BootsnAll Travel Community

The fact alone that backpackers and other "independent travelers" can leave home for extended periods of time to see other parts of the world makes us more well-off (materially speaking) than the rest of the world. Yet unlike package tourists and wealthier folk, most backpackers travel on a limited budget, and must rely on their own self-control to avoid over-spending. Yet sometimes that self-control isn't always so controlling, or we simply forget how much we really have in the bank. So....

Do you know of anybody who has gone hungry, thirsty, or homeless while on the road because of a lack of funds? Who has ended up "trapped" in a country because they can't afford a flight back? Who has relied on the generosity of natives, panhandling, or has resorted to petty theft in order to have something to eat or a roof to sleep under? This question might sound silly, but these are certainly not impossible scenarios.

The only thing that I had that was close to this...
Was in Florence. A check was supposed to be deposited back home and wasn't. So i was left broke. My 'confirmation' money for the hotel bounced so they gave away my room. So it was 6pm in Florence, all the hotels booked with no money.
Not cool.
I was saved by my friend who for some reason was online at the same time as me. She put money in my account right away and I was able to stay in a hotel for the night. Otherwise it would have been to the trainstation with me...duno what I would have done from there. Maybe taken an all night train out of the city (I had a Eurail pass so it it would have been feasable). Maybe just slept on a bench. But it would have been pretty shitty.

There was also one time a while ago in Canada where I lost all my cash. I didnt really eat anything for about 3 days. That was not so awesome. But I was helped out by some hospitable folk I met. They bought me dinner one night...but other then that it was mostly crackers and stolen oranges.

But that's hardly begging. Just my quick brush with being broke on the road.

My first trip abroad, I just had enough money to buy a ticket back to the US - but not enough to get myself to my Aunts place - luckily there was someone on the plane who was driving by her town.

On that same trip, I met a young woman who had grown up as an orphan and was down to her last bucks. I don't know what happened to her as I left within a day.

I saw many more 'beggars' in Europe than anywhere else.

I always thought they were travelers who planned/budgeted poorly. In Switzerland I saw a traveler trying to sell their watch to a western union clerk for enough cash for a phone call and train ticket.

I guess it can get pretty bad.

My first trip was a bit like that as it was in the days before credit cards and easy communication and cash and travellers' cheques were all I had (mostly wads of cash, stashed away in a money belt).

I budgeted so tightly that I went hungry quite a lot of the time, but then I had no idea how long the trip would take, and I got home with cash to spare.

Wouldn't have the discipline for that nowadays.

I think you'd have to be pretty irresponsible to find yourself actually destitute and forced to resort to begging.

I can understand having some misfortune like Prisa described and being in a tough spot for a day or two, but to be a truly drastic situation takes really poor planning or a truly calamitous chain of events. I think this is even more true in the age of credit cards.

I seem to remember a thread a long time ago that sparked some debate about the ethics of hitting the road knowing you don't have enough and trying to make up the rest on the road begging. Pretty appalling to me, but I guess people do it because too many others are willing to hand over money because they feel uncomfortable. My favorite are the people begging who have a cell phone in the other hand.

I'm tempted to mostly agree with skobb here.

I did find myself in the balkans with all of my true credit cards expired. My last trip was not with a whole lot of advance notice, and I hadn't been back in the US for over a year (the new credit cards with their future expiration date came to the US address). Some financial institutions told me they would not send stuff to certain countries, including Bosnia for at least one, and I didn't want my parents to send a credit card via regular mail or even FedEx and have it get lost.

However. I had a debit card and even I (with my low English teaching salary, temporary work, etc.) can get cash advances put into another count over the phone and so on in case of an emergency.

Granted, if something had happened to that one final card, it's possible I could have been in trouble for a few days, and I definitely empathize with people who had that happen.

Western people that go to another country and know they will have to beg to get by disgust me. Down to the depth of my soul, disgust me.
I had a friend who dated a guy who thought it'd be a 'great and fun' idea to panhandle through Central and South America. I wanted to slap the shit out of her when she told me that. If only for not slapping the shit out of him.

