When you create your travel budget, it’s important to account for recurring expenses such as lodging, transportation and food. You should also build in a little extra room for the occasional vice, be it a Tibetan wool blanket or some refreshment of the more herbal sort — you’ll be amazed how fast your willpower disappears when you don’t sleep for a few days.
Although it’s sometimes necessary to adjust your budget to account for incremental differences in price between different regions of countries, familiarize yourself with a realistic price range for all the goods and services you need — and do not, under any circumstances, give money to someone unless you explicitly solicit his help.
Shopping
As I detail in my post about budgeting as you travel, discretionary spending such as shopping for clothing and souvenirs should always be your last priority for your money. Ironically, this is usually where unwitting travelers end up spending the most, compared to what they end up getting for it.
When I arrived to Shanghai in late 2009, the first order of business was assembling a cold-weather wardrobe. Since I’d lived in hot climates for the six preceding winter seasons, I didn’t have a proper coat to my name. I’d tried in vain to purchase one prior to my departure from the United States, but failed — no style I wanted was available in my size.
My new co-workers laughed when they heard of my dilemma. You mean you don’t know you can get amazing clothes made here for next to nothing?
Next thing I knew I was at the South Bund Fabric Market, located adjacent to the Nanpu Bridge — and conveniently, the hotel where my company had put me up. In spite of how dreary the building itself appears from the outside, I was impressed by the range of garments tailors had display in their windows. I knew I wasn’t going to leave without ordering a coat.
And that was all Sabrina, the young woman who hustled me over to her storefront, needed to know.
A perfectly-fitting coat, she told me as she placed what she termed a “sample” over my shoulders and began tucking and pinning away at it, could be mine for just 800 Chinese yuan. After pushing me in front of a mirror, she began hurling compliments at me left and right — and I began admiring myself in an imaginary coat that didn’t look a thing like the monstrosity draped over my body like a sheet as she wrote up the ticket and told me where the ATM was located.
I chose to highlight this particular incident because it perfectly illustrates how sellers scam travelers: They use sugar-coated aggression to lure you into purchasing things you may or may not even want. Of course in Sabrina’s case, I already wanted the coat, so I made it a lot easier for her. By putting the coat on me, pushing me in front of the mirror and telling me how amazing I looked, however, she simultaneously took control of my body, my brain and my emotions.
And that’s how it almost always goes down: If a seller begins behaving aggressively toward you the moment you turn up in front of his shop, however nice you think he is turn away — what he has isn’t worth buying.
Lodging
When you’re out on the tourist trail — and particularly, if you’re out there for long periods of time — you become less and less concerned with where you sleep and shower and more focused on simply finding a place to lay your washed hair. Additionally, reservations are inhibitive to the flexibility that makes travel such a wonderful release from everyday life.
Guess what? Property owners have caught on to this — and many of them think nothing of tricking road-weary backpackers into paying exorbitant prices for shitty rooms.
Unfortunately, knowing exactly what you should pay at a given hotel, hostel or guest house is difficult unless someone you know personally has visited the area recently. Although guide books can be useful for some aspects of planning your itinerary, don’t expect real-time prices to bear much semblance to anything printed on paper.
If you don’t care to bargain for your room but think the quoted rate seems steep, ask to see an official price list. If the attendant refuses, it means either: (a) You are being scammed or (b) the property is too ghetto to afford printing a price list — get the fuck out.
For bargainers such as myself, the process of scam detection requires a bit more work. Usually, I randomly select three or four adjacent properties and matter-of-factly question the attendant about prices, without appearing too eager. No matter where you are in the world, economics are economics — and competition always lowers prices. If one or more of the properties quotes you a significantly higher rate than any of the others for a relatively similar room, you know you’re being scammed.
Front desk attendants can also get you on the way out. When I was leaving my hotel in Hoi An, Vietnam last August, the attendant attempted to charge me an additional 25,000 dong for the bottle of water I was carrying, claiming it was taken from the room’s refrigerator — even though I’d bought it outside the hotel. She stood in front of the door to block me from exiting the hotel, so I demanded she take me back to the room so I could confirm the brand and bottle size were the same. She did — and sure enough, it was different water entirely.
A few months later when I was attempting to pay out at the Chillout Hostel in Istanbul, the young man behind the desk stared blankly at me when I handed him 300 Turkish Lira. My bill, he claimed, was 370 Lira, as per the printed spreadsheet in front of him. As the woman in Vietnam had done, he also prevented me from leaving.
