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Best languages to travel cheap | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Immersion, Schools & Certificates |  | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4710 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 9 of 16 20 October 2013 at 10:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
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EU nationals need a visa for Azerbaijan (not for Georgia or Armenia I think, or at least
it's not hard to get). Moldova is mostly bilingual so it depends on where you go. I at least would love to go to Moldova, I can practice two of my target languages at once :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4892 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 10 of 16 21 October 2013 at 12:46am | IP Logged | |||||
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I agree that Spanish is the most obvious choice for North Americans, and also that
language skills for any country will probably help you travel smarter, and on a lower budget. I'm finding an unexpected "French discount" for places outside of Paris. Day tours of the Rhone wine country, for example, are 85 to 100 euro on the English-language sites, and 50 to 60 euro on the French-language sites. It's still not cheap, but it's a huge drop. Edited by kanewai on 21 October 2013 at 12:47am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4293 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 11 of 16 21 October 2013 at 1:20am | IP Logged | |||||
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For EU countries, I think any European language. The distance between many of them is
probably less than between Toronto and Québec City. And for North Americans, surely French is also a possibility, given that many places in the USA and Canada are within easy driving distance of Québec. I think Manchester in the state New Hampshire (not the one in England) is something like one hour drive or perhaps two, to Québec City, depending on traffic. I should imagine that people living in Ontario, especially the heavily populated Greater Toronto Area and the Horseshoe Belt, or how it is called, would spend time on French for a weekend trip to Québec. Although I think Canadians take French as a compulsory language in secondary school, but if they want more practise, then Québec is always an option. I have relatives in Ontario, i.e., Toronto, London, Kingston, Ottawa, etc. who say that they like spending weekends in Québec as a cheap holiday. Montréal included, but also the more rural regions, like Les Laurentides and Les Canton de l'Est, like Sherbrooke or Grimsby. Probably French without switching to English is more prominent there. Although here in Manchester (the original one) it is one hour flight to Paris. Driving from here to France also is quite possible and people do it, but to me that is quite cumbersome. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Arekkusu Hexaglot Senior Member Canada bit.ly/qc_10_lec Joined 5384 days ago 3971 posts - 7747 votes Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian | Message 12 of 16 21 October 2013 at 7:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
The two biggest expenses are plane tickets (unless you want to travel closer to home) and lodging. If you can make a friend who'll put you up for free, you've saved at least half of you travel costs. It has nothing to do with language. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| leroc Senior Member United States Joined 4314 days ago 114 posts - 167 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 13 of 16 21 October 2013 at 9:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
How do you make friends with someone well enough if you don't know their language? What do you eat and where do you sleep while you try to find friends to mooch off of? The point of this discussion is what languages can help open up inexpensive travel opportunities. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7159 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 14 of 16 21 October 2013 at 10:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
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For me the best language for cheap travel is a tie among Polish, Romanian and Slovak. Those countries (especially outside the capital or more accurately the downtowns of Warsaw, Bratislava and Bucharest) are dirt cheap for westerners. However I may not be the best example since I often use Couchsurfing or already have friends in places that I visit thus removing the need to eat out at restaurants or stay in hostels/hotels.
For something more general, one starting point would be to look at the Cost of Living Survey from The Economist's Intelligence Unit. According to the summary of the survey, New Delhi, Karachi, Bucharest, Panama City and Algiers are among the 10 cities with the lowest cost of living. It follows that for someone who can go for peanuts to South Asia, knowing Hindustani or just English will serve one just fine in India and Pakistan, whereas a European could bone up on Romanian before trying to score a Ryanair or Wizzair flight to Bucharest. On the other hand someone in the Americas could take up Spanish before looking for a promotion for a cheap flight to Panama. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4710 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 15 of 16 22 October 2013 at 11:38am | IP Logged | |||||
And if you are travelling longer distances, check to see if you can travel overland by train - if you can sleep on a bus or train, you'll save yourself a night's worth of accomodation. On long train journeys in Russia, China etc., this can save you a bundle. Due to this, I spent only 9 out of 27 days in hostels in Russia - the rest was all on trains or at friends' places. And I probably could have made more friends and used Couchsurfing to make that even lower a number. Edited by tarvos on 22 October 2013 at 11:44am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| embici Triglot Senior Member CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4613 days ago 263 posts - 370 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Greek | Message 16 of 16 24 October 2013 at 9:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Knowing the language of the country you are travelling to, no matter which one, is a
huge advantage. I can't count how many times monolingual travelling companions have told me "If you didn't know [language] we would have never found this restaurant/hotel. We would have ended up at the [tourist-trap/big chain restaurant/hotel] instead and paid a lot more." This has happened to me in Paris and Amsterdam as well as rural Central America. It's not just about being able to haggle the price down (although that works in a lot of places) it's also about being able to take public transit instead of a tourist taxi, reading signs and menus and making a reservation at a small hotel where they don't speak English. The gap between the tourist and local oriented hotels and restaurants is much bigger in low income nations, however, so I can see knowing languages like Spanish and Vietnamese giving you a big cost savings. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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