Every experienced traveler will say that there is nothing complicated in planning your next trip. But for a beginner, this task may seem not so much difficult as new and frightening. After all, the success of the entire journey largely depends on preparation. Logistics, accommodation, on-site program, country specifics, local prices and the “right” places for shopping are only a small part of what needs to be found and implemented. And for this, we have collected useful resources and services that can be useful at the initial stage of real travel.

I don’t know what will force me to buy a ready-made trip from a tour operator now (except for a super unrealistic price that will cover the costs of flights and accommodation), because planning an independent trip is easy and simple. Often the trip turns out, if not cheaper, then much richer and more interesting. So let's get started!

How much?

Numbeo- a convenient option to find out how much housing, food, transportation, etc. cost in the country where you are going to go. Just select the desired criterion and estimate the budget for your trip.

How to get there

Kayak- We are looking for plane tickets. In my experience, he was the one who always gave me the cheapest prices for air travel. And, of course, don’t forget about flying out of Russia.

And if you don’t know where to go on a trip, you have a direct route to Drungli. This site will tell you where you can fly cheapest from your city on a specific date or display a table of prices for the entire month.

What to look for: what airport the plane arrives at (important for logistics or transfers), conditions for returning and exchanging tickets, baggage rules, meals on board.

Where to live

Hotels Combined - decent metasearch engine for hotels in different countries, thanks to which you do not have to check all the booking sites you know. On the site Bed and Breakfast you can find a B&B hotel (I just love them). Apart from searching for hotels, there is also a good content section with travel ideas and tips.

But hotels are not the only possible option for stopping during your trip. On service Airbnb you can find an apartment, and on the website Hostels- find a cheap hostel. The website is useful for travelers with children Kids@Coe oriented towards family travel.

What to look for: Are local taxes, meals, and cancellation conditions included in the price?

What to do on the spot

Personally, I love getting to know real life in every new country and city I visit, so I always look for local friends on Couchsurfing. After all, they can not only give practical advice, but also arrange a tour, show you life from the inside, and even feed you lunch. In addition, you can always track parties and other activities organized by “surfers” in a particular city. Meeting similar travelers in person is always interesting and fun.

Second option - organize an official tour with a local resident, for example, using the service Tripster. By the way, here you can not only find a tour from the locals, but also ask the service participants a question of interest.

Smorodina- a startup guide to Russia that will tell you where to go and what to do without leaving your home country. Also from travelers for travelers.

In addition to Couchsurfing and Tripster, there are several other resources for finding travel tips and advice.

TripAdvisor- reviews of hotels, restaurants, beaches, etc. - a huge database of all kinds of objects and activities around the world. By the way, here you can find reviews about the hotel that you liked, for example, by price or location.

Gogobot - is somewhat similar to TripAdvisor, but also has a large community of traveler interests. On Gogobot you can ask a question or make a recommendation to others.

Travelers for travelers– another community of travelers from different countries focused on budget travel and getting to know local life and culture.

Find an expert

Don't have the desire or time to do everything yourself? Increase your budget by 10 - 20 € and order the desired service from others.

GO2- on this platform there is a good services section, where experienced travelers offer their assistance to beginners. For example, developing logistics, searching for plane tickets or housing options. There is no fixed price for any service, so you can negotiate with each expert individually.

Skillflick - A resource for finding local services in London, from excursions to clarinet lessons or professional wedding photography.

I think most of these services are familiar to experienced travelers or have alternatives. However, they will certainly be useful to those who are just taking their first steps in organizing independent trips.

If you are tired of package tours and your soul demands freedom and new places, you can join the ranks independent travelers. All you need is a basic English language, a thirst for travel and knowledge of some tricks, how save on air tickets, housing, calls and much more:

Air travel

1. Search engines cheap tickets and hotels on Aviasales you can catch super-profitable special offers from airlines and view the calendar low prices for the dates and destinations you choose. This company has an office in Phuket and regularly orders logo sweatshirts from UniFashion.

