Tips on How to Travel on a budget of $100 per day - Liz here

Liz here.  I often arrange our accomodations through various seemingly little-known travel clubs and I often explain these choices to others. By blogging about them I will now not repeat this so often. Mike just bought 200 business cards so we can quickly refer folks to our blog.
Read this if you want to know how to stay places affordably.

Note: Check the US State Dept. website to determine where it is safe to travel. Register overseas travel with the State Dept. too.  

1) Evergreen Bed and Breakfast Club www.evergreenclub.com/
Members ask for a gratuity of $15 for a couple and $10 for a single for an overnight stay.
Evergreen is restricted to those over age 50. Membership is $75 per year.
We will stay with an Evergreen couple when our ship docks in Sydney. We are bringing them maple syrup from Michigan as a gift.  
Evergreeners from Guelph, Ontario stayed with us in Rochester Hills, Michigan during the 2011 Woodward Dream Cruise. we rode in thei 1957 Chevy Bellair convertible. My mom is now an Evergreen member after a very satisfying Evergreen visit last July to Ghent, Ky. She looks forward to hosting visitors (if anyone would like a nice place to stay between Washington, D.C. and Atlanta, in Yancyville, North Carolina, she will happily put you up as long as she is not away on a trip.

The Evergreen member in Sydney recommended th Affordable Travel Club.
2) Affordable Travel Club or ATC www.affordabletravelclub.net/ is excellent for us since ATC has many members in Australia and New Zealand.
ATC's gratuity is $20: If you are from overseas add $10 for total $30 Per night.
Membership in ATC is also $75 per year. It is for those over age 40. W plan to stay with ATC members near Melbourne and  Adelaide.

3) Couch Surfing www.couchsurfing.org/ is to travel clubs as Craig's List is to the classified. It appeals mostly to the younger set. So many people belong to Couch Surfing that cities like Metro Detroit Couch Surfers hold a monthly pot luck and other social events. We found a hopefully lovely couch surfer in Cairnes who said that she'll put us up Dec 23 -27. Meanwhile we have a hostel reservation too, just in case she needs to back out. I paid couch surfing the suggested $25 to vet my address. Otherwise it is a free service.
Chris Corby, a friend age 25 or so told me about couch surfing years ago; he and I vouched for one another. Chris is teaching English in Seoul these days so it certainly expanded his confidence and horizons. A few years ago Mark Girowski, a GM designer said that he wanted to start a business providing essentially what  sounded like couch surfing. I told him that his idea was already in place. He and his girl friend took a trip through the South Pacific and couch surfed. He heartily thanked me for the news on Couch Surfing.
These 3 clubs are nonprofits.


Airbnb www.airbnb.com is for-profit. I found Airbnb when I was stumped for a place to stay on Oahu (where hotels are expensive). Airbnb takes commission for a booking. If you list your home because I referred you, they will give me a kick back. Airbnb and needs more people to list their homes. For someone with a spare bedroom in Hawaii, airbnb is a money maker. We paid $75 per night for a private bedroom and bathroom in a georgeous apartment with a drop dead view.
Tomorrow we visit Maui and will see our next airbnb situation.  We booked with airbnb throughout Hawaii because Hawaii has few Evergreen or ATC members. Understandably so since Hawaii is a tourist destination and served by for-profit hotels. 

We also joined Hostel International (HI) www.hiusa.org/. So far we have not found HI practical for a married couple. A hostel is far more affordable and fun for 1 person. We reserved with HI for Alice Springs and Cairnes since we did not find other non-retail lodging. Our Australian train fare is a backpacker fare based upon our showing our HI membership card to conductor.
My son, Ben still wants us to stay with a hostel called The Banana Bungalow www.bananabungalow.com/.
They offer excellent free tours that he says we would like.

The Empty Mansion

Tuesday we left our Bali hut on the wet, northeast side of the Big Island for a few final days on the Kona side,southwest, where the rainfall is about 10 inches a year. Maybe now the clothes in our packs will dry out. Upon hearing our plans to visit Kona, our gracious host Eddie made a phone call and arranged lodging for us. Really great lodging for Kona. It turned out to be a mansion undergoing renovation by Eddie's friend, Richtor Reynolds. He had lived here for many years until his mother-in-law's death a few years ago, when he and his wife moved into her place, several blocks away. I have no idea what it would cost to purchase this property, but it would certainly be somewhere in 7 figures,if only for the view. From the Lanai you can see all of Kona and of course several miles out to sea.

