The spark that makes us say “What if I went around the world?” Can be born differently for everyone. Some have lived abroad with their parents or have had a lot of strolls during their childhood. They have the journey in the blood. Others, on the other hand, have not been lucky enough to have traveling parents and are eager to discover the world.

From an early age, thanks to cartoons like The Mysterious Cities of Gold, we were fascinated by distant civilizations. More recently, films such as Into the Wild or Carnets de Voyage make us dream of adventures. The programs J’irai dormir chez vous or Nus et culottés and the stories of adventurers like Mike Horn or Sylvain Tesson also nourish our appetite elsewhere. Finally, travel blogs are an excellent source of inspiration.

And then, sometimes, our first far-off journeys make us want to leave longer. Discussions with friends or travel meetings that have themselves made a long trip are often a trigger to embark on the adventure.

No, you do not have to travel like that!

WHY GO AROUND THE WORLD?

We all have our own motivations that push us to take off. Here is a brief overview of the main reasons that make a trip around the world worthwhile.

To get out of your comfort zone

Get out of your comfort zone

When you’re in stable work with friends and family you see regularly, you end up getting into some routine.

Traveling far and long, requires us to step out of our comfort zone. We are inevitably alone (s) at times, lost (s) in a very exotic place whose language or really culture is unknown. We lose our bearings. Actions as simple as finding one’s way, taking a bus, or buying food can sometimes be quite complicated.

To achieve this is a small success, a successful challenge that provides a certain pleasure to which one can even become a little addicted. Coming out of his comfort zone, we discover what we are capable of. We apprehend its limits and we often go beyond them.

WHAT IS A WORLD TOUR?

According to Wikipedia, a world tour is a journey that consists of traveling completely and in a given direction over the earth until you return to where you started. Going around the world does not mean to see all the countries of the world, or even all the continents.

TV shows like J’Irai Dormir Chez Vous and Beijing Express have popularized an image of the traveler who leaves with a very small budget, housing homestay and hitchhiking. This is of course possible, but it ultimately only concerns a minority of travelers.

The average tourdumondist leaves for a year and visits a dozen countries, mainly in Asia and Latin America. He travels most often by plane between continents. Once there, he takes local buses, eats in small stalls or street restaurants, sleeps in cheap accommodation and sometimes homestay. Rather than traveling by plane, some choose to travel by bike, motorhome, sailboat, van …

Many travelers leave for a long time without necessarily going around the world properly speaking. We can go for six months or a year just in South America, Asia or Africa and have an equally amazing experience.

During a world tour, we travel in a very different way. We have time to improvise, to change plans, to linger in the places we like. We are quite surprised, when we start to deviate from the beaten track, to realize that many other travelers we meet are also gone for a long time. There is thus a real small community of tourdumondists who find themselves punctually along their journey.

To go traveling, you do not have to be rich. In many countries, it is possible to live easily for less than 20 € per day. In 2014, we conducted a major survey of 195 people who went on a world tour or a long trip. They told us their average budget for each country they visited. The indicated daily cost includes accommodation, food, local transportation, activities and tours.

Here are the 10 cheapest destinations for which we had the average budget of at least ten people .

• GUATEMALA

  We went to Guatemala during our world tour. It is one of the most varied countries in Central America. The small Spanish colonial cities are full of charm. You can relax on the shores of Lake Atitlán, trek on a volcano and see molten lava or discover the Mayan ruins of Tikal, lost in the middle of the jungle. The Pacific coast also offers excellent surf spots.

  € 17 per day

  The temples of Tikal in the middle of the jungle

• NICARAGUA

  We also went to Guatemala during our world tour. François returned there in 2013. This small country in Central America is still spared by mass tourism and life is very cheap. We loved the small colonial towns of Granada and Leon with their colorful facades. The island of Ometepe on Lake Nicaragua, the largest in Central America, is unique with its two volcanoes. The Atlantic coast offers beautiful surf spots, while the Caribbean coast is distinguished by the unique culture of the descendants of pirates. The Corn Islands are a lost paradise in the Caribbean.

  € 17 per day

  Granada, on the shores of Lake Nicaragua

• INDIA

  Sylvain loved India so much that he has already been there three times. In this country, the change of scenery is guaranteed. The crowd, the smells, the noises, the heat: all the senses are put to use right out of the airport. Extraordinary temples and palaces stand side by side with crippled beggars, women in shimmering saris and sacred cows roaming nonchalantly while grazing garbage. It is often said that either we love India or we hate it. We love it!

  € 18 per day

  India

  LAOS

  Laos is the cheapest country in Southeast Asia. The pace of life is particularly quiet. This country has no access to the sea and has kept its wild and welcoming side, far from the hectic life of major Asian cities. We appreciate the sweetness of life along the Mekong and the Nam River. Even the capital, Vientiane, remains on a human scale with only 800,000 inhabitants.