I find it jut a horrible, horrible thing to do. And it shows such a self-centered, uncompassionate, sociopathic personality that I would actually be afraid to be around those people. If they'll steal from the poor god knows they'll fuck me over in anyway they can. Gives me the chills.

PS. The Canada incident happened before I owned a credit card, and even before I knew to travel with one at all times. That was one of those 'and now you know better' situations. Dont want to live on oranges and crackers? Hide your cash in different places, bring back up travellers checks, and credit cards.

On my first solo trip, I had a work visa but failed to find work, so I overspent my budget by a fair bit. However, I had credit cards, so I didn't starve, and I came home early before the debt got out of control. It's long paid for now, so I can laugh about it, but it did rather suck at the time.

Anyone who ends up actually starving is a victim of their own poor planning. There is a very narrow set of circumstances - got robbed by a diligent enough thief to find several different hiding spots, or got robbed somewhere there was no ATM, western union or other way of accessing money - where it's not their fault. For everyone else, it's an important lesson in taking responsibility for yourself.

And I totally agree with Prisa...people who go on trips fully intending to abuse people's generosity are scum.

While in Tunisia the bank decided to cancel my cards (important lesson, always tell them you are going on holiday) so I couldn't get money out and had no idea why the cards were not working.

I had about £5 left at that point. The people at the hotel saved me really. One hotel guy who let me use his mobile to call the bank - provided I bought a phone card to cover the expense. I was on the phone about 20 minutes with the anti-fraud dept to sort it out.

I can't even imagine heading out knowing I didn't have enough money to get through. And I can't imagine planning poorly enough to run out of money before I got back home.

On my very first trip (way back before debit cards were even thought of) I budgeted things out so that I came home basically penniless. I think I had two $20 traveler's check to my name when I arrived into the airport and had to call a friend to pick me up. But guess what? Pay phones wouldn't take traveler's checks. And there was NOWHERE in the airport where I could cash one of those checks. I was desperate - I had the money, but didn't have it. And I was too proud to beg - even if it was only for a quarter.

I tried cashing my check for nearly an hour, but it was a small airport and nobody could do it. I was so young it never occured to me to explain my situation to someone and ask them to help, and I was on the verge of tears. Finally a kind man reached into his pocket and pulled out three quarters and handed them to me.

I learned from that to ALWAYS keep a little bit of US cash with me at all times - even if I'm out of the country to an extended period of time I will keep a few bucks stashed away just in case.

Just so I don't sound completely unsympathetic, I should say that we were pretty tight on funds in Myanmar when we were there. We had been using ATMs everywhere to get around with a credit card as a back-up. Well, none of those work in Myanmar (at least they didn't at the time) so we were stuck with making our few hundred dollars last until our scheduled flight out.

So in theory things could have gotten pretty rough, but we did a lot of free and cheap activities and waited it out. Had we been robbed of those few hundred dollars, I'm not sure what we would have done.

Yeah, I think it is wise to reserve a "get home fund" or similar. I always do this--I figure out the cheapest way to get home quick from where I am and reserve that amount at all times. If it comes to that, then I have to go home. It never has, I but I've been close and that has led me to sleeping in airports rather than paying for hostels and to ask closing bakeries and shops for the stuff they are throwing out anyhow. I don't beg though and wouldn't want to ever have to. Its just a matter of principle--how it works for me.

quote:

I had a friend who dated a guy who thought it'd be a 'great and fun' idea to panhandle through Central and South America.

Prisa,

I have one worse than that. My friends went to visit a college buddy of theirs in his home country of Morroco. Their friend literally had 3-4 palaces/palace sized houses. Well, the Morrocan guy had friends, from his socio-economic level, that would do that would pretend to be beggers to the tourists (many of whom I'm sure don't have anywhere near the wealth of these 'slummers').

I'm in spain now, and I've had to spend my 'get home fund' because my bank cards were stolen. One of them was stolen twice, once by an internet fraud, the other by a pickpocket in granada(My fault, the card was in my wallet. Normally its in my belly pack)

Well, I ate a lot of noodles and rice for a long time, and I had rent to pay. Thank goodness it wasn't a hostel bill or I would have had to look for a job.