2. AzAir – search engine for low-cost airlines, which usually do not appear in standard search engines.

3. The Kayak resource searches for tickets to given destinations simultaneously on more than two hundred sites and is sure to find the most Best offer. There is also a trick: the site has an interesting weekend flight button, by clicking on which you will see offers of flights to the desired city and an analysis of prices for the next 4-5 weekend dates.

3. Momondo is a great site for finding low-cost flights. Compares prices from more than 600 sites.

4. Skyscanner has an interesting feature that allows you to select dates that are convenient for you, and then, using the “show me everything” option, searches for places where it will be cheapest to get to. This is my favorite site :)

Housing

5. Couchsurfing is not a site with free accommodation, it is a community of people around the world who are ready to host guests from other countries in their home completely free of charge for the purpose of communication and cultural exchange. You can not only learn more about the non-tourist life of the country and city you visit, but also make good friends all over the world! The site has a system of reviews about guests and hosts.

6. is the largest site for rental housing from homeowners in 192 countries. You can find very colorful inexpensive apartments and rooms, as well as live in completely non-standard dwellings, for example, in a “house for gnomes,” a yacht moored in the port, or a castle.

7. HostelWorld is the largest resource for finding hostels around the world. The system of ratings and reviews of travelers will allow you to choose the best option.

9. Booking is one of the most popular services for booking hotels. Lots of reviews, convenient phone app. Most often I use this one.

10. TripAdvisor - a site where, in addition to the standard functions of searching for flights and accommodation, you can find a large number of reviews and real photos of hotels from users from all over the world.

Cheap tours and special offers

11. Piratesru, TripToDream, Vandrouki, BudgetWorld - 4 of the best sites with ready-made special offers from all over the Internet. In Europe for 1 euro, in China for 15,000 rubles - all this can be found on these sites.

Internal moves

12. AutoEurope – a resource that allows you to compare car rental prices from different companies in Europe.

13. ON the Seat61 website you can find out how to get from one point to another by train, and also see which company serves this section, so that you can then go to the company’s website and book or buy a ticket.

14. On the Thalys website you can view the schedule and buy tickets for trains that travel between Belgium, France, the Netherlands and Germany. The sooner you worry about buying a ticket, the cheaper it will cost.

15. Viamichelin is an indispensable service for anyone planning a road trip around Europe. Here you can download a map of the country or region you are interested in, and also not only plan a route between two points. There are also interesting options - the shortest route, the most economical, passing through the largest number of attractions, and so on.

16. MyWorldMap and World66 – services for compiling your general map travel. You can mark the countries and cities that you have visited, and the site will automatically draw your world map and show how much detail you have covered in a particular country.

17. Jetseller is a travel community that provides access to highly relevant information and exclusive offers on holidays around the world!

18. Evaphone – a resource that allows you to make free calls to anywhere in the world 2 times a day (1 minute call).

19. Dropbox – can store files up to 2GB for free. You can download all the materials you need for your trip, and then retrieve them using any computer connected to the World Wide Web.

I use Google.Drive and Cloud.Mail.ru. Google is good because it is compatible with everything else and the company’s services, and the Mail cloud gave away 1 Terabyte for free for the new year.

20. Travelpost and Atlarge (English) - will tell you what the quality of WiFi Internet is, whether it is free and whether it is available at all at various airports in the world

A huge number of traveling brethren with backpacks pass through me. And the most frequently discussed question among them: how to travel around the world cheaply? Like, where to start? Where to look for these notorious promotional tickets, where is the best place to book hotels, how to plan a route. What are the special features when visiting a particular country?

Nuances, ambiguities and small subtleties...

It seems like I’ve been traveling for several years now, but I’m constantly encountering new quirks. Either they don’t let you on the flight, then they refuse a visa, then the card is blocked... Especially where, if it’s not an airport, it has its own coordinate system, where it’s somehow not appropriate to go into it with your own regulations.