But first, the previous days. Once more to the volcano. We still hadn't seen it at night and those who had told us how dramatic it was. So we spent Sunday afternoon hiking a couple more of the many paths. We finally found the trail to the floor of the Kilauea caldera. Great cardio. Translation: a long steep way down, walk not very far on the floor (The trail is not nearly as long as it used to be, something about sulphur dioxide fumes) then back up a long steep way. Then Desolation Trail, a not very long walk along ash mounds piled up between Kilaue and Kilauea Iki. Dinner in Volcano Village was something of a disappointment. Nearly every restaurant was closed for the weekend. Except for the two most expensive, of course. Whatthehell, 30 bucks for an admittedly excellent pizza. The caldera at night, in the rain, was as dramatic as advertised but didn't photograph worth a darn. P.S. We keep getting e-mails asking about tremors in this area. Haven't felt a thing. New Zealand, on the other hand..........

See? doesn't photograph worth a darn.

We'd heard about the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden north of Hilo. This was a property originally bought by Dan and Pauline Lutkenhouse in 1978 to subdvide but once they saw what they had, they changed their minds and converted it into a botanical garden. On their deaths, it became a non-profit corporation. Exotic plants everywhere from throughout the world. Huge trees, a charming waterfall, several streams and pools. We passed several hours walking the miles of trails marveling at the beauty. We even spent a half hour listening to the security man play his ukelele. He was more than pretty good.

We took the Rent-a-Wreck to Kona by way of the North Coast Highway. Fields of cane, what looked like soybeans and, on the slopes of Mauna Loa, lots of grassland and cattle. The Parker Ranch owns a large fraction of this Island and has done its best to make it look like western cattle country. To the point of having several rodeo rings along the road. Pickup trucks abound. Unfortunately, most of them were Toyota Tacomas.



Back to Kona and the mansion. Waterfront Kona is a blatant, charming tourist trap. Lots and lots of makeshift places to buy tourist geegaws ,rent surfboards or snorkeling gear, take boat tours or go parasailing. Each and every one guaranteed to be the cheapest and best available! Delightfully tacky. Not much beach in town, just a small strip alongside the pier. I undserstand the good ones are several miles up and down the coast. We'll find that out tomorrow. One feature not to be missed by a coffee drinker is the dozens of little stalls selling Kona coffee. Or do I mean ambrosia? This is really good stuff. They know it and charge accordingly. Fresh beans, freshly ground, some of the world's best coffee. Still cheap. If you're ever in Hawaii and see one of the many King Kamehameha hotels, go into the lobby. Always a great history lesson with world-class artwork and artifacts I thought I'd only see in a museum.

The mansion is in the throes of deep remodeling. Richtor's plans include pretty much gutting and opening up the first floor, bringing the outdoors and landscaping in. The ground floor as such is pretty uninhabitable. The second has had carpets and windows taken out but is perfectly livable with a good kitchen and bathroom and some pretty nice furniture scattered around. It's not as though we have to bundle up against the chill (Sorry, fellow Michiganders, for rubbing it in). Not even much in the way of biting insects, due to the pretty constant sea breeze. Beats heck out of a cheap motel or sleeping on the beach. Yes, that option was discussed.

Rent a Wreck vs the Volcano

On Wednesday we finally decided it was time to see more of the island. Remember, we are on at least the semblance of a budget. Liz found a saved note from Craig's List dated last April that pointed us to a local  "Rent a Wreck". Boy, did she find a deal. We are now the proud temporary possessors of a 1994 Ford Aspire, a vehicle seldom renowned even when new. It does have certain advantages. It cost very little to rent, less than $25 a day, no hidden charges. If it breaks, we call and eventually we'll be rescued. We will never be targeted by carjackers. We are now mistaken as locals. It gets better than 35 MPG. You're never tempted to exceed the speed limit or to challenge the many interesting sport car roads this island has. Oh, it's even reawakened my atrophied religious sense ("Thank God, we made it again."). Here's the stylish beast in all its glory.



