#why budget travel feels stressful and how to reframe it

You are on a train to Kanazawa. You have a $35 daily budget. You just spent $12 on lunch. It was good lunch — you are not regretting the food.

You are sitting in a hostel common room. You just looked at two accommodation options for tomorrow. One is $12 a night — shared bathroom, mixed dorm, fine reviews. The

You're in Hoi An, Vietnam. There's a cooking class that costs $40 — the one every traveler says is the highlight of their trip. You want to do it. But

The word "dupe" in travel has a specific meaning now. It is not "this place is kind of like that other place." It is "this place gives you most of

The question used to be simple. Albania was the dirt-cheap secret; Croatia was the polished, overpriced version of the same thing. That calculation worked when Croatia was still using the

You are in Hanoi with three days left on your Vietnam trip and very little money. Or you are in Hanoi for a layover and have eight hours. Or you

The question arrives early in every Kyrgyzstan trip plan: is it safe? You ask it differently depending on whether you're a woman traveling solo. The generic answer — "yes, Kyrgyzstan

When most people think "Alaska trip," they picture a Denali bus tour followed by an Inside Passage cruise. That's a fine trip — but it's one specific trip, not Alaska.

Kyrgyzstan has a reputation problem. Not a reputation problem for the country itself — the reputation the country has among the travel writing world is the problem. Browse most Kyrgyzstan

If you've ever scrolled past a "cheapest countries" listicle feeling vaguely dissatisfied, you weren't alone. Most of those posts hand you five names, a single average figure, and call it