Cheap travel means you get to go more often, go on longer trips or just save some of your money for other things. Fortunately, it doesn’t mean low-quality travel. If you find a way to get a cheaper plane ticket, for example, you might be flying on the same plane as with the more expensive tickets.

Of course sometimes you can save money by traveling differently, and that’s okay too. Why pay an extra $40 for a hotel if you like the idea of staying in a hostel with visitors from around the world? Why rent a car in countries where good bus and train systems make for cheaper and more interesting trips?

Essentially you can travel cheap in two ways. First, you can find cheaper ways to get the same thing. The other, perhaps more powerful way, is to alter your expectations and plans to create a more interesting trip that is also inexpensive. The tips that follow will help you do both.

1. See if you can book two flights cheaper than one.

My wife and I are thinking about going to Ecuador this year (2007). Checking for our approximate dates, I found that it would cost $950 each round trip from Colorado Springs, or $1,900 total. Then I checked from Colorado Springs to Miami. It would be $215 round trip. From Miami to Guayaquil, Ecuador costs $350 round trip. That makes it just $565 to Ecuador, or $1,130 total – a savings of $770.

Of course, if you are going to do this, you have to find flights that have enough time in-between them. You probably won’t get e refund if you miss the second flight because of a delay on the first. In our case, we have friends near Miami, so we’ll just arrange the flights to be a day or two apart, and go visiting. Even after the cost of renting a car for a couple days we’ll still be hundreds of dollars ahead.

2. Live in a new place for a while.

One way to make a vacation less rushed, cheaper, and in many ways more interesting, is to stop going from hotel to hotel. Why not stay in a place, and even rent a condo or apartment? We did this a few years back in Tucson, Arizona. It was nice to escape winter for a couple months, and it was fun to explore and get to know a new city. Often you can save hundreds of dollars this way, versus paying by the night for hotel rooms.

3. Be an opportunistic traveler.

This is the most valuable of these cheap travel tips. There are so many things to do out there and so many places to see, so why get stuck on just the ones you have already thought of? With a little luck, you might find a more interesting place to go for half the price. With little shopping, you might find a bed and breakfast in whatever country you visit, and pay less for a more interesting experience.

First look for all the possible alternatives that are less expensive. This isn’t about doing something you don’t want to do. But among those cheaper choices there might be a perfect trip for you. Why not find out? To start with, do any of your friends live in interesting places? Visiting friends is a great way to save on travel costs and have a load of fun (with the right friends).

Here’s a good example of being an opportunist. We were in the mountain resort town of Banos, Ecuador, and asked about the cost of taxi ride to some waterfall. It was $15. It was apparently a popular attraction with tourists. We kept that in mind as we wandered around. Then we saw a chiva (an open-sided bus with seating on the roof) go by playing music. We asked about that.

The chiva took us on a tour of the city (I rode on the roof), then up into the mountains for a view of the city from above. Then we watched the volcano Tungurahua erupt and spit out a bit of lava. They served us hot rum drinks (included in the price), and there were fire-juggling entertainers. Passengers had to push the chiva to get it started for the trip back to town. The cost of all this? $3 each. Cheap travel does not mean uninteresting travel.

Bali island in Indonesia is renowned for its natural beauty and as a fabulous tourist attraction. However, the island is also known for its terrorist attacks in recent years. Since then, the people of Bali have recovered and the island is now a hotspot for tourists from all over the world once again, especially for its beach resorts and volcano helicopter tours.

The island’s ecology and geography are greatly influenced by the towering mountain range of volcanoes that dominate the island. These majestic volcanoes created Bali’s stunning mountainous landscape and they occasionally regenerate its soils and help produce heavy rains that provide this resort island with precious fresh water.

The Balinese considered the island’s many volcanoes, lakes and spring as sacred and treat them with respect and awe. If you are a tourist traveling to Bali for your holiday vacation, you will be awestruck with the sheer majesty of the volcanoes. These natural landscapes are major tourist attractions and many tourist go sightseeing the volcanoes on helicopter tours so that they can view the volcanoes in all its splendor and take awesome pictures. The island is still continually being formed by volcanic activities.

