How to travel the world with no money?

Cycle-touring, Expeditions, Adventures, Major cycle routes NOT LeJoG (see other special board)
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Sweep
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Re: How to travel the world with no money?

Post by Sweep »

irc wrote:
Perhaps not such an idiot. Contact on her website is a PR agent. She is sponsored and is looking get on TV -
Laura is sponsored by Madison bike UK, Gore clothing and Rab.


mm- and under sponsors/partners:


http://www.laurabingham.org/plan-help/sponsors/

we find this:



>>Madison are a leader in cycling retail, they have given myself and Cho, Croix de fur, Genisis bikes


Seems she can't spell either the brand name or model name of the thing supporting her.

still, Madison should be pleased that she got that bit right.
Sweep
Ivor Tingting
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Re: How to travel the world with no money?

Post by Ivor Tingting »

khain wrote:A more practical suggestion is to write to and boycott her sponsors and give them hell on social media.

It's obscene that companies like Rab and Gore are sponsoring someone to go begging in places where most people could not dream of affording their products.

Also, despite what I said earlier, if you're touring in the developing world with camping gear, surely the cost of food and shelter would be pretty minor compared to flights, visas, insurance and equipment. It's ridiculous to claim this is 'travelling the world with no money'. It's a shame newspapers like the Guardian are reduced to this sort of clickbait headline. It does cycle tourists no good either.


As soon as I saw the link was to the Guardian I knew it would be about some selfish champagne leftie liberal who has no concept of reality. These people are just shameless freeloaders exploiting the generosity of strangers to promote their own selfish lifestyles. They take take take from those much poorer and with far fewer life opportunities than themselves and give nothing in return. They are no different to fare dodgers. They get genuine travellers a bad name. Shameful.
"Zat is ze reel prowoking qwestion Mr Paxman." - Peer Steinbruck, German Finance Minister 31/03/2009.
doodah
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Re: How to travel the world with no money?

Post by doodah »

It makes my blood boil!

I say everyone on this forum turns up outside her house and asks for a meal and to camp in her garden, and film her reaction. Invite people from the countries she's travelled in too.

A more practical suggestion is to write to and boycott her sponsors and give them hell on social media.


I suppose burning her at the stake would be considered a tad extreme?
Last edited by doodah on 8 Jan 2017, 10:55am, edited 1 time in total.
simonhill
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Re: How to travel the world with no money?

Post by simonhill »

I think its what they call an angle.

Just writing about normal travelling is unlikely to attract sponsors, blog hits,media attention, etc. By having a different angle, her trip is much easier to sell. Nowadays people are desperately seeking more extreme ways of promoting themselves or their blogs and attendant advertising (=cash).

To a lesser extent, you can include some of the long distance charity rides here. People undertake what the media would hype as a trip of a lifetime in the hope or expectation that sponsors will flock and donaters will donate. "Doing it for charity" is often used as a begging bowl.

The pure joy of just travelling for yourself, without need for self promotion, sponsorship, blog following and all the other trappings of the modern celebrity culture is rarely reported by the media. Nonetheless, I am sure its what most of us here are about.

Pedal on!
Vorpal
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Re: How to travel the world with no money?

Post by Vorpal »

The cost of a flight is still more than a year's earnings to one of Ecuador's rural poor. They've made great strides in the last decade, mostly due to the growth of the oil & gas industry in Ecuador, but there is still a big difference in most rural areas between standard of living there and in the UK. No, we don't know that all of the people are rich and privileged, nor should that alone be a cause for ciriticism, but travel is largely the province of the privileged. There are, of course, exceptions, but even the majority of the folks who earn their way, working for meals and the like, are coming from privilege. I don't agree completely with this http://www.ravishly.com/2016/06/16/your ... lassist-me but the author makes some good points.

This sort thing makes more sense if someone is actually working their way around, beginning with passage on a freight ship or something.