  € 19 per day

  The war memorial in the center of Vientiane5

• CAMBODIA

  Cambodia is first and foremost known for the incredible temple complex of Angkor. The roots that intertwine in the ruins give them a unique atmosphere. But the charms of this country are not limited to Angkor. Take a bike ride in the middle of the rice fields and a real pleasure. It is impossible to talk about Cambodia without mentioning the darkest part of its history, the period of the Khmer Rouge, which remains engraved in the memory of the older generations.

  € 20 per day

  The monumental complex of Angkor in Cambodia

When we arrive at the Colombian border post, the customs officer asks Francois for how many days we want our visa. “Sesenta” answers Francois. The customs stamps our passports. I check. He gave us a visa for fifteen days! We ask him why. “I asked you twice and you answered me twice ‘ocho dias'”. No way to change the buffer. We have to go to the immigration office in Bogota to make an extension.

We take the bus. The trip lasts twenty hours. Through the window, we see beautiful landscapes, deep cannons lined with lush vegetation. We arrive in Bogota the next morning and settle down at the international youth hostel in the city. This one is huge. There must be at least 100 beds. But we are the only ones here, a little sad as an atmosphere.

We go to the immigration office to extend our visa. To get there, we take the Transmilenio. It is an excellent transport system where long buses run in dedicated corridors on the main avenues of the city. They stop at sorts of metro stops with automatic sliding doors. Not easy to go to these funny stations and find his bus. It is considered stupid to look at pretty shemas and paintings on the walls with empty eyes. Finally no need to be an otists with superpowers to understand but at the beginning it challenges. It also transports a lot of people quickly and, as a result, the city has far fewer traffic problems than the other South American capitals we have crossed.

Arrive at the immigration office, we are told that we must pay to extend our visa. We raise a little voice. We must not abuse, it is still not our fault if we had only fifteen days. Finally, after trading as in Morocco the guy we deal with agrees to give us an extra fifteen days without being charged. Apparently everything is negotiable.

The next day, we move to another hostel in the neighborhood of Candelaria we had spotted the day before. This colorful student district is really nice, with lots of nice little bars and frescoes on the walls. It reminds a little Valparaíso. There is a good atmosphere in our hostal. In the evening everyone eats together and Baden Powel, a Colombian who is there with his Australian girlfriend, takes us all to a salsa bar.

The following days, we visit Bogota and its surroundings. We leave to visit the salt cathedral of Zipaquira, an hour bus ride from the city. This immense underground cathedral was erected in the abandoned corridors of a salt mine. The main hall is gigantic. We also visit the museum of gold in which, as the name suggests, you can see thousands of pre-Columbian objects all in gold.

One night we go out with the group of the hostal in a small bar to go to see a concert of a friend of two Irish women who live with us. The concert is nice. In the end, the others leave. We stay with Francois and sympathize with a couple, a Colombian and a Venezuelan, super nice. We take a few tequila tours together and invite us to follow them to a salsa bar where friends are waiting for them. Leaving at 3am at the other end of the city in a place we do not know with people we did not know a few hours ago … Are we not going to be stuck in an evening? galley without means of return, in addition I am even more about remembering our address and the girlfriend of the guy is really mechament drunk after all this tekila. We try it and we take a taxi together and arrive at a small bar where we meet their friends. We stay a little here with them but the atmosphere is a little quiet, it seems a disco Tourcoing in a Latin style. We just have enough to be polite and we go.

We also meet Nancy and Romain, for the fourth time since the beginning of our trip. For them Colombia has a very special role in their journey around the world. Nancy is of Colombian origin but it is only the second time she comes there. For her, it’s the discovery of her entire Colombian family. They live in Bogota At 2 big mothers of Nancy who are not really of his family but at the same time if still: a complicated history. They tell us that in the neighborhood where they live, a taxi driver was killed the day before. The area where we stay looks pretty safe, but apparently this is not the case throughout the city. We find him and two friends of their Colombian friends, in one of the main avenues of the city.

It’s Sunday and the big arteries in the center are closed to traffic. There are plenty of people on foot, by bike or rollerblading. It’s also a kind of sell-off where people sell all kinds of things on the streets. We even see a place where people make bets around a circle of plastic bowls pierced from doors. In the middle there is a guinea pig. If the animal enters the bowl on which we put his piece, we win the bet. We all leave together in a neighborhood that is an old village, since encompasses in the city. It’s so cute. There too, there is a kind of craft market in the streets and groups playing cumbia of the Caribbean coast or jazz-rock. There is really a good atmosphere.

We do not see the time passing here. It has been five days since we are here. We have to move if we do not want to miss the Baranquilla Carnival in a few days. We take a night bus to the Zona Cafetaria.