Budget Travel

Budget Travel

In my younger days I travelled a lot and as I had no money I stayed in some shitholes, ranging from a fire trap in Athens at the top of a building that looked as if it was about to collapse, to a shack on the banks of the Limpopo where I was scared to go outside as a herd of marauding elephants was trumpeting and crashing through the vegetation.

So when I finally made it I loved to stay in decent hotels with spacious rooms, fancy restaurants and flunkies holding the door open and wishing me “good morning”. For several glorious years my employer even picked up the bill and I flew first class. I particularly recall a place in Washington where my room was adorned with oriental statues and paintings. The bath was the size of a swimming pool and any wish was a mere phone call away. “Room service. Yes sir, a bottle of Dom Perignon and a hooker right away.”

Now I am a “budget” traveller reduced to sleeping in shabby Airbnb places, loathsome “backpacker” lodges or matchbox-sized Accor places where two people literally cannot move around at the same time.

Nominated by Mr Polly

48 thoughts on “Budget Travel

  1. There are worse ways to travel. Try the Londonistan Underground in rush hour…….jam packed with filthy fucking foreigners, gates closed because there are too many cunts on the platform, foreign beggars, bag snatchers and pick pockets everywhere. Not “budget” though….costs a fucking fortune!
    Still, at least Mayor Khant has removed all the adverts that might upset the peacefuls and libtards.
    Want to experience the world’s people and cultures?……..it’s the only place to be.

    • I did 20 years of the horrors of the northern and district lines. Never again, sir!

      • I did 5 on the Northern Line, when I moved from London it felt like what I imagine being released from prison feels like.

      • I did daily for 12 years between Ipswich and London.

        But hardly budget, more like extortionate.

        Annual season ticket now approaching £8k for the annual season train ticket and over £2k for the annual car park. As I was then a higher rate tax payer equivalent today to £17k of gross salary. Thankfully I walked to and from the station each day.

        Norwich/Ipswich to London Liverpool Street (apart from Heathrow Express) was the most expensive rail line for passengers in the UK.

        More often than not a shit service, often having to stand for an hour or so. In Japan a train is late if it is a few seconds late. Think I am right in saying that in the UK a train only classified late when in excess of 10 minutes late. So when a train company proudly says it has a 90% punctuality rate, what they are telling you is that 10% of trains are over 10 minutes late, and 90% are up to 10 minutes late.

        Useless cunts.

      • Cmon naffink quite like being on the train in east London and smelling the curry tinged sweat of the non deodrant wearing cunts…at 9 in the morning, or some cunt eating some stinking shite and smelling the whole carriage up.
        I have decided that the only option is to buy some (a lot) of stink bombs and let them off as I depart the train/platform. I am going on a stinkbomb tour of Lahndahn…imagine Tarquin and Jemima struggling to enjoy Cuntbook and their Latte at Starbucks or Abdul trying to enjoy his fried chicken at one of the million Halal fried chicken shops with the smell of lots of stinkbombs abaaaaht. Buses, restaurants, pubs, cinema’s …the possibilities are endless.

  2. You’re not wrong there, Freddie.

    I have to use the Londonistan wild animal transit service, known as London Underground, around twice every month.

    Some days when there is just about room to stand, Major Khunt should provide breathing apparatus as the stench emanating from those who come from faraway shores is literally breathtaking.

    Curious wafts of odours that are uniquely and unmistakenly Somalian or Pakistani hit you with a similar force and effect to the train anchoring up suddenly when you are not holding a handle.

    Filthy and dilapidated. And that is just the travelling population.

    • It would have been easier travelling, and less malodorous, as a Roman galley slave.

    • ‘The next stop is London Zoo. The residents have been kept in enclosures of steel and perspex for their protection from the acid and knives’.

  3. Budget travel is for budget-type people. I wouldn’t be seen dead on some cheap airline or coach trip. I also wouldn’t holiday in the type of places that do package holidays with Full English Breakfasts or allow children.
    (unless accompanied by a Nanny)

    We can’t all travel in style, I accept that,but really, a certain type should be glad of the chance to get away from The Jeremy Kyle Show,Pot Noodles and the “footy” and try different cultures. If they then chose to stay in a “Little England” holiday apartment akin to their tower-block flat at home,that is their decision. Who am I to say that it is a waste of their Giro?

    I’m afraid I have no experience of this “budget” travel phenomenon and can add no more.

    Fuck Off.