I do think that it's important that such opportunities exist, but I also think that it's important for those who can afford the cost of an airline ticket to give more back to a poor community than they take. Whether that is labour or money or something else the community values, I'm not bothered. But being an imposition for the sake of adventure is selfish, at best. Honestly, if someone comes from the UK and wants to travel, but cannot afford to support themselves by doing so, why not volunteer for a charity that will support someone for a few weeks or a few months, or even a few years, working with others. Habitat for Humanity, Red Cross, Peace Corps, or check on those websites that help connect volunteers and charities who need them and find something that suits them.

The life experience is well worth having. Where do you draw the line between life experience and being an imposition? I don't rightly know, and I guess some people may make the judgement in a slightly different place than others. That's okay, too. But to go to another country and depend on hand-outs from people who likely need handouts themselves? I can understand why this would provoke negative comments.
“In some ways, it is easier to be a dissident, for then one is without responsibility.”
― Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
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Sweep
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Re: How to travel the world with no money?

Post by Sweep »

simonhill wrote:I think its what they call an angle.

Just writing about normal travelling is unlikely to attract sponsors, blog hits,media attention, etc. By having a different angle, her trip is much easier to sell. Nowadays people are desperately seeking more extreme ways of promoting themselves or their blogs and attendant advertising (=cash).

To a lesser extent, you can include some of the long distance charity rides here. People undertake what the media would hype as a trip of a lifetime in the hope or expectation that sponsors will flock and donaters will donate. "Doing it for charity" is often used as a begging bowl.

The pure joy of just travelling for yourself, without need for self promotion, sponsorship, blog following and all the other trappings of the modern celebrity culture is rarely reported by the media. Nonetheless, I am sure its what most of us here are about.

Pedal on!

Spot on simon. I know someone who went for a week or two or more in the wilds and spent the evenings in the tent blogging.
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khain
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Re: How to travel the world with no money?

Post by khain »

simonhill wrote:The pure joy of just travelling for yourself, without need for self promotion, sponsorship, blog following and all the other trappings of the modern celebrity culture is rarely reported by the media. Nonetheless, I am sure its what most of us here are about.

Pedal on!

Amen to that. I find the ever-more-extreme challenges people are doing just to get noticed quite tedious. Why does a cycle ride have to be an achievement? Why does everything have to be a competition? For me a large part of cycle touring is to get away from that mindset.
khain
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Re: How to travel the world with no money?

Post by khain »

Vorpal wrote:This sort thing makes more sense if someone is actually working their way around, beginning with passage on a freight ship or something.

I agree with that and it would make a much more interesting article. I have heard of people doing it too. Unfortunately today's media allows little subtlety. The headline is all.

In the past I've thought of doing something like that myself, essentially becoming a nomad, but doing web stuff, casual work and maybe some busking. I've kind of gone off the idea now. I must say it never occurred to me to simply beg for food. The challenge should be how to earn enough while travelling to pay your way, not how to live off the generosity of others and simply ignore costs like flights and equipment.
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Sweep
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Re: How to travel the world with no money?

Post by Sweep »

khain wrote: Why does everything have to be a competition? For me a large part of cycle touring is to get away from that mindset.

Yes. It's like a certain sort of city professional. Decides that they need to introduce some destressing simplicity into their life. A glimmer shines. Inspiration. Cycling. Then this particular type of character buys all the fancy flash stuff (so they keep face in the corporate bike park), aggressively commutes with barely a thought for their surroundings/fellow road users, signs up to strava, does sportives, perfornance and status obsessed as before. Only talking about a certain subset of character of course, but i think there's a lot of them around, particularly in london.
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Psamathe
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Re: How to travel the world with no money?

Post by Psamathe »

khain wrote:
Vorpal wrote:This sort thing makes more sense if someone is actually working their way around, beginning with passage on a freight ship or something.

I agree with that and it would make a much more interesting article. I have heard of people doing it too. Unfortunately today's media allows little subtlety. The headline is all.

