What’s your best tip for budget travel?
One of the best holidays we ever had was seven weeks travelling around Europe, mainly by Eurail. We had saved enough frequent flyer points to cover the airfares, so that made a huge difference. We flew to Amsterdam, spent a few days there, then stayed with friends in the south of Holland before beginning the rail journey properly.
From there we travelled to Salzburg, Ljubljana, Split, Venice, Milan, Grenoble, Paris, Luxembourg, Brussels and eventually back through the Netherlands. We stayed mostly in youth hostels or with friends. Occasionally we hired a car when it made sense. In Croatia we spent a week cruising around the Adriatic on a converted naval boat, stopping at a different port each night.
There were plenty of memorable moments. Lake Bled and Lake Bohinj in Slovenia. Seeing The Last Supper in Milan. Buying last-minute tickets to U2, with Snow Patrol as the support act. Watching the Tour de France in a wine bar in Grenoble. Eating an extraordinary dessert beside a youth hostel in Luxembourg.
None of it was particularly luxurious. And that may have been part of what made the trip work. We spent very little on things that did not matter much to us. We did not need expensive hotels when we were spending most of the day exploring. Trains were not simply a way of getting from one place to another; they became part of the journey. Staying with friends was better than staying somewhere luxurious because the people mattered more than the room.
But when something did matter, we spent the money. We took the Adriatic cruise. We stayed in the heart of Venice. We went to the concert in Milan. Budget travel was never about making every decision as cheaply as possible. It was about knowing what was worth paying for.
Looking back, I remember almost nothing about the rooms we slept in. I remember the places, the people, the meals, the landscapes and the unexpected moments.
Perhaps that is my best tip for budget travel: spend as little as necessary on the things you don’t care about, so you have enough for the things you do. You don’t need luxury to have a rich holiday. Sometimes you just need enough.
The Afterword 
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