AFFORDABLE RECREATION

Summer is in full swing, which means it is time to take a vacation. How to spend the summer and not painfully waste the time? On the beach, under the air conditioner lying on the couch or traveling? By the way, scientists have proven that traveling makes us happy much more than material goods. Not to mention all other benefits of this hobby in terms of the memories, enjoying the beauty of distant countries and pleasant shopping experience at the world's best sales. But not everyone is able to fly first class to the most fashionable resorts. Do you have to refuse travelling just because of this? Not at all!

From Azerbaijan

Surely, budget vacation involves some inconveniences. People for whom the holiday is associated exclusively with high-level service and idle pastime, the lack of comfort may seem a good enough reason to stay home. As for the others who want to see close and distant lands as a priority, they need to get ready for the journey in advance.

First, you must decide what means of transport you are going to use for the trip. A plane is the most convenient but also the most expensive means in this case. You’re better get your tickets well in advance, preferably a few months before traveling, since the season prices increase significantly. Also, the cheapest flights are indirect flights with a transfer, as well as nightly or early morning flights. The interval between flights also affects the price tag. In Azerbaijan, the budget tourists most often make flights using one of the Ukrainian airlines flying through Kiev. If you have to wait for a few hours at the transit airport and are traveling light and without children, it is better to leave the airport, find shuttle buses going to the city and spend a few hours in the beautiful capital of Ukraine.

One of the most popular routes for our fellow citizens is a holiday in neighboring Georgia, where everything is attractive: great nature, great food, unique aura of the city, and the relative cheapness of the stay. To ensure a comfortable ride, they often travel to Georgia on train. It is better to purchase the tickets in the summer season in advance since especially at this time of the year, as well as in anticipation of the holidays, you risk not getting them. Buses travel every day from the bus station in Baku to all the corners of Azerbaijan, as well as to the border with Georgia. By the way, a new bus route is available direct from Baku to the resort town of Batumi in Georgia. This bus trip is cheaper than the one on train but you can save some time sacrificing some convenience. The buses to Batumi depart from the Baku International Terminal on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 18:00 and reach the destination at 09:00 am on the next day. The ticket will cost you 35 manat.

Where to live?

That is the most important question we always ask upon arrival. Many people prefer to book a hotel on their own. As was already mentioned by travel agent Sabina Seredneva in one of our previous articles, the travel agencies usually have an agreement in advance with the hotel and buy the rooms at discounted prices. Thus, the price difference between the individually booked room and the one provided by your travel agency can be substantial.

An alternative to hotels can be hostels or guesthouses, an accommodation system where the guests are provided a room for sleeping for a short and sometimes a long term. Depending on the country and the cost of hostels, they can provide you with quite a comfortable double with private bath and a bed in a shared room for a few people. As a rule, hostels and guesthouses do not provide special services. The kitchen is often common but coffee and tea are for free. If you wish, you can even prepare your own meals at the hostel, as conditions allow for this. Of course, by sacrificing some services and your privacy, the hostels, nevertheless, are getting increasingly popular - not only because they are cheaper but there is an opportunity to meet and chat with different people from all over the world. If the hostel is small (often it can even be a fairly wide flat), then you can quickly and naturally find yourself in quite a friendly and open community of residents and workers / owners of the hostel who can communicate and spend with you some spare time.

Despite the fact that our mentality can hardly perceive such accommodation considering it a kind of low profile living standard, the rest of the world sees hostels differently. The hostels have become a kind of culture - finding them is quite comparable with a visit to an interesting museum. Indeed, would not you want to spend a night or two in a guesthouse or a hostel made in vintage style or even furnished in the cockpit of a scrap aircraft? One of the most interesting hostels is located in Karosta, a military port in the Latvian city of Liepaja, which is called Prison Hostel. For a relatively small price of 15 euros, the lodgers are offered a stay in a real prison. There are, on the contrary, hostels, reminiscent of a cozy old grandmother's apartment... So, in general, there are hostels for every taste and color.

Those who want to save on accommodation and dream of greater privacy often prefer renting an apartment or a room. There are many websites where you can be find such options for daily rent. The most popular site is airbnb.com. This web source contains only active proposals from local residents who want to earn extra money during the season, no intermediary firms and brokers. Not only it is cheap but it also makes it easier to get into the spirit of the city and its life. Sometimes the citizens rent the entire apartment but sometimes only one room. By the way, the rental of an apartment is also convenient for saving on feeding costs.