And you have to constantly keep your finger on the pulse: read, communicate, ask. It's good when you have time. What about those who have planned the route in advance??? Of course, take advantage of your existing experience! That’s what this article will talk about!

It all starts with the map. Research your arrival and departure locations. And it doesn’t matter: whether you go abroad to Europe, whether you trip around the world or ride around your country. All this is easy to do without travel agencies and large labor or material costs.

For example, I have long wanted to see with my own eyes the monument to Duke in Odessa and the Potemkin Stairs, so I built a very strange route, although not without a certain internal logic.

What I usually do:

1. I always look where the airport is located on the map in relation to the city. Or, for example, a train station in relation to an airport.
2. I'm looking for public ways to get into the city. Often the airport is connected to the station by some route vehicle: train, shuttle bus, tram, etc. IN major cities except mine hometown, Almaty, there is such a thing! Immediately saves a lot of money on taxis
3. I'm looking for hotels closer to transport hubs. In China, for example, I always found hotels within walking distance from train stations. The latter, thank God, were almost always in the center (except perhaps in Kashgar somewhere on the outskirts)
4. I read electronic versions of Lonely Planet. You can easily find it on the internet.
5. I look at thematic forums. For independent travel to India or Thailand, I always study the Hindustan forums (this is generally a treasure trove, the collective mind works there) and bpclub. Less often - the Vinsky forum. Thematic blogs also help. For example, before my first trip to Thailand, I read life-trip.

Useful tips on transport

1. Uber taxi. (using my link you will receive a nice bonus of about $5 as a discount). For lazy people, here is the Uber promo code nbq1zaduue. Roughly speaking, these are private owners who register in the Uber system, each have their own rating and can take you anywhere, even in super-luxury cars. I used it in Indonesia, the official price from the airport to Ubud is from 250,000 local rupees (just under 20 dollars), Uber gave 150,000.
2. Bla-bla-car. If you're going to travel far, take advantage! Also a service for finding travel companions. Lots of options for choosing drivers, cars and departure times. And if you are driving yourself, then this is a great option to save some money by finding a travel companion.

Once you have more or less decided on the route, you can start packing your things. Read about the contents of your luggage and how to pack your backpack.

By the way, you can travel just as cheaply through. Of course, there is no such high-tech backpacking there, but it is quite an interesting option.

Here is the roof of the Nepalese bus carrying my things

In general, I am all for learning how to manage finances. Therefore, a little earlier I wrote an article both at home and while traveling. This article can be expanded with all the recommendations available there.

Now it's time to buy air tickets

There will be a separate article about the nuances. Here I will give general recommendations.

I always use only 2 sites to find cheap air tickets:

Option times

Wonderful metasearch engine with the opportunity to choose the cheapest month of flight or find the most cheap city in the country you are flying to and from. In general, a huge number of settings and search options.

If you are looking for tickets much in advance (which I highly recommend to find the lowest price), you can subscribe by email to the route and the system will send you email notifications about price changes.

Option two

Their trick is a low price card.

Otherwise, the functionality is a little more modest than that of the Skyscanner. But the tricks of subscribing to a number and direction are also feasible.

Once you have found the ticket you want, do not rush to buy it right away. Visit the airline's website directly. There may be additional sales and discounts there.

So, I managed to find an excellent Moscow-Colombo option from S7 at a price of 17,200 rubles. Moreover, this offer was not listed on either Scyscanner or Aviasales, and the carrier was Qatar Airways, which are famous for their service and comfort. For the Qataris themselves, the price for this flight started at 22,000.

Sometimes people ask me which country to start traveling around the world from? I answer: with my own! I am sure that in your immediate vicinity there are a lot of opportunities for interesting life and adventures.

Go!

