Slow travel tips are budget travel tips

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Slow travel = budget travel

Nomads Productivity Entrepreneurs

Slow travel is a terrible name for what it actually is. It suggests that travelling slowly is in fact slow, perhaps dull, or even boring.

We argue, instead, that slow travel is better than fast travel. It is more exciting and memorable.

It’s easy to imagine a trip where you do 5+ touristy things a day, spend your life’s savings, and come home in need of another vacation. The reason it's easy to imagine is that you’ve done it already.

Let’s try to make the case for why slow travel can be you and your wallet’s best friend.

We are Ella & Ryan, digital nomads, exploring the world mindfully. Between getting married, becoming nomads, and starting our own businesses, we’re sharing everything we learn along the way. Here is a picture of us in Evora, Portugal.

We're Ella & Ryan!

We're digital nomads, exploring the world mindfully. Between getting married, becoming nomads, and starting our own businesses, we’re sharing everything we learn along the way.

Long-term stay discounts

The entire premise of slow travel is staying in one place for a longer period of time. By doing so, you become eligible for extended stay discounts. Many accommodation providers, like hotels, Airbnb, or Vrbo, offer discounts for extended stays. Some offer over 50% off for monthly stays. Sign us up, please!

Staying longer avoids the costs of relocating more often. These include getting to and from the airport, flying, and restocking your food.

💰 Cost of living differences: During our 4-week stay in Santiago, Chile, we got a 20% discount on our monthly rental. The rental fee was cheaper than what we spent renting in Toronto, Canada. That was without even adding utilities and apartment insurance.

Digital nomads travelling the world. Itinerary of Chile based on couple travel, slow travel, working remotely, vegan travel, and budget travel. Picture of the Santiago, Chile skyline with Andes Mountains in the background.

💰 $1,600/month in Chile

Digital nomads travelling the world. Itinerary of British Columbia, Canada based on couple travel, slow travel, working remotely, vegan travel, and budget travel. Picture of the lush greenery and rocky coast in Lasqueti.

🆓 Housesitting in Vancouver

Digital nomads travelling the world in London, England. Working remotely, slow travel, vegan travel, and budget travel. Beautiful architecture in London during city walk.

🆓 Housesitting in the UK

Lower transportation expenses

Slow travel cuts the need for expensive flights. It requires less moving between destinations. Instead of hopping from city to city or country to country, you can explore more of a single destination. This reduces the amount you spend on flights, trains, and buses.

Less spent on flights

A $500 return flight to Europe is very different for slow and fast travellers. Spread out over a 7 or 28 day trip, the flight is either $71/day or $18/day.

Use public transit

If you're staying in one place for a while, consider a monthly transit card, renting a bike, or other cheap transport options. It cost us $0.35 to ride La Paz's amazing cable car and $1.00 for the metro in Santiago, a bargain compared to North American cities.

Weekend getaways

You can also go on weekend trips and leave your accommodation as is. With the monthly discount, it may be cheaper to leave your room empty while you explore other places on the weekend.

Digital nomads travelling the world in Patagonia. Working remotely, slow travel, vegan travel, and budget travel. Hiking Mont Fitz Roy from El Chalten. Incredible experience.

🏔️ 5 days in Patagonia

🇨🇱 Weekend in Valparaiso

Orange line of the La Paz Teleferico network going over the city in Bolivia

🚡 $1.50 per ride in La Paz

Cooking and local eating

How many times have you missed a home-cooked meal while you’re away? Us too.

Eating out can quickly add up when you’re traveling, and the excitement can fizzle. Slow travel often means having a kitchen. It lets you prepare your own meals and save money on food. Cooking while travelling is cheaper than eating out 99% of the time.

Shopping at supermarkets and local markets can also be a fun experience and teach you a lot about the local cuisine. You can quickly see what locals are eating. This avoids the influence of tourist traps that cater to Western tastes.

💰 Pro-level budget travel tip: Treat the supermarket or local market as a tourist outing. Outside of what you buy, it’s free. Being among locals and buying the food they buy is the epitome of slow travel.

🇧🇴 Local cooking in La Paz: We learned to make many new dishes out of necessity. The local supermarkets didn’t carry many of the foods we were accustomed to, making it difficult to prepare familiar meals. Budget friendly and we learned a lot!