Bali is located over a major fault zone where the Indo-Australian plate collides with the Sunda plate. In 1963, a violent eruption on Mount Agung killed thousands of people and utterly destroyed many rice fields and irrigation network.

The dramatic lava flows on the north eastern faces of Mt Agung is the newest landforms, showing what the island may look like in ancient pre-historic time. It is a fascinating sightseeing experience, almost like a scene out of Jurassic Park.

Perhaps, the most popular volcano for tourists to visit and go sightseeing is Mount Batur. This grand old dame of a volcano sits in a giant caldera that contains a lake that is a few miles long and over a mile wide. Mount Batur is actually a very active volcano and can erupt moment as it erupted with great frequency but the eruptions are less violent these days except in a giant eruption in 1917 which claimed thousands of lives and destroyed hundreds of temples and villages.

Hiking up Mount Batur in the wee small hours of the the morning has become something of a “must do” thing for many tourists in Bali. You will need to bring along a sweater as it can get a little chilly at the volcano summit.

There is also a little coffee shop at the rim selling drinks for thirsty hikers and many children and women in flip flops balancing buckets of soft drinks on their heads scampering around trying to earn your tourist dollar. As the sun rises, you will get a picturesque view of Lombok and other surrounding islands.

One very interesting hike on Mt Batur is the climb down the inside of the crater from Penelokan to Kedisan. There are boats at Toya Bungkah Lake to take you across the lake to a village called Trunyan. This village is notorious for its mortuary traditions because instead of cremating or burying their deceased, the Trunyan villagers leave dead human bodies to decompose naturally in a designated cemetery.

Although Bali is known for rice cultivation, its volcanic soil is actually not well suited for such activities. The soil is finely textured and well drained, so water soaks through the soil rapidly and thus precious water is wasted. The solution therefore lies in repeated and vigorous ploughing which make the soil less permeable.

So if you are visiting Bali for your holiday vacations, do not miss out a sightseeing trip to view Bali’s majestic volcanoes, better yet, take a helicopter tour of this spectacular tourist attraction.

There is a considerable amount of buying power that forms when people group together to find savings on a variety of items that will be used in the home. Through furniture club memberships, consumers have gained considerable savings on all styles of furniture and they now have marvelous decorations in their home that would not have been possible without the furniture club membership.

Some consumers are interested in a specific type of furniture for their home or office. The furniture club has buyers who travel the world looking for bargain pricing in furniture and will spend a considerable amount of time going through all selections that a furniture maker has before making a final decision on the quantity of each style that they want to buy.

The buying power intensifies with furniture club memberships because these large purchases will eventually give furniture club members great quantities of fine furniture to pick from and all of those selections will be offered at a great price. The selections of furniture will range from rugs and lamps to occasional tables and dining room tables. The selections of furniture are unlimited because the furniture buyers select furniture pieces for use in any room in the home.

Some club members might only need an accent chair with a specific fabric color. Some furniture stores in town might have only a few colors in stock but with the buying power of furniture club memberships, people can now ask to see fabric swatch samples before they make a final choice on which color they want on the fabric for the chair that will soon adorn a living room setting in the home.

Furniture club members will love the wide selection of leather furniture at their disposal and will usually look at leather recliners first. The leather sectionals are sure to grab the attention of some shoppers because these furniture pieces are offered at tremendous savings because of the purchasing power found through club memberships. The buying power intensifies as bargain hunters realize that they could furnish the entire house from the furniture selections the furniture buyers chose.

Through many furniture club memberships homeowners feel empowered when they realize that the prices for the furniture they select will often include shipping and handling. The furniture buyer will consider many more furniture items for the home when they are freed of the worry that shipping might be too much for the large pieces of furniture that they want in the home. The furniture selections might extend to bar furniture or art and wall decorations before they are through because the power of the furniture club membership is really coming through to these savvy shoppers.