    • For some quintessential English hospitality in a rural setting maybe Fiddler Towers could accommodate?
      No peacefuls.
      No effnicks.
      No gays.
      No transbenders.
      No Eastern Europeans.
      No elderly
      No disabled.
      No gypsies.
      No students.
      No vegans/vegetarians.
      No children.
      No SJW’s or liberals.
      No feminists.

      Enjoy your stay, welcome and fuck off.

    • “Full English Breakfasts”

      Just about to tuck into a huge one right now.

      Goodbye for now.

    • Dick Fiddler , do you frequent a certain football forum under the name of MFG ( initials of name )?

  4. Don’t know about the travel part but a bed’s a bed – Once you’re asleep, makes no odds whether you’re in a four-poster or an a Z-Bed !

  5. Still, you haven’t resorted to being the lowest form of life – the caravanner. Then, caravanning isn’t about money, because you see very expensive caravans and cars dragging them. It’s about being contented in misery and imposing that misery on others.

    • Quite right,Sgt. Maj. Caravans are the mobile lair of either Pikeys,doddery old Cunts or cheapskates….none of whom I find appealing in any way.

      #BanWobbleBoxes.

      • Amen to that.

        I really cannot see the attraction in taking a dump in a chemical bog, getting up with a cricked neck because the bed is too cramped and having to use a slimy communal shower block.

        Plus, the metal fartbox costs money to store, fucks the clutch of your towing vehicle and looks like a pikey box.

        One of the world’s daftest inventions. Rates alongside the KTel home hairdressing kit of 1975 for pure shitty misery.

  6. And when budget holidays go wrong – snowflakes crying cos their £5 per night holiday has collapsed – who do they get out of his coffin? Simon Calder, the living corpse of budget travel.

  7. “Nothing narrows the mind so much as foreign travel.”

    (A Voyage Around My Father)

  8. I stayed in a place on Gibraltar it was bizarre,
    It was a corridor that had been partitioned off a number of times. each room had two doors so that through traffic could reach their room.
    so the first people got the end room (maybe with a window?) and one door, from then on everyone had an entry and through door.

  9. If you want budget travel try one of those National Express buses. Did it once, never again. Cheap as fuck but trapped on a metal tube with some of the lowest form of scum on the planet. I’ve seen more sophisticated people in the chimp enclosure at London Zoo.
    That was fucking donkeys years ago so fuck knows what it is like now.

  10. My mate recently finished doing a bit of work for Butlins in Bognor. Given the state of the place and numerous Stanislavs and Pavels in the area, all that was missing were the stripey pyjamas.

    The management staff were good little commandants as well.

  11. Plebs! Am still travelling the world on the company dollar. Fat front end, upstairs on the A380, 5 Star digs, more Frequent Flyer points than Neil Armstrong and Buz Aldrin put together. Budget Travel ? Pish. ” Another lobster tail and a glass of the 64 Mr Grumpy ? ”
    PS. In business terms ( where I am anyway ) I am known as a Corporate Seagull because I fly in, eat the chips then shit all over everyone and fly out again. Hard life innit?

    • I can’t call you a cunt. But I’d like to. Still and all, I wonder how much you see of the places you (have to) go to? 5-star hotels are pretty much of a muchness worldwide and airports are a coruscating pain in the arse, while upstairs is nothing special if you take away the schadenfreude resulting from not traveling steerage.

      Nah. Give me a backpack any time.

      • Stayed in an Ibis Hotel once.

        Bloody cawing all feckin night, and you should have seen the piles of guano.

      • Funnily enough Mr K, my return flights always seem to be a couple of days after my visits are concluded. Have spent a couple of weekends cruising around your homeland ( Flores Islands ) after shitting over contempories in Jakarta. Agree with you about airports but Sapphire or Platinum Class Lounges offer a great haven. You aint lived until you have stayed in the Peninsular Hotel in Honkers. I worked hard and kissed a little bit of arse to get where I am. No regrets but no complacency either. Still, yes maybe a bit of a cunt but I love it when the plebs have to walk past my seat and see me sippping on a glass of Krug. Shame innit?

      • If I absolutely have to drink fizzy wine, my choice is any decent Cava. And Ican laugh at the cunts spending top dollar for Alka-Seltzer. Each to their own.

        IMO nothing cures you of hotels faster than working in them and seeing what really goes on – even good ones. A decent B&B is my preference if forced abroad.