Aaron, our rent-a-wreck's owner, perennial political candidate and farmer of 13 highly desirable acres on Hawaii. 

That day we made tentative trips to a local beach and "hot pond" just to test out the possibilities. 

These kids were going surfing. Imagine riding a wave into these rocks!

The boat ramp was the only real sane swimming.

Yes, they're surfing right at those rocks. Gotta know just what you're doing!

The hot pond, very much nicer.

Thursday, time to tempt the gods with an excursion down the Saddle Road. This roughly north-south road runs exactly between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea and reaches about 5,000 feet in altitude. Just the ticket for a clapped-out Ford. Actually, it turns out that except for a high clutch engagement, low brake engagement, noisy accessory belt and not all that much compression (probably not even when new) the little beast is actually decently maintained with plenty of fresh oil and a really good cooling system. So what if every hill requires dropping back a gear or two. The speed limits here are ridiculously low and if the cars behind us are getting impatient, we're legal and they are the lawbreakers.  Apparently, the Michigan highway department runs the Saddle Road. Several construction delays, many rough spots waiting for their turn. Compared to most of the island roads, this is unusual. Imagine no chance of frost heaves, almost no potholes, nearly ever road paved. Of course, we had to drive out to the 1970 flow which completely severed Highway 130 for a stretch of  about 10 miles.

Back to the Saddle Road. As I said, it is actually quite remote and desolate with not so much as a gas station for 40 or so miles. On the other hand, it runs right between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea, with both visible from opposite  sides of the car for 30 or so miles. Spectacular. Locals avoid it because it can sure get lonely up there compared to the beach roads which are full of surfers, tourists, fruit stands and the like. I completely understand.

Kona is on the edge of a for-real desert. Wind patterns give Kona about 10 inches of rain compared to 150 or more on the north side of the island.  Along the shore it's pretty lush but as little as 5 miles inland it gets really dry. In an afternoon we visited one of the many summer palaces of minor royalty that seem to pop up in every nice spot. Then a dash down the beach road back to our Bali hut. Kona is interesting enough that we'll be spending our last 4 days on the island there. No sense putting down roots in Pahao, nice as it is.

Our first day at the Kilauea Caldera was short thanks to the sulphur dioxide that day so we went back on Friday. Fortunately the winds had come up and we could take advantage of the hiking paths. We went down to Kileua Iki, another crater in the volcano complex. There are dozens of craters in the park and I freely admit to being confused about the methods of formation. Of course, they're all vents of the main volcano but then get classified into ash cones, slump features and whatnot. What's important here is  that we hiked across the crater floor of Kileau Iki. The edges were as rough a country I have ever walked, feeling like an ant crossing a box of tumbled Legos. The center was very smooth with ominous broken bubbles. Stay on the path, if you please. There are plenty of places where a thin crust covers an old bubble. A very interesting 5 mile walk, ending with a path through a lava  tube large enough to drive through about a hundred yards long.

 Then 20 miles down the park road to the petroglyphs. It seems every old civilization leaves some sort of permanent mark and the old Hawaiians did it in lava. Miles out into the lava. beds. Just to keep it a little exclusive, the state kept the road a mile or so away. If you want to see it, you gotta walk.

We actually got to both sides of the lava flow that cut highway 130. One lady we met remembered it very well and was still indignant about losing that beautiful black sand beach. There's only about a hundred yards of it left of what used to be miles. Now it's mostly black lave cliffs many hundreds of yards seaward of the  old beach. The beach is still there, under 60 or so feet of new island.

I recall promising some picures of Pahoa and the Farmer's Market.

Bali Hut

Once again we have lucked into a nice living arrangement. This one is on the big island, Hawaii. Quite the opposite of a plush high-rise efficiency apartment, this one is a hut in the woods. The owner, Eddie Yandle, calls it his "Bali hut". Eddie is a colorful extrovert who is available (for a nominal price) to transport and guide us around this northeast corner of the island.  The hut, prefabbed of teak, was manufactured in Bali and transported and assembled here. This is definitely the jungle, though Eddie insists he lives in a subdivision. One where the smallest lot is about an acre and nearly nobody bothers to clear more than a modest space for house and yard. Sometimes skimping pretty severely on the yard thing. In between, it's just as it always was - jungle. The nights are noisy. A full chorus of frogs and lizards starts tuning up around dusk and runs a full symphony all night long. At intervals through the night, one species will give it up and another join in, providing a change in rhythm. Indeed, after a while, you spot actual rhythms, whether real or just a mental trick, I cannot tell.

