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Step 10A Place to Stay
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If you're traveling on the ultra-cheap, you can generally find a way to ninja/stealth camp anywhere, especially if it's a warm place. You may need only a bug net and a way to keep off rain.
Hostels are an old favorite with travelers. Lonely Planet guidebooks are good for finding cheap ones popular with earthwalkers.
ecohun recommends the following resources:
Try WWOOFing (World Wide Opportunties on Organic Farms, at wwoof.org) for a cheap way to see different places. Also some of the hostel sites such as hostel world and hostel bookers can be good as long as you take the reviews with a pinch of salt. WWOOF international is at wwindoffice@wwoof.org
I've heard the odd horror story from WWOOFers but mostly things work out fine. The important thing is to leave yourself options in case you are very unhappy. Talk to the host rather than suffering in silence.
Accommodation with hostelworld.com and hostelbookers.com is generally cheap, plentiful and good. However, some hostel owners perhaps bump up their ratings by having someone they know put in a false review. This should be self regulating by people posting poor reviews subsequent to their stay. Generally though, people are kind and don't want to complain. Try and talk to someone who has been there before. Post reviews if you didn't like it.
hostelz.com also appears to be a good resource for hostels.
If you're thinking of staying in hostels, check out couchsurfing. Couchsurfing is a website for connecting friendly local hosts to people who are traveling and need a place to stay.
It's pretty awesome to be able to stay with locals wherever you are, especially because of the immense added cultural perspective.
If you dig the social scene of hostels, couchsurfers generally have meet-ups on any (or every) given night, around the world, where you can meet a ton of people, swap adventure stories, find out what's good, etc.
Sleeping in public, try to be as hidden as possible. Pick spots that have a feng shui of protection around them. Lumber yards are good, for example: people are expected to come in and pick their lumber out, so there aren't any "no trespassing" notices. But it's owned and cared for by a business, the fact or aura of which will keep others away. The people you'll run into first thing in the morning are paid hourly and are interested in doing their jobs, and as long as you're not breaking things and clearly just trying to sleep, you should be fine.
Princeton's guide to winter camping is great if you want to sleep outside and it's cold.
Orian:
If you have a sleeping bag and a bivy you can stay anywhere. Particularly good spots are under bridges, abandoned buildings, culverts (when they're dry), rooftops, beaches and public parks.
In Latin America you can almost always camp next to gas stations. Military checkpoints and police stations are almost always happy to have you, too, and you've got extra security there.
If all else fails you can camp just about anywhere (bushes, next to a house or building, behind a dumpster ...) for a night. Put your sleeping bag on the top of your pack, eat and brush your teeth somewhere else. When your ready to sleep, walk to you're chosen spot and roll out your sleeping bag real fast and get in it. If nobody sees you when you go to sleep it doesn't really matter what happens in the morning. If someone finds you in the morning and kicks you out, you're already well rested.
If you're traveling on the ultra-cheap, you can generally find a way to ninja/stealth camp anywhere, especially if it's a warm place. You may need only a bug net and a way to keep off rain.
Hostels are an old favorite with travelers. Lonely Planet guidebooks are good for finding cheap ones popular with earthwalkers.
ecohun recommends the following resources:
Try WWOOFing (World Wide Opportunties on Organic Farms, at wwoof.org) for a cheap way to see different places. Also some of the hostel sites such as hostel world and hostel bookers can be good as long as you take the reviews with a pinch of salt. WWOOF international is at wwindoffice@wwoof.org
I've heard the odd horror story from WWOOFers but mostly things work out fine. The important thing is to leave yourself options in case you are very unhappy. Talk to the host rather than suffering in silence.
Accommodation with hostelworld.com and hostelbookers.com is generally cheap, plentiful and good. However, some hostel owners perhaps bump up their ratings by having someone they know put in a false review. This should be self regulating by people posting poor reviews subsequent to their stay. Generally though, people are kind and don't want to complain. Try and talk to someone who has been there before. Post reviews if you didn't like it.
hostelz.com also appears to be a good resource for hostels.
If you're thinking of staying in hostels, check out couchsurfing. Couchsurfing is a website for connecting friendly local hosts to people who are traveling and need a place to stay.
It's pretty awesome to be able to stay with locals wherever you are, especially because of the immense added cultural perspective.
If you dig the social scene of hostels, couchsurfers generally have meet-ups on any (or every) given night, around the world, where you can meet a ton of people, swap adventure stories, find out what's good, etc.
Sleeping in public, try to be as hidden as possible. Pick spots that have a feng shui of protection around them. Lumber yards are good, for example: people are expected to come in and pick their lumber out, so there aren't any "no trespassing" notices. But it's owned and cared for by a business, the fact or aura of which will keep others away. The people you'll run into first thing in the morning are paid hourly and are interested in doing their jobs, and as long as you're not breaking things and clearly just trying to sleep, you should be fine.
Princeton's guide to winter camping is great if you want to sleep outside and it's cold.
Orian:
If you have a sleeping bag and a bivy you can stay anywhere. Particularly good spots are under bridges, abandoned buildings, culverts (when they're dry), rooftops, beaches and public parks.
In Latin America you can almost always camp next to gas stations. Military checkpoints and police stations are almost always happy to have you, too, and you've got extra security there.
If all else fails you can camp just about anywhere (bushes, next to a house or building, behind a dumpster ...) for a night. Put your sleeping bag on the top of your pack, eat and brush your teeth somewhere else. When your ready to sleep, walk to you're chosen spot and roll out your sleeping bag real fast and get in it. If nobody sees you when you go to sleep it doesn't really matter what happens in the morning. If someone finds you in the morning and kicks you out, you're already well rested.
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Sep 29, 2008. 6:45 PMduffles
says:
In urban areas, ask people to camp on their front lawn; people are very nice. I also heard about a couple in Las Vegas who spent two weeks living at the very top of the staircase of one of those high rise hotels. Who climbs stairs anymore! -shaunalynn
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Sep 29, 2008. 7:08 PM
stasterisk (author)
says:
stasterisk (author)
says:
nice!! are you planning a trip to somewhere?
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