This is the algorithm I always use to organize independent travel for both myself and my friends. This is how, for example, we rode. Each of them, of course, will have its own characteristics. However, the main idea always remains the same: use the Internet. Every point is mine personal experience, sore and valuable!

How to decide on your first independent trip abroad. Which country to choose so as not to experience problems, have fun and save money. Which countries are the easiest to travel to on your own if this is your first time?

Still studying travel agency advertisements and listen on the phone to the manager’s revelations about paradise holiday in Egypt And luxury beaches of Pattaya. You may be ready to change your hotel reservations Sharm El Sheikh And Antalya to the vastness of the central Turkey; and also not the best Pattaya coast with a walk along the evening Beach Road in the company of drunken compatriots on deserted snow-white beaches small islands and the atmosphere of the northern provinces of Thailand. I don't know the language! I do not know how to drive! I'm afraid of the unknown in a foreign country! I'm afraid of being left without money! Where to start, in the end, which country should you go to for the first time if you have no experience of independent travel? These are roughly the questions that novice travelers ask themselves, who increasingly have thoughts of cheating on the tour operator and independent organization trips abroad. It’s no secret that often, along with a tour package, they have to look at the local garbage dump under their window and fall asleep not to the sound of the evening surf, but to the sounds of a bulldozer under their window, accompanied by rich expressions of local builders.

I analyzed about 50 countries that I could recommend to those who want to go organize your own trip - from the moment of purchasing a ticket and booking accommodation to planning the route. I took 7 main criteria to make it clearer why these countries actually exist. The 5-point rating scale is closer to me, so I will evaluate the criteria according to it. Then, by mathematically adding the points, I selected the countries. I would like to present the result of my research below.

One more thing. Why exactly 5 countries? And not, say, 7 or 10. Because after visiting these five countries, you will practically not care where to go next. You will only be faced with the question of choosing a direction.

So, the criteria by which I studied the possibility independent trip novice traveler. The order in which these criteria are laid out is random without any hidden meaning.

• Visa regime
• Language and friendliness of the residents.
• Transport accessibility and ease of movement within the country.
• The country is interesting for tourism in general.
• Price level.
• Safety.
• Infrastructure and service

Many countries that seem easy to visit are not included here based on the same criteria.

Türkiye

• Türkiye visa-free country for Ukrainians and Russians, so welcome ( 5 points)
• English and Russian are spoken here, although only in tourist places, but for the first time this is enough; ignorance foreign languages in the Turkish hinterland is compensated by the friendliness of local residents and sign language - it helps ( 5 points)
• high-quality roads and a developed bus network, airports in key tourist spots, proximity to Ukraine, Russia, Belarus (5 points)
• tourism - strong point Turkey hardly needs to convince anyone of this (5 points)
• Turkish prices are not amazing low level, but also don’t make you think about the insignificance of your income (4 points)
• in Turkey it is dangerous, probably only for long-legged blondes, who also diligently show the local hot guys their other advantages; everyone else has nothing to worry about ( 4 points)
• tourist infrastructure and service are almost European and much higher than in South-East Asia; (5 points)

Total points - 33

How to find budget accommodation in Istanbul

Thailand

• visa on arrival ( 5 points)
• V Thailand everyone understands basic school English and is fluent in sign language - ( 4 points), since many at school studied French or German...
• organizing internal travel in Thailand is the dream of any traveler. Any place in the country can be reached by plane, bus, train, car or by water. In addition, all this is incredibly cheap, and there is plenty of information about traffic patterns on specialized forums or on the Internet. The only “but” is that it is a bit far from our region. That's why - ( 4 points)
• Personally, I don’t know a more interesting country for tourism than Thailand, if anyone knows, please share. Beaches, history, exotic, local kitchen… (5 points)
• island still remains a country of very low prices for everything: transport, housing, food and services; a small problem for car enthusiasts - driving on the left, which you get used to in half an hour, the path to Thailand is also not close, so - ( 4 points)
• V Thailand there is a specially created tourist police, so if you behave decently, there will be no problems, even in the case of indecent behavior, the probability of problems arising is equal to the probability of snow falling in the Sahara ( 5 points)
• here everything is the best - for tourists, the service in general will probably have a lot of problems for snobs and those who are accustomed to Arab luxury, but overall it’s a solid four - 4 points.

