Good Travel Site or Boards for the RE Travel Lifestyle????????????

[dex]

Do you have any good sites or discussion boards for the RE Travel lifestyle?

My way of thinking is that the RE Travel lifestyle is one where the person goes to a city or country for an extended period of time - about a month or more. I guess I'm looking for good local info that might not be found in travel books.

I would be interested in learning how to find safe, clean accomidations at a reasonable price. A reasonable price is hard to define. I guess I would call it good local knowlege of what is reasonable (definately not usual tourist accomidations.)

Other info I would like is:
How to find the best airfares for where I'm going.
Local culture info
Practicle advise on how to travel.

These might be seem like basic ideas. But my thought is that I don't like going to a place and rediscovering the wheel.

I have always used the Lonely Planet books as my first step when traveling outside the USA.

 

[brewer12345]

I also like Lonely Planet. When I went to Europe, I found the Rough Guide to be pretty good, too.

Dougdo, who posts here on occasion is involved with this site: http://travelblogs.com/

I also have made hay by trolling the "deals" section of Frommers.com.

 

[Jay_Gatsby]

Interesting review of the "naked bike ride".

 

[justin]

Two good resources I like to browse on occasion:

thorntree.lonelyplanet.com/
discussion forum for the whole world - sort of oriented more to the budget traveler. You may find what you need there by searching the forums, or posting a new thread.

www.travelpod.com/
They have a forum, but I haven't really looked at it much. The main part I look at is their travel blogs. You could read some of them describing the places you want to visit and see where people are staying.

 

[MJ]

With all my search, I haven't found a comprehensive travel website (except Billy and Akaisha's) that discusses travel locations for long term stays. LP type sites are great for travel info but don't shed enough light on RE or PT lifestyles so i'm interested as well.

 

[Ed_The_Gypsy]

Rick Steves has a nice site that changes from time to time:

http://www.ricksteves.com/

We always enjoy his Europe Through the Back Door TV show and books.

Escape Artist is light fare, not to be taken very seriously, but I find it very entertaining.

http://www.escapeartist.com/efam/85/efam85.html

This fellow has a running thread about travel in South America in general and Argentina in particular:

http://forums.about.com/n/pfx/forum.aspx?tsn=166&nav=messages&webtag=ab-gosoamerica&tid=512

The Thorn Tree is very good. The message buffer seems to be limited so something you saw last week may not be there next week. I print out the interesting posts.

Of course, the ultimate is "Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need":

http://www.amazon.com/Dave-Barrys-Travel-Guide-Youll/dp/0345431138

 

[kramer]

I have found Andy's site useful: http://www.hobotraveler.com

He has been continuously traveling for 10 years, keeps a web log, sends out newsletters regularly (archived on his web site). His web site gets about 10,000 unique visitors daily. Andy probably stays in a big city an average of something like 7 days, so it still may not be exactly what you are looking for. But he has lots of good tips, a truly seasoned budget traveler.

His last compilation of top travel web sites is here:

http://www.hobotraveler.com/newsletter/archives/top-travel-sites-of-2005-bogota-colombia

Somewhere on his web site is a pointer to a good web resource that contains a list of cheap local airfares for various regions and countries.

He just spent several months in West Africa. He thinks he might have come down with malaria so he just flew to Thailand for affordable medical care:

2006 Nov 1 Enter Bangkok Thailand
Bangkok Thailand East Asia
Thursday, November 2, 2006

I have entered the country and city of Bangkok, Thailand. I entered yesterday about 7:00 PM and was checked in, registered and lying on my bed in my five-dollar per night hotel with TV, HBO BBC, fan and a shared toilet. Life is good.

I have all my clothes packed up in a shirt I am using as a laundry bag and ready to take to the Sawasdee Laundry Service. For about three US Dollars, or 120 Baht, I can have all my clothes washed by machine and dried by machine. It is the first time in three months that I have not washed my clothes by hand. I am excited to have clothes, which are thoroughly clean, and shrunk to a hot air dryer fit. My clothes get a grunge about them, and no matter what I do, a machine does a better job, and the machine dryer makes them re-compact themselves to a better fit.

The cost to do this much laundry in West Africa would be about 25 US dollars, or maybe more, and it would be done by hand and clothes dried, normally.

Bangkok, Thailand is my home plane ticket base, the place where I re-stock on anything I need, China is up the continent, the world sells anything and everything at what would be wholesale prices in the USA. I can quickly, efficiently and cost effective purchase everything I need to travel. I do not know of anything, except gym shoes and underwear that I cannot buy in Bangkok. The underwear, Reeboks, and I normally buy computers in the USA because the warranty is clearer. However, everything else I need is on the rack, for sale, at what would be USA prices.

I also can buy plane tickets to anywhere, one-way at about half the price of anywhere on the planet. Thailand is wholesale priced, and for sure, life has a good money value.

I have an extra large backpack in long-term storage in one of the Sawasdee Inns, and can for about 25 Cents per day store anything safely for about one year, or more.

If Thailand spoke better English it would be paradise for the person who just wants a cheap place to live. I also can purchase any book on the planet used, all my needs are fulfilled in Thailand. No religion problem, no problem, when I hear the words,
- No problem, -

I worry, I know there is a problem, however I truly believe there is almost no problem in Thailand, I will eat a whole chicken, cooked and ready for less than 1.50 USA, I think about one dollar. Fresh orange juice for 25 cents and internet for 50 cents per hour. What a great wholesale value of life.

Kramer