Planning a travel budget is, like everyday budgeting at home, an exercise in trade-offs. As I’ve written about in the past, travel doesn’t have to be a wildly expensive endeavor, if you know your priorities, do your research and plan accordingly.

Travel is supposed to shake you up, widen your perspective and make you see home (and the world!) in a different light. Cultural differences can be incredibly illuminating, but they don’t always manifest as rosy, smooth experiences during a trip. They can take the form of inconveniences, snafus, confusion or things not going quite according to plan. In my own travels, I’m willing to put up with a lot more discomfort and inconvenience simply because I expect it to happen.

Note: In 2014, I wrote a weekly blog series on budget travel for eHow. This post is from that series, so you'll have to head over to their site to read it in full. Thanks for reading!

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