Total points - 31

How to find budget accommodation in Thailand

Cyprus

• Ukrainians, Baltic countries, Israelis do not need a visa, others can easily get an e-visa, visa on arrival (5 points)
• 100% of residents speak English, almost everywhere there are Russian-speaking staff (5 points)
• It is very easy to get to both the island itself - there are a lot of flights from the western and of Eastern Europe, as well as from the Middle East. It’s even easier to rent a car; without it, a trip to Cyprus will be incomplete. However, buses also go to the main attractions and there is always the opportunity to buy an excursion (5 points)
• local attractions are evenly distributed throughout the island, but the main thing in Cyprus is the beaches and the weather, 300 sunny days a year and hundreds of kilometers of beaches around the perimeter. (5 points)
• prices are slightly higher than in Turkey, but lower than in Greece, for example. (4 points)
• Cyprus – absolutely safe island, unless, of course, you leave your wallet on the towel when you go swimming. But even in this case, there is a high probability that the wallet will remain in its place (checked personally) (5 points)
• excellent infrastructure, good service which is an order of magnitude higher than its cost (5 points)

Total points - 34

Hotels and apartments in Cyprus I search through the Booking.com search engine, the service compares prices from dozens of booking systems - we just have to choose the best offer. In each article or report, I provide links to hotels where I stayed and which I liked.

How to buy a budget flight to Cyprus

I am looking for air travel and buying it at aviasales. The service selects the most advantageous offers - we just have to choose the best by price, departure time or airline.

Croatia

• a visa-free country for citizens of Ukraine, Georgia, the Baltic countries, others need a Schengen visa - (4 points)
• Here they know English no better than most Russians or Ukrainians, the situation is saved by the commonality of languages ​​- even a traffic cop can learn a dozen necessary phrases. (4 points)
• The country is located along the sea, which is considered one of the cleanest in the world, mountains, lakes and a number of ancient monuments. (5 points)
• Croatian autobahns are some of the best in Europe and there is nothing to do here without a car, although the bus network is decent ( 4 points)
• prices are quite high compared to neighboring Montenegro (3 points)
• V Croatia absolutely safe (5 points)
• It’s probably not worth going here for Hiltons and other hotel amenities (with the exception of Dubrovnik), everything else is a solid four (4 points)

Total points - 29

How to find budget accommodation in Croatia

B budget accommodation or hotels in Split , from aviasales- an aggregator that I use myself. The service selects the most advantageous offers - you just have to choose the best by price, departure time or airline.

The most useful sites and applications that we and our readers use. To plan a route, search for accommodation, tickets, best places for hitchhiking or looking for food in trash bins. In short, for all occasions.

👾Planning

• wikitravel.org— encyclopedia of independent travel. All information about interesting places ah, traveling by public transport and between cities. How to use? Search for the city or country you are interested in.

Most information will be in English. But, for Spanish-speaking countries there is often more information in Spanish, for French-speaking countries - in French. So switch the language of the article and use a translator, si tu ne comprends pas;

• hitchwiki.org— encyclopedia of hitchhiking. Sea useful information not only for hitchhiking: for example, land border crossing points, where it is better to obtain a visa in neighboring countries. There are articles in Russian, but more information is usually in English;
• www.workaway.info is the most popular site for finding volunteer hosts in 170 countries. Registration as a volunteer is paid ($36 for one year and $46 for two);
• internationalsos.com— a website with up-to-date information about dangerous regions (epidemic, Civil War etc)
• forum.awd.ru— the most popular Russian-language forum dedicated to independent travel. Advice: use search;
• turbina.ru— tips and notes from Russian-speaking travelers. Advice: use the country navigator;
• - the most profitable travel options for Russians. Cheap tickets are often the reason to travel, for example Advice: Subscribe and tell your neighbors and friends.

