World Travel in Low Budget by Shrinidhi Hande - A Book Review

Author Shrinidhi Hande had posted in The Chennai Bloggers Club group on Facebook about his book “World Travel in Low Budget – Practical Guide to Plan International Trips in Low Cost”.  I was curious to read the book and placed an order in Amazon India. The book turned out to be a treasure trove of information about different aspects of travel. It is no wonder as Shrinidhi has travelled to 39 countries and maintains two blogs about travel for many years.

The book has 13 chapters. Apart from paragraphs, the many points are presented as bulleted lists and there are tables about the different options which are very useful.

The first chapter is Where to Go? Selecting Destinations. In this chapter, Shrinidhi highlights that our time, energy, and money for travel is limited and so we have to judiciously select place of travel. He advises Indians to travel first to nearby countries such as Srilanka, Maldives, Nepal, Thailand, U.A.E etc, to get an idea about the different aspects of travel. You need to check if the flight + stay + food + visa + local travel etc is affordable.

The second chapter is about How to get Cheapest Flight Tickets? This is a big chapter with different headings such as Factors that affect flight ticket prices, how to spot low fares, mistakes to avoid while flying, and some useful websites about air travel such as seatguru.com; flightstats.com; and skyscanner.com.

The third chapter is about Visa and Forex. There was interesting information that Visa officers may check if you have sufficient balance in your bank account to lead a normal life for many months once you return to your homeland. Or you may have a sponsor. The author says not to take Visa rejections personally and take it in stride like many rejections we face in love, job, or a sales pitch.

The fourth chapter is about Stay and Vegetarian Food. There is a HappyCow app to locate vegan restaurants near you. There are budget hotel frauds where hotels list with a low price in one website and a high price for the same room in another website. If both the low and high cost has takers, the hotels refuse stay to the low cost customer.

Chapter five is about Language Problems. The author advises to learn few words and basic sentences in local language of your place of visit. You can use translator apps or even sign language. A photo of your place of stay and your sightseeing place will help you to get quick help from people for directions.

Chapter six is about Local Commute and Sightseeing. Package tours are three times more expensive than a private tour we plan and they have lot of limitations.

Chapter 7 is an exhaustive Checklist for Travel with more than 50 items to check before travelling. There is a sample planning of the author’s 21 day visit to UK in September 2019 which will be very helpful for all travelers.

Chapter eight is about Saving for Travel. The author says if we reduce our online food intake and every weekend visit to malls, we can save a lot of money for travel. Chapter 9 is about Safety Aspects.  Chapter 10 is about Potential Risks and Mitigation. There are various risks such as not getting a Visa, Flight delay or cancellations, Entire airline collapsing, natural disasters, terror strikes, not getting leave, friends not joining, health issues, losing important documents, losing phone, robbery, mugging or assault, travel companies shutting down, hefty penalties, and deportation.

Chapter 11 is about Responsible Travel and how we can be eco friendly. Chapter 12 is My Unique Experiences in which the author lists 13 experiences at different parts of the world. Chapter 13 is Appendix which has a glossary of travel terms and some tables with important data.

Sometimes I felt that the text size inside the tables was small. But you can read it with a little more concentration.

This book can be the Bible for budget travel. The book has 111 pages plus 15 pages in the front in Roman numbers and so a total of 126 pages. The shop price is Rs.220. But as always we get more economical options in Amazon.

Websites of Shrinidhi on travel are enidhi.net and airlineblog.in. Happy Reading!