In the past I've thought of doing something like that myself, essentially becoming a nomad, but doing web stuff, casual work and maybe some busking. I've kind of gone off the idea now. I must say it never occurred to me to simply beg for food. The challenge should be how to earn enough while travelling to pay your way, not how to live off the generosity of others and simply ignore costs like flights and equipment.

There are quite a few people travelling the world (long term, many countries) with no "job", supporting themselves through writing, online consultancy work, etc. i.e. rather than taking their needs from those in need in their targeted country, they "take" their money from the wealthier regions of the world whilst at the same time travelling round their selected country (in effect adding to the country rather than taking from the country).

Ian
thirdcrank
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Re: How to travel the world with no money?

Post by thirdcrank »

Something in a similar vein but without the foreign travel in today's Stella mag (the Sunday Telegraph colour supplement.)

My 'buy nothing year': How one woman saved £22,000 


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/b ... ved-22000/

A couple of comments caught my eye:

I limited myself to a zero budget for transport, meaning I’d have to cycle everywhere.

Cycling as cost-free seems naïve POV, even though it may be cheaper than other modes.

My growing love of the outdoors led to my highest point of the year: a summer holiday with Frank. I wasn’t allowed to book a flight or a hotel so we strapped our tent and sleeping bags to our bikes, packed an enormous pasta salad, and cycled to the seaside. 
We spent six days just riding around the Suffolk and Norfolk coast, wild camping on beaches and in secluded forests. We didn’t have access to a shower so we washed in the sea and when we ran out of pasta salad we bought cheap bread rolls from a supermarket to stay in budget.
We were constantly exhausted from hundreds of miles of cycling and by the time we returned home I had ridiculous tan lines from my cycling shorts, but it was one of my favourite holidays.

It's called "hunger knock" or "the bonk."
Bmblbzzz
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Re: How to travel the world with no money?

Post by Bmblbzzz »

"Ridiculous tan lines"! :evil: I'm so glad I still have tan lines in January (though I dare say they'll have faded before shorts weather gets here again).
iviehoff
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Re: How to travel the world with no money?

Post by iviehoff »

Alastair Humphreys' http://www.alastairhumphreys.com/ initial cycling around the world was done at about 50p a day for food and lodging. When he ate from his own funds, it was pasta or rice with nothing on, and he just stealth camped if he had to, so actually most of what he did spend money on was food. He was very good at making people feel happy at inviting him in as a guest, feeding him, accommodating him, etc. He never resorted to open begging like these people because he did have the rice and the campstove if he needed it and he used it quite often. Personally I would find even "accepting hospitality" on such as large scale as AH did unethical. But deliberately setting out to travel without funds, in developing countries, is quite immoral.
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Re: How to travel the world with no money?

Post by Bmblbzzz »

Why would you find it unacceptable to accept hospitality? IME when hospitality is freely offered, it is not only (sometimes not even at all) out of sympathy or pity but out of interest and even a sense of cachet from having a wessie staying with you. This is only one of the reasons such hospitality is more frequently offered in poorer countries than in rich ones.
Psamathe
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Re: How to travel the world with no money?

Post by Psamathe »

Bmblbzzz wrote:Why would you find it unacceptable to accept hospitality? IME when hospitality is freely offered, it is not only (sometimes not even at all) out of sympathy or pity but out of interest and even a sense of cachet from having a wessie staying with you. This is only one of the reasons such hospitality is more frequently offered in poorer countries than in rich ones.

There is a big difference between accepting offered hospitality and desperately seeking out hospitality (without even offering anything in return, not using e.g. hostels because that means paying money which you could afford ...) e.g. from the article
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2017/jan/02/how-to-travel-the-world-with-no-money-by-people-who-have-done-it?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+main+NEW+H+categories&utm_term=206713&subid=7646217&CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2 wrote:I had passed house after house of rejection: no one would help. Nothing. We reached a house and I fell to my knees in tears, begging the woman for help, even just her garden to put up my tent.

To me that goes way way beyond the concept of accepting offered hospitality.

Ian
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