

Travel Hacking for Noobs - ManVsDebt
http://manvsdebt.com/travel-hacking-for-noobs/

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decode
I'm a CouchSurfer myself (in fact, I'm hosting a traveler right now) and I
have to say a couple of things about his CouchSurfing advice.

1) Do not use CouchSurfing if you just want free accommodation. The author
says this, but it needs to be emphasized. I've never met a CouchSurfer that
likes hosting people who just want a place to crash. The goal of CouchSurfing
is to meet people you otherwise wouldn't meet and learn about places and
cultures in ways that are usually impossible. If you genuinely want to get an
insider's view of a place and you want to connect with local people, then by
all means CouchSurf, but otherwise stick with hostels.

2) CouchSurfing has a bootstrapping problem. Most hosts and travelers won't
want to host you or be hosted by you unless you have a few friends and
references on the site. But it's hard to get friends and references unless you
stay with people or host people. There is a way to get around this, though:
local meetups. Most reasonably sized cities have a group of CouchSurfers that
have regular meetups, either weekly or monthly If you go to a few of these,
you can get some friends and references on the site, and then it'll be much
easier to find hosts and/or surfers.

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jack7890
There are a few great sites suggested here, especially
<http://www.tripeedo.com> and <http://www.whichbudget.com> for airfare search.
But I wish the entire last paragraph wasn't an advertisement for a scammy,
pay-for-advice frequent flier site.

~~~
ido
I've found www.skyscanner.net quite good too, especially if you have a
flexible schedule, as it lets you choose a whole month and shows you which
days have the lowest lowest fares.

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jrockway
Interesting that the site is called "Man vs. Debt" and then tries to convince
you to buy a guide on how to collect frequent flyer miles. If you are fighting
debt, you could just not fly until you have money...

~~~
aik
The point here is that you'd save a lot of money by buying the guide and
thereby allowing yourself to travel. (I'm not saying I'd by the guide because
I won't...)

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jrockway
Yeah, but said guide is just the FlyerTalk wiki in PDF form (I imagine).

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iamelgringo
A friend of mine has a podcast about travel hacking the frequent flyer system
over at upgrd.com. It's got a lot of great stuff. I just got my first upgrade
to first class for free this past week flying back home from MN to CA. If
you're interested in traveling a lot, and getting the most out of it, it's
worth a listen.

~~~
jrockway
I fail to see how following the published rules of a frequent flyer system is
"hacking it". It is, in fact, the whole point of said system.

