yer_averagejoe said:
You don't need money to travel, travelling doesnt cost much at all. sure, it costs a lot to go to another country and spend all your time in the same hotel with a swimming pool or sitting in the local "english bar" becuase the beer isn't as good as anywhere else. That isn't travelling, it barely scrapes the surface.
Of course you need money to travel. How much you need depends on how much you want to travel, how much time you have to do it in, where you want to go and how much creature comforts you require while doing so.
Is it possible to see "lots of" places on relatively small budgets? Yup, sure it is. But it depends on where, and how many.
But suppose you want to spend a few days in Florence for a festival, see the towering spires of Tashkent, then the grandeur of the Taj Mahal, you want to try a gin sling in Raffles (Singapore), dive the Barrier Reef, spend a few days going round the Louvre and Guggenheim, see the Vegas showgirls and tour the Grand Canyon, spend a couple of weeks on a beach in Fiji, experience the Doge's Palace and have a coffee in the Piazza San Marco, sample the culture (geisha) of Kyoto and see the Shogun's palace, with a couple of weeks cruise round the Norweigian fjords and maybe a midnight sun cruise in the Arctic.
How do you propose to do that with no money?
Money is an enabler. It lets you do things you can't do, or can't do easily, without it.
As for sitting in an English bar or round a hotel pool, of course you won't see much of the country you're visiting that way. But I didn't say that, did I? But that doesn't mean you can't stay in good hotels. Maybe my requirements from travel are different from yours, but I'd rather see what I want to see (which may be sights, museums, galleries, etc, and eat in good, local restaurants, than soak up "atmosphere" by backpacking on a shoestring, earning my way by menial jobs as I go. Maybe it's my age, but if you want to travel on a shoestring, because that's what you enjoy, go for it. I'll be in the first class cabin and a five star hotel.
As I said, money is an enabler. I could do it the cheap way if I wanted, despite having money. You can't do it my way if you don't have money. Money enables.
And, I used travel as an example of what money enables, not the only thing. There's others too, including some that absolutely require money, and lots of it.