I have friends now that have to work to keep themselves here, and have known friends who have worked at crafts to barely survive while travelling, and one poor and misguided Czsech girl who flirted her way across Mexico. And yes, another person who gave massages to stay away from home. All of these have one thing in common.

They prefer to starve in another country than go home. I've never known any to actually beg, though I've seen more than enough buskers to fit the street entertainment bill.

Me- Once I had a tooth problem, a bank card problem at the same time, but managed to get a job in the nick of time. I taught english.

Some tend bar, but the hours would kill me, and I don¡t think they'd hire me at this point. They want 20 somethings that don't steal too much from the bar.

I have thought about the itenerant life, and it didn't fit.

And then there are the rainbows... Thats a WHOLE different story, and one that has pleasant memories for me.

I've met a few who do two things: an "emergency on the road" fund AND a "get home fund" so that one fund doesn't scratch the other.

I agree with a lot the posts here: charging off into the world with miminal trip planning in the name of spontaneity and adventure is one thing, doing so w/o the finances to cya is another altogether.

My girlfriend and I just did some of south east asia by motorbike. We had enough money saved as back up so that we could finish the trip scraping by and not really having fun if we couldnt sell the bikes. But luckily we sold the bikes (unfortunately for only half what we paid) But it was enough to let us have fun for the last couple weeks of the trip.

So certainly nothing close to begging, but nearly out of money regardless. Still in London for 3 days though and down to our last 80quid. But hey if you're off travelling you might as well spend it all!!

I mishandled my budget in Ethiopia. With out ATMs outside of Addis Ababa and with no travelers checks on me I was down to my last couple of dollars in Lalibela, which is a long 2 day bus ride from the capital. I paid for my bus ticket and had to eat really lightly along the way and share food with locals on the bus. My budget screw up caused me to miss visiting all of the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela.

To make things worse I had started getting sick the night before the bus ride so I spent 2 days miserable on a packed bus with locals who don't like opening windows, with almost no money.

I arrived in Addis Ababa with $5 USD available to me and I'm pretty sure I had a taxi driver wait outside the Hilton while I went in to get money out to pay my fare.

Unfortunately, or perhaps not, I was in this situation at one point while traveling Europe. Me and my boyfriend traveled Europe for six months and we did it on a VERY shoestring budget. However, it wasn't that bad until near the end of the trip. We were getting weekly payments into my boyfriend's bank account due to a work situation from before. The only thing was that at the very last month of our trip, the money was forgotten to be put into the bank account. Not only that, but it happened to occur on a long weekend at home. That meant that we had to wait about 3 full days before any money could be put into the account. Even if we called our parents, all the banks were closed so they couldn't add money until they opened again.

We hadn't planned for the money not to be there, and we had spent all our money when we found out that the money was not in the bank. I think we ended up having maybe $2.50 to our name. We were in Ireland at the time, as well, which is not the cheapest country in Europe.

We ended up sleeping in our tent in the most randomest places. We slept on the side of the road for two of the nights, and one of the nights we even pitched our tent in an abandoned monastery! We ate beans and bread for most of the time, but by the last day we didn't even have money to buy anything else. We never actually panhandled for money, although we truly considered it to get some food, but we did go on a scavenger hunt for coins on the ground.

It was an interesting experience, however, and made me truly appreciate what homeless people have to go through. It was October when this happened, and cold in Ireland, and I couldn't imagine lasting a whole winter homeless like we were!

quote:

Originally posted by Viaggero:

quote:

I had a friend who dated a guy who thought it'd be a 'great and fun' idea to panhandle through Central and South America.

Prisa,

I have one worse than that. My friends went to visit a college buddy of theirs in his home country of Morroco. Their friend literally had 3-4 palaces/palace sized houses. Well, the Morrocan guy had friends, from his socio-economic level, that would do that would pretend to be beggers to the tourists (many of whom I'm sure don't have anywhere near the wealth of these 'slummers').

How freakin bizzare! Most Arabs I've ever met flaunt rather then 'slum'. One of those things were you loose face and are eternally disgraced should someone (say a relitive or business partner) see you doing such things.
Sick bastards.

It's bizzare to me that some people actually live this way and get to sleep at night. Amazing really.