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“Apart of hunting an affordable airline, looking for a place to stay is one of the fun things to do before travel starts”
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Well, I’m not good enough on the first one. Looking for an affordable ticket needs patience but that’s not the reason why I always end paying “so-so” price.
Perhaps these are things involved:
- First, I don’t have much money but love nice things. This means when I travel I’ll always try to be as comfortable as I could from picking good airlines till how I eat. I keep thinking that’s how I appreciate myself after work hard. Of course without breaking the bank (which bank to break? I don’t really have much saving cause I’m not really good to save money, but I’m trying right now lol)
- Two, most of the time I have short preparation for vacation and this affects on when I have to buy my ticket. I’ll try to think about buying it six months in advance but again, if something unfortunately happens in between and I have to change/reschedule, I’m going to spend more isn’t it?
- And the last one, perhaps my believe that “We could earn money again” is strong. Having time to travel when we are still healthy is an opportunity apart of the funds itself. Mostly, when I’m in front of my laptop looking for a flight I won’t take too long to pay. Of course, I have to be wise spending my money cause earning it is not as easy as flipping my palm
I’ll keep writing but I have to breathe a bit. I just remembered I never calculate how much I spent for my last trips to South Africa and Hong Kong. Thankfully I wrote everything on my iPhone so it’s easy to track. Ah hold on, I did mention my believe that I would earn more money again, huh? I hope so (read: calm down, you don’t need to worry this much Zis (finger crossed :P)). I think I have to add one more reason why I could never save money if I travel from here is no budget airlines. Most airfare from and to Africa continent isn’t that affordable. Nowadays, it’s much better than few years back when I used to pay “oh-my-God” amount of money for one-way ticket from Jakarta to Lagos.
Even though I had a slightly longer time to prepare my last trips but that didn’t really save me in terms of airfare. Since I traveled from Lagos and wanted spending a week in Cape Town and a week to see my best friend Andreas in Hong Kong then back to Lagos, I had to be ready with the bills. I had to pick three different airlines after I found that buying separate tickets was a bit cheaper than multi-city option. I did a good job by finding three flights with minimum transit duration to save my time. Except for 20 hours layover in Istanbul that I deliberately wanted strolling around Istanbul again for 12 hours. I flew with Turkish Airlines from Lagos – Istanbul – Cape Town, Emirates from Cape Town to Hong Kong with two hours transit in Dubai, and ended my travel from Hong Kong to Lagos with three hours transit in Abu Dhabi via Etihad. There were some cheaper options but looking at long transit didn’t impress me to save money. If I may count the transit countries, I was at five different countries on two weeks :P
Let’s move to where I stayed. If you are a reader of this blog you have read many times why I prefer hostel than hotel. If you just found and visited this blog, you might interested to read why, and why, and why I prefer hostel for my stay. Of course I have criterias on how my hostel would be. It must have a cool spot (you may say it must be instagramable, that’s the word huh?), good design (it’s a plus if it’s new hostel cause the facilities must be good!), good location, and of course value for money. I did pick hostel during my stay in Cape Town for 4 nights and for my last 2 nights I decided to try my first AirBnb.
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The hostel I stayed in Cape Town is quite popular for travelers and tourists. I recommend if you plan to visit Cape Town cause indeed the location is strategic, the facility isn’t bad at all, and the staffs are quite helpful. If you asked me did I meet with some travelers and became friends during my stay there the answer is no. I didn’t really meet with kind travelers who stayed at the same dorm room except an Italian guy who stayed beside my bed for two nights. He traveled to Cape Town from Durban for a quick jaunt in between of a project he’s doing. He speaks English well but we didn’t exchange contacts so it didn’t count. There was a cool Brazilian girl who travels quite often but she wasn’t seem friendly (maybe it was just to me but as far as I know Brazilian is friendly isn’t it?), two female siblings from Canada (we had a very short conversation but I didn’t know when they left), a Swiss man with only some hellos, and an old American man who is a bit picky having a conversation with (he talked more to the Italian guy I mentioned ;P). Summing up, I didn’t really look for new friends when I was there tbh so when the time for me to check out and moved to an apartment I was quite excited.
If I picked hotel last year when I was in Cappadocia as a treat for myself, I did it too in Cape Town. Though my travel style was completely slow but I thought about a distinct experience I’d love to try by staying in an apartment. When I browsed in AirBnb few days before I flew, I had crush on some beautiful houses in Cape Town but unfortunately the date didn’t match.
It was a pleasant experience for my first AirBnb. It’s a nice room, comfortable bed (ah I always love thick clean white blanket!), very clean bathroom and kitchen, and full entertainment on the screen. Even though I only communicated with the host via mail (he reminded me few times to save water since Cape Town is experiencing a serious water drainage but never answer my questions, haha), it was a good place to stay. I pretended as if I would be there for a longer stay cause the room is really cozy. I thought about “Today I don’t feel like doing anything” on my last two last days in Cape Town, didn’t want to leave the apartment and watching movies on Netflix instead, cooking some meals (I thought to shop some ingredients but ended with ‘ready-to-enjoy’ meals and some fruits) but later became lazy cause hello, “I cook almost everyday in my own apartment in Lagos to save my pocket-money and I’m on vacation right now”.
Here are some photographs of the apartment which do not do justice how cozy it was.
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I would share how my stay in Hong Kong was (didn’t really take picture of the hostel) with some interesting stories on separate post, promise. When Andreas told me he had a great time and experience trying couchsurfing on his last trip in South Korea, I think I’d like to try that for my future trip.
Wait, did I mention doing some breakfast scenes at the apartment was a nice thing to do?
goofydreamer 