Digital nomads travelling the world in Santiago Chile. Working remotely, slow travel, vegan travel, and budget travel. Visiting local market for fresh produce and vegetables, home cooked meal.

🥬 Santiago Market grocery haul

Digital nomads travelling the world in Santiago Chile. Working remotely, slow travel, vegan travel, and budget travel. Foreign supermarket options and fresh food.

🇨🇱 Fruit & Veg options abroad

🥬 Santiago Market grocery haul

Immersive experiences

While not a direct financial benefit, the immersive and local experiences that come with slow travel can contribute to more rewarding, authentic, and richer travels. Richer… see what we did there?

By truly getting to know a place, you might discover hidden and local secrets that are often more affordable than touristy attractions with inflated prices.

💰 Pro-level budget travel tip: Ella brilliantly took advantage of a local Pilates studio’s initiation promotion, getting multiple weeks' worth of classes at a discounted rate. Despite having to take pilates in a foreign language, Ella exercised, saved money, and now has a memorable story to tell.

🇨🇱 Spanish lessons: In Chile, we opted to take Spanish lessons during our visit. We met many other like-minded slow travellers, ended up taking salsa lessons one night with other students, and met friends who we travelled more with after our classes ended.

Digital nomads travelling the world in Santiago Chile. Working remotely, slow travel, vegan travel, and budget travel. Meeting new people, friends, salsa classes, Spanish lessons, spontaneous.

💃 Free Salsa lessons in Santiago

Digital nomads travelling the world in Santiago Chile. Working remotely, slow travel, vegan travel, and budget travel. Doing pilates in Santiago, in foreign language, introductory fitness offer to save money and stay fit.

💪 Pilates at local studio in Santiago

Digital nomads travelling the world in Santiago Chile. Working remotely, slow travel, vegan travel, and budget travel. Spanish lessons to learn Spanish in Santiago Chile.

🗣️ Learning Spanish

Low cost of living hotspots

For those who are fortunate to participate in slow travel, you can take it to pro-levels by visiting low cost of living destinations. You can stretch your budget much further in destinations with less expensive food and accommodation. You will likely have to compromise on comfort, but being able to live on dollars a day, as opposed to hundreds a day, can be quite appealing to a budget traveller.

Beautiful vibrant and colourful La Paz village passing over teleferico

La Paz, Bolivia

$47 USD per night for a modern Airbnb, most meals were under $10 each and local transit was $1.50 per trip.

Woman riding first class on RegioJet train between Prague and Vienna 4 hour trip digital nomads backpacking

Prague, Czechia

$62 CAD each for spacious first class train tickets on a 4-hour trip from Prague to Vienna with complimentary drinks.

Digital nomads drinking wine in Nazare Portugal, cheap and inexpensive high quality wines.

Nazaré, Portugal

€2 on average for a bottle of wine at the local store. Might be normalized for some but this is unheard of in North America!

Work remotely

Combine living in a low cost of living hotspot with working remotely and you’re golden. Digital nomad living can be significantly cheaper than living a conventional western lifestyle when you seek out more affordable travel destinations.

By staying in one place for an extended period, you can maintain a stable work environment and keep earning an income while you travel. This financial stability can make travel more sustainable in the long term.

💰 Our nomad budget We’ve been travelling and working remotely full-time since September 2023. We’ve visited some incredible places, both expensive and inexpensive, and consistently kept our monthly expenses far below what they were before.

Remote work setup in Nazaré, Portugal Airbnb with laptop and view

Remote work from café in Santiago, Chile with coffee and laptop

Laptop setup at hotel in San José, Costa Rica for digital nomad work

Remote work essentials in Monteverde, Costa Rica Airbnb with jungle view

Digital nomad work setup with laptop in sunny Barbados accommodation

Final thoughts

Slow travel offers a unique approach to exploring the world that can be both financially beneficial and deeply fulfilling. Focus on reducing accommodation, transportation, and food costs. Actively seek out opportunities to travel to cheap travel destinations and potentially work remotely.

To see the difference in how much you spend while fast travelling and slow travelling, check out our simple and easy-to-use budgeting tools built for travelling!

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