If you're short on cash but up to your ears in time, you'd be surprised at the doors open to you when it comes to dodging hotel bills. Volunteer work, caretaking and couchsurfing are just some great examples for the open-minded traveller.
Hostel cleaning for accommodation
Planning on staying in one place for more than just a few days? Try your hand at cleaning dorm rooms in exchange for a free bed. These kinds of informal arrangements are common with small, independently owned hostels, both in Oz and abroad, so don't be nervous about inquiring. Usually two or three hours of sweeping floors and scrubbing bathrooms will get you a bed in a shared dorm.
Potential hazards: Stinky socks, grubby sheets and is that? ... Yup, it's a vomit puddle. Let's face it, backpackers aren't exactly the cleanest of creatures.
Potential perks: If you're lucky the hostel will throw in a free meal, or even transfer you to reception.
Volunteer work
While there are loads of volunteer opportunities out there, most involve an often hefty administration fee. So finding something that is not only free of charge, but provides free accommodation can be tricky, but by no means impossible. Try the website
SE7EN, which lists free and low-cost volunteer opportunities around the globe.
A quick search turned up tonnes of interesting assignments with paid-for accommodations, from teaching English to Burmese orphans to helping out on a recovery project for the endangered bridled nail-tail wallaby.
For skilled Australians between the ages of 18 and 30, we highly recommend applying for the federal government initiative AusAID's Australian Youth Ambassador for Development. If accepted, you are placed on assignment in developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region, working in fields as diverse as education, environment, health and rural development. Best of all, from flights, to accommodation and living expenses, this is a fully supported program, so you don't have to pay a cent.
Potential hazards: Volunteer work can be a little ad hoc, so be prepared for a degree of uncertainty.
Potential perks: The inner glow that comes from knowing that in your own small way you've helped make this world a better place.
"WWOOF" stands for World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms, and started in the UK in 1971 as a way of helping people share ways of sustainable living. In exchange for muscle, volunteers receive food, accommodation, cultural education and a greater understanding about organic lifestyles from their hosts. Typical tasks include sowing, making compost, gardening, planting, cutting wood, weeding, making mud bricks, harvesting, fencing, building, packaging, milking and feeding.
Potential hazards: You may be looking at six hours of solid work a day, for six days a week, so don't expect this to be a breeze.
Potential perks: There's no sleep quite like after a day of fresh air and getting your hands dirty. And expect to try some great organic produce.
Caretaking
In exchange for watering the garden, picking up the mail and feeding the cats, you get to stay in a house or apartment of an absent holidaymaker — rent-free! Note: retirees tend to be in high demand as caretakers as they're generally more reliable than wild, house-party-throwing young'uns. Head to
House Carers or the
Caretaker's Gazette for listings around the globe of property owners looking for sitters. Another option is to try a
house exchange.
Potential hazards: Be sure to make clear from the beginning what work will be involved, and any required deposit or potential utility bills — lest you find yourself with five, active greyhounds to look after, and a heating bill running into the hundreds to boot.
Potential perks: You could be calling home a 200-year-old French farmhouse, or a 16-hectare resort property in Mexico. Beats a smelly hostel any day!
The CouchSurfing online network is used primarily to hook up travellers with hosts that are offering a couch, bed or a room to stay — completely free of charge. "In what utopian paradise does this happen?" you may ask. Well, to date, there are more than 1.5 million generally satisfied couchsurfers — both hosts and guests — who have used the site in order to make interesting new friends from other cities and participate in a project based on human goodwill.
Head here to read of my fantastic experience couchsurfing in San Francisco.
Potential hazards: There are few to speak of, but your trip may lose a little bit of spontaneity as some degree of organisation is involved. Generally hosts need to be given a few weeks' notice before your arrival.
Potential perks: New friends, cool digs, and all the secrets about your destination that only a local knows.
Urban camping and squatting
For adventure types, camping is a pretty obvious route if you're trekking through national parks, but what about those heading to city locales? The answer: urban camping. Turns out roofs are a luxury travellers can do without. Just hit the concrete and pitch a tent, lay your sleeping bag on that park bench, or snuggle with the homeless down that dark alley.
Another variation of urban camping is squatting, which involves taking residency in an abandoned or unoccupied space or building, without payment, and without permission. There are currently about 1 billion squatters globally, the vast majority in developing countries, and doing so because they have no other choice — not because they're travellers on the cheap. Nonetheless there is also an underground movement of squatters who consider it an alternative lifestyle, and often have a large contingent of "global drifters".
Do we recommend this one? Not really, but if you're crazy enough for this idea to whet your appetite, head to this WikiHow article for more on urban camping, and have fun dodging those pesky policemen! Remember, the legality of these practices differ country to country. For example, despite Barcelona's vibrant "squatting scene", it is illegal in Spain. While in the UK it is not, if no property was damaged in the process.
Potential hazards: Deathly cold evenings, robbery, hard floors, interrupted sleep when interrogated by a police officer, no showers ... just to name a few.
Potential perks: You'll forever more have a crazy story to tell at dinner parties, and probably have a newfound appreciation for how tough homeless people have it.
Language scholarships
For the more academically minded, a great option is applying for one of the many scholarships available to Australian citizens — and oft little publicised. In fact, I'm currently writing from a dorm in a Beijing university, thanks to a Chinese Government scholarship which provides one year of free Chinese language classes, boarding and a monthly stipend. And how did I find out about it? A quick and easy Internet search query.
Note: Applicants with a tertiary education fare best. The ability to write a killer application letter will come in handy.
Potential hazards: Homework, assignments and exams. That's right, it's back to school!
Potential perks: Professional development and often new language skills which you'll carry for life.
Tell us your experiences with any of the above, or post some tips about other ways you've discovered can cut down accommodation costs.