Our host, Eddie Yandle

We're a few miles east of Pahoa, which is 30 miles east of of Hilo, the largest city on the island and second largest in the Islands. This is  actually not a tourist area, just folks making a living doing whatever. Lots of small agriculture. The Farmers Market convenes on Sunday mornings and is a sight to see. Somehow I managed to forget my camera last Sunday but I will rectify that next week. Fruits I have never seen and have only managed to sample a few. So far, all I have tried are delicious.

We got here courtesy of Go Mokulele Airlines with a pickup by Eddie Saturday evening. By Sunday morning Liz had a low grade fever and sore throat. Since it was Sunday we waited it out.  A couple of days of downtime put her all to right and by Monday morning we joined Eddie for a 3 mil hike. Fine with me. I kept watch on her and kicked back with a good book, punctuated by naps and admiring the vegetation.

Today we went to see Kilauea, the active volcano. Unlike the steep cliffs of Oahu, the mountains here are comparatively gentle slopes. You just keep gradually going generally up, noticing your ears popping now and then. Kilauea is only about 3500 feet up and I was a little surprised when we reached the park entrance. I was still waiting for the big slopes. The welcome center is a couple of miles away from the entrance. The building is full of exhibits explaining what a volcano actually is and describing Hawaii Island's own three. We had just arrived when a ranger announced he was about to do a nature walk to the caldera viewing area. This young man, Travis Delmont, grew up within sight of the park and did a fine job describing the plant life around us, the realities of life on a live volcano and Hawaiian folklore. An hour well spent. From there we went even further up the slope to the science center. That's where the real view was! Unfortunately wind conditions were such that we weren't allowed to approach the edge of the viewing deck and park employees were somewhat insistent that we do our viewing from inside the center itself. There wasn't enough wind to blow the sulfur compounds out of the caldera and they were filling it up at a high enough level to be dangerous.  Fortunately the Science Center had huge clear windows so the photography didn't suffer too badly.

Wall Street March

The day we left Honolulu, we got a chance to participate in an Occupy Wall Street rally. How could anyone resist? Not only was it close by, it turned into a great walk starting at Magic Island, a beautiful park and ending at the statue of Gandhi next to the  Honolu Zoo along Waikiki beach in front of such modest little shops as Cartier,Tiffany's, Ives St. Laurent, Bulgari. Maybe 5 miles. I have no idea of the total attendance except it was a lot, tending toward twenties and thirties but with a good leavening of us more mature folks. At one point I got out of line at a bend in the street and saw that the procession stretched a couple of hundred yards and out of sight to either side, approximately single file .

By now of course, we're most all well aware of the causes of this movement - outrage over an inequitable tax structure, high corporate profits not reflected in anyone else's income, the unavailibility of employment and the general feeling that most of us in this country are getting screwed to the benefit of the wealthy. Have I missed anything?

The whole thing had a vaguely 60's peace march feel to it. Some of the people I met actually had been involved in them. The crowd chanted slogans the entire way - "We are the 99 %."  "Banks got bailed out, We got sold out." "What does Democracy look like? This is what Democracy looks like." among others. Totally peaceful but with no doubt of the anger felt and probably building. Gentle herding by extremely polite police, with a tolerant smile. Only a few TV cameras in evidence, though I did witness a TV interview with a quite photogenic, well-spoken young lady. Only a couple of misspelled signs, which were quickly put to right or disappeared (Take that, Tea Party!).

 A news article I read later expressed bafflement in that there seem to be no central leaders in any of the marches that are springing up throughout the country. Perhaps it's just that so many people saw them as such a good idea there was no need to actually lead , just participate. I expect it will only be a matter of time until someone in politics speaks to this groundswell. Hopefully such a politician would be a person of honor and ideals. Probably I wish for too much.