📚Guides

• Guides Lonely Planet— the most popular guidebooks in the world;
• Guides Dorling Kindersley- can be found on the root tracker as much as 22GB,
• Hunter Travel Guides— another line of guidebooks, link to root tracker;
• Even more useful texts can be found on the root tracker in the section "Travel and tourism;
• And here's another whole one a bunch of guidebooks;

🛂 Visa rules

• traveldoc.aero— a service with a database used by airlines to check current visa rules when boarding a flight. For the most part, the information is relevant for entry through international airports;
• Timatic- the good old timatic through which you can find out visa rules to visit countries through international airports.
• Visa requirements for Russian citizens on Wikipedia. The article is updated quite quickly.

The same articles on Wikipedia can be found for citizens of other countries (for example, Belarus or Ukraine). You need to google “Visa requirements for ... [for example Belarus]”

• Other information and live experience should be sought on thematic forums. For example those listed above.

☔ Insurance

To obtain a Schengen visa, you will have to apply for one in any case. And it's usually cheaper to apply online. Check where it's cheaper from these sites:

Advice: have you ever visited Belarus?! Or if you are passing through, get insurance there. It can be 2 times cheaper than the same in Russia.

🎫 Search and purchase tickets

✈ Flights

There is probably no perfect airline ticket search engine. The best thing is a combination of several. Use what is more convenient.

Here's what our editors use:

• aviasales.ru— search engine for air tickets by default.
• azair.eu- search composite routes of low-cost airlines Worldwide. If it doesn’t matter where, indicate in the “To” field - xxx Anywhere. And remember, tickets are for low-cost airlines always cheaper on the airline's website;
• momondo.ru— airline ticket search engine. We know, we love, we use;
• skyscanner.net— search for air tickets. By specifying the city or country of departure, you can find out where it is cheapest to fly without filling out the “to” window. All gurus do this;
• Google Flights— flight ticket search engine from Google;
• Yandex Air— domestic search engine for air tickets from Yandex;
• Ctrip— a Chinese ticket aggregator when you want a little 你好吗. Sometimes you can find prices cheaper than on popular aggregators;
• matrix.itasoftware.com— a search engine for geeks, but you won’t be able to buy through it;

⛺ Overnight

• - the most popular site for booking accommodation. Operates all over the world;
• hotelscombines.com— the service compares prices for different housing booking systems. You can often find housing cheaper than
• airbnb.com— apartment rentals all over the world. An excellent option for traveling with a group of 3-5 people. By the way, when registering you can get 2000 rub. for the first booking;
• hostelworld.com— search for hostels around the world. Hostels help not only save money, but also find company or hear interesting stories from travelers;
• couchsurfing.com is an important site for the industry of independent travelers, the name of which has already become a household name. Community users exchange communication and a roof over their heads. Recently I need to go through paid account verification (20$) . In the free version you can send only 10 applications per month.

Advice: carefully read host accounts and reviews about them.

• trustroots.org— searching for wonderful people who are ready to provide accommodation or show their city. Remember that platforms like this and couchsurfing They exist not for free living, but for interesting communication and sharing good mood.
• planet.squat.net- one of the official (if such exist) sites for squatters in Europe.

📌 Maps and search for interesting places

🗺 Cards

• maps.google.com — online maps all over the world. Also creates routes taking into account public transport in many cities. And in the application ( iOS, Android) you can download map fragments for offline use.
• maps.me — best app with offline maps.
• Galileo— offline maps, some find more convenient than maps.me.
• GoogleTranslate- a translator who can also work offline; for this you need to download the languages ​​in advance.