Hello and welcome to the Frugal Travellers blog!
The all-important first question… who are the Frugal Travellers?
We’re Lee and Mandy, and we started this blog to share tips and advice from our lives as Frugal Travellers. Thanks to the fact that we are natural savers and prefer a simple life to one of glitz and glamour, we were able to quit work in our 40s and are now wandering the globe! In fact we’ve been doing it on and off for almost 30 years now so we feel we have a little knowledge to offer.
For many years, our families and friends would shake their heads at our habit of watching every cent/penny! It was common practice for us to be labelled “tight”or “stingy” because we lived a more simple lifestyle than everyone around us, and had a clear goal of making our saving accounts grow so we could travel more!
Fortunately these labels never bothered us, and our frugal ways have enabled us to follow our passion for travel. We started this blog to help others, by showing that you don’t actually need a fortune in the bank to see so many amazing places.
Hang on… what does frugal actually mean?
According to a quick Google search:
FRUGAL
/ˈfruːɡ(ə)l
adjective
adjective: frugal
sparing or economical as regards money or food.
“I’m a bit too frugal to splash out on designer clothes”
synonyms: thrifty, sparing, economical, saving
antonyms: extravagant; lavish
Mid 16th century: from Latin frugalis, from frugi ‘economical, thrifty’
I love the fact that the example references not buying designer clothes, as most of our clothes come from secondhand / charity shops, and we tend to wear them until they fall apart!
I have video footage from Xi’an in China, where I took my trousers to a local tailor to mend a hole rather than throw them away!
Where are we from and how did we meet?
Lee is from the UK and I (Mandy) am from New Zealand. We met on Valentine’s Day, 14th February 1996 whilst trekking in Nepal, and have been together ever since.
Our first kiss was on Leap Year’s Day, 29th February 1996 – corny but true. It makes anniversaries very easy to remember!
The early days Namche Bazaar Nepal 1996
Visiting the exact same site 21 years later in 2017
How to travel the world as a Frugal Traveller
So what’s the story behind the Frugal Travellers?
MANDY
I left NZ at 19 years old to live in Australia. I was desperate to see the world, but needed a push to take that first solo backpacking trip. When I was 23, I started my travels in Thailand as loved the food! I made friends quite quickly and spent a lot of time in Nakon Sawon province, helping the English teachers at a local high school.
In 1996 I was heading to stay with a friend in the UK when the 3rd travel agent I contacted suggested that I fly via Kathmandu, making my way overland to fly from New Delhi to Heathrow.
I have to confess that in those days my geographical knowledge was extremely limited and I didn’t know where Nepal was! Thanks to the Fates, serendipity and that STA travel agent, I ended up being on the Annapurna Circuit trek where Lee and I met, and the legend of the Frugal Travellers was born (a bit of hyperbole there, but I got carried away in the moment… lol)
LEE
I also had itchy feet from an early age. At 19 years old in 1990, I had my first ‘proper’ overseas travel experience, taking a bus across France and Spain to Morocco and travelling alone there with my backpack and tent. In a campground in Tangier I met a multitude of other world travellers, all with amazing stories to tell. I went back to England severely bitten by the travel bug.
I was fortunate to be able to take career breaks from my job as a postman in England. 6 months unpaid leave for 3 years running. I worked like a demon the other 6 months of the year to fund my trips. The first time, in 1995, I spent 6 months backpacking around South America alone which improved my Spanish considerably. The second trip took me to India and Nepal.
Lee in the Bolivian Amazon 1995
I left home for India in January 1996 on a bicycle with a friend with great intentions to cycle all the way overland. Suffice to say we were incredibly poorly prepared for a winter trip and our bikes died on us (snapped frame) before we even got out of England! We decided to hitchhike but by the time we got to Germany my friend convinced me a quick flight to Delhi would be a lot easier.
To cut a long story short we ended up in Nepal by February and on the Annapurna trek. On the end of the 2nd day we walked into a tea house in Ghorepani and there was Mandy. The planets had aligned and fate had brought us together!
Rajastan India 1996
The story of our meeting in Nepal and how our relationship developed is quite an epic one which we will write in detail one day and publish, as it really needs to be told. Watch this space!
So you became a travel couple before the phrase was coined… what happened next?
We soon realised we had a shared passion for travel and the same motivation to stay on the road for as long as possible. We quickly had a new goal in life, which was to travel the world together.
Since 1996 we’ve spent our time roaming every continent excluding Antarctica – that one’s still on the must-see list!
In between travelling, we’ve had periods of living and working in the 3 countries we now call home: UK; Australia; and New Zealand.
We plan to tell our story on this blog. We’ll focus on our current journey for now but will also fill in the gaps of our travel history as this blog develops.
Travelling the hard way in Laos 2003
Read the rest of our travel story together in Our Current Journey
Coming soon – A photo Gallery of our travel history
Our story will show you that you don’t require a large bank balance to travel the world!
Bush hiking in New Zealand
How can you afford to travel for such a long time?
We’ve lived and worked in the UK, New Zealand and Australia. Our desire to travel was the impetus for us to work hard, save hard and use that hard-earned cash to fund our trips, spending it wisely as we go to make it last as long as possible.
This has enabled us to visit over 100 countries and territories and have some of the most amazing life experiences that we thought we could only dream of.
Before this current long-term trip we had spent the previous 5 years living and working in Perth, Australia. To keep costs down we lived in a shared house, wore clothes purchased from second-hand stores and cycled everywhere. We relied on the Entertainment Book for cheap meal deals and always took our lunch to work!
In August 2017 we sold most of our possessions and left Australia, planning to be on the road for at least 5 years. That has since turned into a plan to travelling indefinitely, and at the slow speed we travel we’ll definitely need years on the road!
It’s amazing what you can achieve when you put your mind to it! So we’re not only Frugal Travellers when travelling, but in our everyday lives as well!
A Siberian winter on frozen Lake Baikal
Do you get tired of constantly being on the move?
After an intense year of travel in 2018, we now realise that travel fatigue and decision fatigue are real! It is important to factor in long stays in places you enjoy, and to embrace slow travel if you plan to spend a long time on the road.
In the times we want to just stop and settle down for a while, we will spend some time house-sitting. Also we may use long-term Air BnB rentals, to make sure we avoid the risk of burn-out.
We plan to travel slowly and steadily in order to absorb as much as possible from the countries that we are in, and when we get tired we’ll stop and rest a while.
So please join us on our Frugal Travellers’ journey around the world. See what we’re up to on our Our Current journey page.
We love hearing from you, so please add a comment in the field below, or take a look at our YouTube channel for more Frugal Travel!