Thankfully, I had my iPhone at the ready, the Hostel World confirmation loaded into it from the last time I had access to Internet on the device: I owed just 230 Lira. Initially, that wasn’t good enough for him. His ledger, he insisted, was correct. Hostel World must’ve made a mistake, he told me.
What he didn’t realize is that I am a pro at reading upside down — and I could tell plainly that the last name of the Robert who owed 370 Lira wasn’t “Schrader.”
If a hotel, hostel or guest house quotes you a price that seems too high, it probably is, particularly if the staff refuse to show you an official price list or if you confirm it by visiting neighboring properties. Be mindful of the price you’re being charged not only when you check in, but also when you attempt to leave. In short, don’t let someone take advantage of you because you’re eager to sleep or in a hurry to leave.
In-Transit
Planes excepted, trains and automobiles — and the places from which they depart — are a great place to hang out if you’re a lowlife hustler. As I know all too well, travelers tend to be most stressed out and, as a result, less alert when it transit.
When my friend Dora and I arrived to the New Delhi train station in March 2009, it was following a two-hour inbound flight from Goa that had been delayed for three and then a chaotic one hour taxi ride from the airport. Armed with the knowledge that trains depart the Indian capital for Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, at least once per hour, we hadn’t reserved seats in advance and planned to buy them from the ticket counter and be on our way.
The man standing by the door had other ideas. The train we wanted to take, he insisted, had already left. He implored us to come with him to the “National Transport Office,” where he would book us on the next available departure to Agra. I was pretty convinced based solely on his scruffy appearance and lack of uniform that he wasn’t legit, but Dora was terrified — he screamed at me when I told him he was full of shit — so we went with him.
Before we knew it, we were half a mile down a street that was positively infested with people just like him carting tourists like just us behind them — and by the time we got done hearing was the man’s asshole boss had to say, the train we wanted had indeed left, as had the rest of the scheduled departures. Determined to see the Taj Mahal so we could get back in time to spend at least a full day in Delhi, we got dicked into purchasing a round-trip taxi and hotel package for around 20 times what we would’ve paid going on our own accord.
Scams don’t just happen within countries, either. When I was exiting Peru this past February about 10 minutes before the border closed, the man I’d just given $135 for a shoddy-looking “visa” to enter Bolivia insisted that I needed to return to Peru and get him a photocopy of my passport if I wanted to be permitted in.
Of course, doing so would not only keep me stuck in the Peruvian side of Desaguadero an additional night, but would also necessitate me re-paying the Peruvian exit fee I’d already paid — and possibly having to purchase a second Bolivia visa altogether, as mine didn’t specify a number of entries.
Thankfully Bethan, one of my travel partners, used her womanly charm to scold the small man into backing down from his bullshit and we were soon on our way to La Paz.
When in transit, never follow directions given to you by anyone other than a uniformed authority, broadcast over a loudspeaker or displayed on a monitor. Likewise, if you pay to enter a country and an official tries to impose a requirement you’re sure isn’t official, stand up to his ass — or have a pretty girl do it for you.
Drugs
Penalties for drug sale and possession are extremely strict in most parts of the world outside the United States, particularly in Southeast Asia, where some regimes call for a death sentence in the worst case. For this reason alone, it is absolutely essential that you not get scammed when attempting to purchase anything illegal.
Knowing this was the case prior to entering Laos, which is famous for its magic mushroom pizza and other various “happy” food, I shied away the restaurant stall owner who flagged me down during the middle of the day and turned his drink menu around to reveal a veritable Wal-Mart of illegal substances. Instead, I passed a few thousand kip to the British brother-and-sister team who let me smoke their weed and drink from their magic banana shake.
Signs of scamming are simple when it comes to drugs: If a local person solicits you to buy drugs from him, he almost certainly works for or with the police. If you absolutely must do drugs when you visit a foreign country, purchase them in a private setting from another traveler or from someone one of your local friends knows well enough to vouch for.
About The Author
Robert Schrader is the author of 255 posts on Leave Your Daily Hell.
Robert founded Leave Your Daily Hell in 2010 so that other travelers would have an entertaining, reliable source of information, advice and inspiration at their fingertips. Robert has traveled to more than 36 countries since he got his first passport stamp in 2005. Want to travel more often? Subscribe to email updates today!
{ 8 trackbacks }