One of the most economical options for housing is couchsurfing. This is a broad international network whose registered members provide free housing to each other. With this, you may want to live at someone without renting your own apartment. Apart from free accommodation (couchsurfers do not take money for renting since they believe that the world should be accessible to all), the couchsurfing is a unique culture and philosophy. You can live in the home of indigenous citizens, become familiar with their way of life, habits, feel the best way of life. In addition, often couchsurfers offer more and more guiding services.

Upon arriving at a different city, you will probably have to move a lot. If you have your own means of transport such as a car (do not forget to get familiar with traffic rules and parking fees) or a bicycle, that is great. If you have to move on your own feet, try to find routes of public transport, as well as purchase a temporary public transport ticket - it is cheaper than the one-off fare, and certainly a lot cheaper than a taxi. You can also learn from the Internet all information pertinent to sightseeing locations without a need to hire a professional guide. However, most often you can sign up to various cultural and historical site tours regularly organized at your destination.

Food

Food is an integral part of our existence. If you want to devote all your time to recreation and not to bother cooking lunches and dinners, you have to pay attention to your food provider. Indeed, when visiting tourist spots, one can hardly avoid temptation to drop a visit to a beautifully decorated comfortable café. But, as elsewhere, the prices in the city center and near the tourist sites are too high, and the menu is often the average-European. Therefore, it is better to ask the locals where they mainly eat. Firstly, the price in such catering facilities are often much lower, and secondly, there you can taste delicious traditional food.

Geolocation is very important. Mark on the map your hotel (apartment, hostel), as well as the attractions and restaurants you are going to visit in advance. Then, using the same card and GPS on spot, you can easily find everything that you need.

In addition, there are lots of tourist applications with ratings of restaurants, exchange rates, and even a list of all locations with free internet in all the cities of the world. With proper preparation and the right strategy, even the budget travelers will be able to spend some comfortable and enjoyable time.

In Azerbaijan

As for foreign tourists visiting Azerbaijan, there aways be people of different levels, as elsewhere in the world. But almost all the tourists seek to find optimal price versus quality option. Travel and leisure is a lifestyle for many people living abroad. All tourists always tend to travel to distant countries regardless of their social status. Very few of the locals and even more foreigners know nothing about a shuttle bus from the airport to the center of Baku, which departs every half hour from the terminal. All buses on this route work for 24 hours making them very convenient for those who arrive overnight flight.

Usually tourists avoid settling in luxury hotels, preferring comfortable and relatively inexpensive guesthouses. Unfortunately, we have not yet adopted the culture of hostels – there are only two hostels in Baku only (for comparison, almost a hundred hostel are in Georgia). Tourists are actively using the services like airbnb and couch CouchSurfing, and if the season allows go camping. You have surely seen tourists in Baku loaded with huge tourist backpacks, which could easily fit a whole house. Usually, they have lightweight sleeping bags and tents in such backpacks in addition to clothing and basic necessities. As mentioned above, CouchSurfing is not just a kind of "charity" toward fellow community members but it is also a culture. It's nice to see that advanced creative trends reach us and that there are couchsurfers ready to host foreign guests not only in Baku but also in the regions. Meanwhile, it is also a great opportunity to socialize with other people and to improve foreign language skills.

Naturally, at first there is quite an understandable fear associated with letting in your family a stranger... But don’t worry since all couchsurfers are registered on a dedicated website couchsurfing.org. You can view the profile of your future guest or host, you can find all the necessary information about the person: age, occupation, hobbies. Most often, the owners and visitors leave feedback about each other after they leave. Naturally, the high-ranking users are the most credible users of the network.

A new trend in couchsurfing is that as a gratitude for the shelter, the couchsurfers often share their skills and knowledge in various fields - from playing the harmonica to popular lectures on quantum physics. By the way, it is also a great opportunity to join something new and unusual. After all, people who choose to travel in a similar way are rarely boring and ordinary. For example, our correspondent at R+ had a variety of guests including a Greek from New Orleans, who earns for living by street playing musical instruments; a young French couple traveling only using land transport (Azerbaijan was one of the staging posts of their year-long tour started in Paris and ended in China); vegans – a young and cheerful couple travelling from the United States throughout the world exclusively by bicycle, professing an active lifestyle.

Also, given that the shelter is provided for free, the visitors only need a comfortable and unpretentious everyday life.

As a rule of thumb, many tourists arriving in Baku do not want to limit themselves to sightseeing the capital only. They are happy to relax on the beach and do not mind to go to nature, to the regions of Azerbaijan. There is a plenty of people living in the regions who lend own apartments to visitors. It should cost you a very, very democratic price, and in addition you can not only get a delicious breakfast, lunch and dinner made from fresh rural products but also enjoy a wonderful holiday on the farm, the lakeside or in the woods. After all, it would be a very nice family vacation with children.