      • I would actually agree if it was my dollar Mr K. But, when the big Kahuna is happy to sign off on the expenses……why not eh? My perfect choice is a nicely chilled Chablis. Have you tried the food in the Marina Bay in Singers? Absolutely exquisite even if the waiter has snotted in it, still exquisite. No different to your local 2 star after the patron makes a cunt of himself. But still only 2 star though. Not that I make enough of a cunt of myself to get my food snotted in. B& B? Perish the thought. Might run in to Mr Fiddler.

  12. Of course a major reason the young despise Brexit is because – they think – it will curtail their budget airline transport to yet another weekend Euro-destination.

    Despite Ryanair having sub-zero reputation for customer service I sort of grudgingly admire O’Leary’s ‘Fuck You’ attitude. He of course understands that most of the world is basically driven by greed. So for all the moaning and vilification, aggrieved passengers will still return to use the airline because its so cheap, is safe and is generally very reliable (it has to be – the entire business model determines that punctuality and fast turnaround is essential).

    O’Leary just might even be a secret ISAC member!!!

    • Apparently RyanAir has an order in for 135 buggered Boeings, so I think they should start doing special deals for snowflakes.

  13. Paddy Doherty, gypsy king, is apparently dying of cancer…

    Is he in anyone’s DP noms ?

  14. Apparently RyanAir has an order in for 135 buggered Boeings, so I think they should start doing special deals for snowflakes.

  15. Budget travel used to be fun, back in the day before budget airlines.

    European countries and capitals used to be be individual and different, uncrowded with tourists (with the exception of Venice), and the overnight trains used to be enjoyable and sociable experiences, quite often turning into all night drinking sessions with people you couldn’t understand.

    Some of the hovels I ended up staying in were experiences in themselves but balanced by the odd gem of a place that you do find to stay at. Makes you appreciate more the luxurious places when you can afford to stay at one.

    Now everything is same. The hordes that arrive at the weekend ruin everything, everywhere is crowded, and everything is stale, safe, gentrified in the cities.

    Window shopping in Amsterdam, Hamburg used to be fun. Now its just packed with lots of shitty couples, stag and hen do’s just pointing and laughing like its some circus act.

    The only decent travel experience now is anywhere that doesn’t have a cheap flight. Cheap airlines and the internet have ruined the travel experience. Cunts.

  16. Have reached the point in my life where to be honest I am happy to stay at home. Novannoyibg cunts there and all creature comforts I need.

    Either that or go to places less likely to have people or services that will piss me off.

    UK rail travel an expensive joke so never use it preferring to take the car.

    Have flown with Easy Jet and Ryan Air. Always ok but you get what you pay for. Daughter recently bought a return air ticket to Norway for £9!

    Budget hotels can be ok but both of our last two stays resulted in little or no sleep due to other selfish cunt guests purposely making as much noise as they can.

    Youngest daughter stayed in hostels in Australia, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Singapore and Japan. Japanese as you will probably expect most expensive but fantastic service and quality.

    Hopefully off to Japan in the Summer. Always fly economy (cannot justify in my mind paying three times the economy price for a bit more legroom, some china plates and slightly nicer food) and rarely get badly behaved passengers on long haul to say Tokyo or San Francisco.

    Japanese people polite and courteous. Usually stay in relatively cheap hotels when there (always less than £100 a night) which are always clean. Never any loud noise after 10pm, Japanese will not allow it.

    Budget travel, you get what you pay for.

    • That’s the problem in this country, Willie. Poor equals scum. No, to be correct, British equals scum.

  17. Many years ago I worked in Geneva for an Aussie cunt who was tighter than a nun’s nasty and expected staff to fly with easyJet. Usually, I disregarded his edicts to fly on this fucking God-awful airline. However, on one occasion his secretary booked me on an easyJet flight from Gatwick to Geneva.

    On this flight, I was seated behind an idle foreign cunt who decided to fully recline his seat before take-off. As we were taxiing to the runway, the cabin crew told him to put his seat up. As soon as they were seated for take-off though, he immediately reclined his seat again and started to snooze. I asked him twice to put his seat up but he ignored me.

    I considered hitting him on the head directly but as that would be assault I trumped the back of the seat very hard. Nearby passengers heard the sound of my fist hitting the seat and looked at me with startled expressions. The lazy foreign cunt in front of me woke up and put his seat up as I told him in no uncertain terms that I didn’t want his seat in my face during take-off.

    Unfortunately, at the end of the flight, he scuttled away fairly briskly thus denying me the opportunity of ensuring that he spent the rest of eternity in a horizontal position.

