring them with a gift from your country and they get a lot nicer, I was even allowed to use the toilet while we were at the Russian border as long as I promised it was only a number 1, and they gave me some great Russian chocolates (which are amazing, so don’t bother bribing with chocolates -even the crappy no name stuff in Russia is better than most in Australia)

• Sure bring a book, but don’t bother with War and Peace, there’s too much to see, you probably wont get through half of it. Though make sure you are stocked up on 2 minute noodles – you can pick them up from the Babushka’s on the station platforms along the way – they sell everything including icy cold Russian beer, home made soups and pastries. Awesome.

You can read about my travels on the Trans Siberian here

Learn Russian on your iPod

]]> http://sanchezjalapeno.com/trans-siberian-on-the-cheap/feed/ 1 http://sanchezjalapeno.com/favourite-couple-of-days%e2%80%99-hangout-spot/ http://sanchezjalapeno.com/favourite-couple-of-days%e2%80%99-hangout-spot/#comments Sun, 23 Aug 2009 06:47:05 +0000 Shane http://sanchezjalapeno.com/?p=62

A city that surpasses every expectation. It doesn’t happen all that often. Sure, you would have travelled through some really impressive cities and had a great time, but how often can you say that you enjoyed every aspect of the place you’ve visited? The local inhabitants, public transport, funky bars, delicious restaurants, and the travellers you’ve met along the way. It’s not very often you can give the tick of approval to each and every one of these criteria which make for a fantastic city. Having said that, we’ve all been to at least one (and if you haven’t, turn off the computer, pack your bag, and head straight for the bus station. As long as your ticket doesn’t say Canberra, you should be ok)

To celebrate all those really cool places that we just stumbled into, every few weeks I’ll be asking some fellow travel writers what their absolute favourite city is from a different viewpoint.

This week I asked “What is your favourite ‘couple of days’ hangout spot?”

Paris

Photo by Milli Vukovic

When thinking of a place I would always love to pop over to and just hang out in, my thoughts easily turn to the eternal city of Paris, France.

While this beautiful city has many world famous sights and even more queuing tourists to view them, there is so much more to entice someone back again and again.

I love to discover another quirky little bookshop or funky boutique (window shopping only), and I will always attempt to master more of the scores of art galleries along leafy cobblestone streets.

Then I often end up just walking around slowly taking in the different architecture of the buildings and churches, or even stumbling on some extravagant gothic stonework found in shady cemeteries, interspersing this with stops for a coffee of course.

Be it summer walks in the immaculate parks or sitting in a warm café with a hot chocolate for winter there is always something I love to do here.

At some point in the trip I will endeavour to sit outside an eatery where the chairs are set up facing the street, and with a wine or a pastry in hand I will become a voyeur along with others  beside me, watching as the fashionable Parisians strut down the street while the afternoon sun warms us all.

Then the evenings pose quite the predicament – out to a glorious dinner and some theatre or find a tiny bar and listen to some jazz?

Being such an expensive city and me a poor backpacker it has never been somewhere I have been able to stay too long in, and not knowing the French language could never really see me get a good career here and call it home, but Paris is definitely a place I can return to and dream in for just a few days.

Milli Vukovic is a freelance photographer currently in Mexico, but is just as likely to be in Morocco this time next week. Backpacking around the world in search of the weird and wonderful, Milli is always on the look out for a the perfect shot, an amazing beach and the worlds best laksa. You can follow Milli on twitter or read her travel blog.

Casa Katy

My favourite hang out spot is perhaps not one you might expect of an article such as this one.

I know this is far too vague an introduction for an article on a website entitled ‘Sanchez Jalapeno – Spicy Travel’. I should really be documenting my exotic adventures in Spain, or describing in great detail the various blisses that come from lounging on a Thai beach whilst my colleagues back in Australia are grumbling about early starts and long hours at the office.

But the truth is that I have never been to Spain or Thailand. I did go to Italy whilst studying Italian in VCE, and loved Rome – in spite of the fact that my travel buddies (teachers included) left me stranded in a strange hotel because they were unaware that I was taking a nap. However, as I’ve only been to Italy once, I have come to the conclusion that it does not qualify as my ‘favourite place to hang out for a couple of days’.

How on Earth have I completed two paragraphs and one sentence without actually disclosing my favourite hang out joint? Would it be possible for me to captivate a travel audience for 300 words without this all-important piece of information?

I won’t deny that it would be a literary risk to embark on such a journey with my readers. And whilst I do like to take measured risks, as a budding publishable author, I have just enough fear and desire inside of me to let you know where my favourite travel spot is. I truly hope that my credibility within the fringe markets of writing is not lost as a result of my blatant audience-pleasing tactics!

I have 50-or-less words to inform you that my favourite place to hang out for a few days is at home. I recently bought my own house, you see, and I love nothing more than to fall asleep at night in solitude, knowing that I am at one with where I am at right at this moment.

It’s simple, and it’s me. One day I will explore Spain – I met a travelling busker from England who will be eventually settling in Spain with his wife. I have to meet their babies! They’re gonna make gorgeous babies. And a psychic once told me that England is where I will truly feel at home, although there are some definite holes in this theory. I am a complete wuss when it comes to the cold, and from all accounts, England seems to have one season, and it’s not summer, spring or autumn. Who am I to argue though? – psychics can tell the future, and this lady was a psychic. So she should know.

But for now…I’m setting up my life where I’m at. And where I’m at is enjoying my favourite hang out – home. Yep.

Sucre

Photo by Shane Brown

The judicial capital of Bolivia, isn’t La Paz, it’s Sucre. I didn’t know that before I arrived in the country, and from the moment I set foot in Sucre after 12 hours of dodgy buses I was enchanted by the place. All the buildings are white washed, the streets are clean, and the locals take pride in their town – They’re more than happy to recommend to you their favourite museums and art galleries (of which there are many) and the owner of a bar we were drinking at even gave me her bicentennial ‘collectors’ calendar, which catalogued for each month a significant piece of local history.

It’s a very affluent town, lots of cool clothing and department stores, and an abundance of funky cafes and bars, of which quite a  few have some Dutch influence (or owners); which means pomme frittes, European coffee and a good selection of imported beers. There’s heaps of Chinese restaurants which proves a good respite from the normal fare, and plenty of bars have wifi (at decent speeds too) which helps when you’re trying to update your blog and catch up with friends on Skype. One café even has a cinema upstairs showing the latest in Bolivian comedies (The white lama) as well as a few other alternative movies, like The Motorcycle Diaries.

This only scratches the surface of what Sucre has to offer, but as far as being just a place to hangout for a couple of days and recharge, you’d be hard pressed to beat here.