Welcome to the Poor Traveler! When we started traveling, we made a lot of poor choices. We made a lot of mistakes. We had absolutely no clue how to plan a trip. We got lost all the time, got scammed all the time, and ended up spending way more than we should. We created this blog to provide FREE TRAVEL GUIDES so you won’t have to make the same mistakes.
“Anywhere else, aside from Jakarta?” This was the reply I would usually get whenever I
In this blog, you'll find hundreds of travel guides, sample DIY itineraries, airport guides, and visa application guides to help you plan your trip like a savvy budget traveler!
The Poor Traveler started out almost 15 years ago as a simple blog that documents our budget trips but it has since grown to be a rich source of tips and other information especially for travelers from the Philippines and the developing world.
BUDGET TRAVEL GUIDES. Comprehensive guides that tackle most of the things you need to know about specific destinations based on our own experience. Each travel guide contains information on how to get there, how to get around, where to stay, and how much to prepare. Also included are flight and hotel recommendations, tour suggestions, sample itineraries, travel tips, and frequently asked questions.
VISA APPLICATION GUIDES. For many Filipino travelers, international journeys often start with a visa application. Our visa guides have list of requirements and step-by-step instructions based on our own application experience. We also answer some of the most frequently asked questions at the end of every post.
TRAVEL DOCUMENT GUIDES. We also have blog posts about how to apply for a passport, visas, and DSWD clearance. We also have sample invitation letters, affidavits of support, and even sample accomplished visa application forms.
SAMPLE DIY ITINERARIES. For some destinations, we also create sets of sample do-it-yourself itineraries with budget breakdown. Most of our sample itineraries are good for a long weekend, but every now and then, we produce sample day tour and overnight itineraries, and 1-week or 2-week multi-city itineraries.
ATTRACTION GUIDES. Some of the most complicated but extremely popular tourist spots like theme parks (Disneyland and Universal Studios, to name a few), we create travel guides for first-timers so you know how to make the most of your visit. These attraction guides often take the form of a list of frequently asked questions.
CHEAP EATS RECOMMENDATIONS. For foodie cities, we create a list of recommended restaurants for budget travelers, too!
Although this is a budget travel blog, we are not in the business of promoting the cheapest ways to travel. It's not always about the price. The cheapest is not always the best deal. If we were chained by costs, we would have just stayed in our hometown and never ventured out into the world. It's about your dream adventures and how you can make them happen. It's about finding destinations that are worth our hard-earned money. It's about making every journey priceless. It's about developing the diligence to plan ahead and the confidence to see value for money.
Add plenty of allowance to the suggested budget and itineraries. Allow room to cover incidental expenses, changes in prices, exchange rate movements, and other costs we might have missed. The budget samples on this blog are mere estimates and are meant to only give a ballpark figure. Same applies to schedules. Timings might have changed since the time of writing, your pace might be very different from ours, and we might have failed to consider other factors.
Double check with official sources. Although we try to write our guides to the best of our knowledge and keep them up-to-date as frequently as we can, at the end of the day we're just a small team traveling to various destinations and writing and updating hundreds of articles. We cannot guarantee that the information here is current or accurate all the time. Please always cross-check important data with official sources.
SPEND WHEN YOU CAN. If you can afford it, treat yourself and enjoy as much as you can. If there is something you want to try and you have the means, go ahead. It’s also a great way to help the local economy.
Help us improve this blog! If you want to add information or you spot something that needs correcting, please let us know in the comments section below.