    Budget airlines and the people who fly them – cunts. Especially that fat Greek wanker, Smellios, who founded sleazyJet.

  18. I have no shame is saying I do budget travel. There is a lot of snobbery when it comes to budget airlines but I don’t give a fuck who I fly with as long as it is cheap and gets me where I want to go…..and the wings aren’t held on with duct tape .

    Plus I am fucking hard up, so needs must.

    I travel a lot by Easyjet and sometimes Ryanair. I have had no real issues with either, but I guess I have been lucky and dodged a bullet. I have also stayed in some shitholes over the years but when you pay cheap, you should expect cheap so whose fault is that?

    In saying that, many years ago I stayed self-catering in a beautiful, 5 star apartment complex in Gran Canaria. This was in the days when I was still nursing and had more that two ha’pennies to rub together. It had it all: a huge kitchen where the cleaning ladies would do your washing up for you, a marble bathroom the size of an entire studio flat in Landahn Taan, a double sofa’d living room with an enormous TV, the works.

    There was only one tincy wincy issue. The shower had shit coming up through the bottom of it.

    YES, SHIT.

    It took a full week of my complaining to reception that my shower was vile and liable to cause me health issues before they did something about it. By the end of that week when nobody had still done a damned thing, I was bellowing at them infront of other guests that it was unacceptable to remain in a room that had shit coming up into the shower. They then got the fucking point and finally moved me to another room.

    My point is that even if you pay mega bucks and stay in the top places, it doesn’t mean a damned thing. You can put lipstick on a pig, but it is still a pig.

    I like budget travel. I stay in a lot of private apartements these days through the likes of Airbnb and similar, and I have a list of necessaries (a kettle and a toaster on it, sad but true) but apart from that, as long as it is within budget, clean and at at least the same level as my own home, I couldn’t give a shite.

    • Remember some years ago staying a night in a Paris hotel (name withheld) with two work colleagues close to our Paris office.

      Booked and paid for by our London office. Cost per room per night, FFcs 4,000 (or back then £400 per single room.

      My bathroom was about the size of a squash court, and solid marble.

      Arrived at about 11pm and out at 7am. What a waste of money.

      Also had to fly to Hong Kong for business (then on to Tokyo non business). Informed by my company, their policy all long haul business flights must be business class. No availability for when I wanted to travel so flee economy (after having signed a company disclaimer)

      Also flew to Trieste one week (return flight priced at over £650) and Genoa the following week (return flight priced at £45). Crazy.

  19. I’ve got a few quid in the bank but I refuse to stay in rip off Hotels… fuck that…unless someone else is paying. Seriously if you cant check in till 2pm or even later in some places and they want you to fuck off at 11am the next day or day of departure. When you actually work out how many hours you use the room for (including sleeping) you are probably paying abaaaaht £20 an hour to enjoy the rip off mini bar or look out the window…at another window. As long as the place is clean and has a comfortable bed everything else can fuck off…I’d rather save that money and contribute to the local economy where I’m staying and support the Prostitute’s and drug dealers…not doing this is being selfish and self indulgent.

  20. As I said, it aint me paying the bill. But oh…..the wide, lay flat beds and fluffy pillows on the long haul flight….the bowl of fruit on the table and bottle of your preferred wine in the ice bucket with a letter of ” Welcome Back ” from the Hotel Manager……nice innit?

    • They’ll outsource you one day. Then it’s the backpacker hostel in offseason Punta Arenas for you. (La Luna does decent grub and drinks if you want a night out)

  21. I don’t know how but I forgot this one,
    Hotel Botel Lisa, is not a boat! it is a collection of mooring boyes welded together with a deck on which a number of porta cabins have been placed,
    The shore side has a facade to give the impression that you are on a river boat but when viewed from the other bank you realise you are staying on something akin to a mulberry harbour.
    The breakfast spread was traditional foods purchased from lidil and cold, the moorings are down a very steep bank in the industrial area, you need to climb the bank and cross a vehicle bridge with no path to get to the bus stop.
    this is their site.
    https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g274887-d583782-Reviews-Botel_Hotel_Lisa-Budapest_Central_Hungary.html

    and to make it worse I was also with some mad old bat who kindly told the serb delegation on a business trip that I was so fluent in there language because I was fighting the cunts 7 years ago!

  22. Re: Picture at top – Who the fuck gave you permission to use a photo of the master bedroom at Gusset Lodge ? Cheeky bastards….

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