If you want to learn how to eat cheap or even free while traveling or even at home, you must have an open mind and a sauce made of hunger. It’s really not as hard or disgusting as you might think, and you could actually form some habits, though not always legal ones, that could save you loads and keep you on the road longer.
In this guide I will teach you the techniques that will enable you to cut your food costs and prolong your adventure indefinitely. The first section will covers some simple ways to save. The second part will introduce some strategies, albeit unorthodox ones, that could potentially eliminate your food expenses all together.
How To Eat Cheap Around The World
Though these tactics are fairly obvious, they are often overlooked.
1) Buy Food At Supermarkets
If you’re traveling in the western world, the supermarket is always your cheapest means of sustenance. The best value backpacker meals generally include bread, butter, cup of noodles, eggs and cold cuts. When buying your next meal you should always contemplate how many calories (units of energy) vis a vis the price.
I love Italian supermarkets. So much cheap and delicious meats and cheeses
2) Buy At Street Markets
In most developing countries, the local street market is always locally priced and the best place to buy eggs, fruit, produce and meats. Street Markets are also often home to traditional hole in the wall restaurants where you can find hot local meals for cheap. Just remember, if it tastes funny, like poop or rotting meat, spit it out.
Guatemalan and Central American local markets have the cheapest produce you’ll find anywhere.
3) Eat Street Food
Street food is always low-cost and delicious. It also provides a nice introduction into local cuisine. There’s no better street food in the world than that in South East Asia. For the cheapest food stalls be sure to get off the main tourist roads. With all local food in developing countries, be sure the meat is cooked well and nothing has been bathing in the sun too long. Check out How To Avoid Travelers Diarrhea.
No better street food than Thai street food. 1$ for a plate of Pad Thai.
4) Wait Until The End Of The Day
Many Bakeries in Europe and also Japan offer huge discounts on their baked goods at the end of the night. Additionally, some pizzerias in New York will do the same if you simply ask.
4) Never buy food in Tourist Traps
Prices at train stations, attractions, bus stops and hotel restaurants tend to be 30-40% higher than the rest of the world. It’s a true budget killer.
5) Eat Less
People from the US, UK & AU in particular have been raised on 3 glutonous meals a day. But the truth is, you really don’t need as much calories as you were raised on. The ancient Romans believed it was healthiest to only eat one meal a day. And many modern European cultures prefer only 2 meals a day. Not only will eating less save you money but it will keep you fit.
How To Eat For Free
These next methods are reserved for the traveler whose not afraid to get a bit dirty or go the extra bite to eat for free. I’ve utilized all of these options at one time or another.
1) Go Dumpster diving
Every market has very strict regulations when it comes to aging produce and meat. In the result, they are forced to dispose of a variety of edible foods. Most of the time, these products still haven’t reached their expiration dates. What does this mean for you? If you’re willing to jump on in that dumpster, free food is yours for the taking.
While you’re in the dumpster, carefully selecting and gathering food, keep on the look out for additional items that you might be able to resell or recycle. Flowers, cans, and bottles are always good finds. If you aren’t able to sell the flowers on the street, you can always use them to try and pick up a girl or guy, provided you’ve showered recently.
2) Enjoy The Leftovers
Nothing says class like somebody who just grabbed a handful of fries from your plate while you were looking back at the homeless guy peeing on the side of the restaurant. And guess what, you can be that somebody. In fact, when the hunger pains become unbearable, you just might have to. The best way to do this is to ask to use the restaurant bathroom. Then on the way in, swipe some food in a napkin from an un-cleared table. I probably don’t have to mention this, but discretion is advised.
3) Ask Restaurant & Cafe Owners
Restaurants and Cafes are always throwing out food. The best time to eat this free food is towards closing time. Simply ask the kitchen staff or manager if you could have their leftovers at the end of the night. Many times managers will be kind and let you help your self. And if they are really nice, they might even treat you to a proper meal.
I used to head to the Starbucks in Lahaina, Maui every night at closing time and pick up a big bag of sandwiches and muffins.
4) Eat With A Local
Although this method is one of luck, it often happens around the world, especially in the Middle east. There’s nothing better than sitting down with a local family. The food is always traditional and never in short supply.
I can’t even count the number of times I was invited for dinner in Jordan, Syria, Turkey, and Egypt.
5) Remember The Holidays
Around Rosh Hashanah in Israel and Thanks Giving in the US, you can often find free meals at shelters and religious centers. But by far the best holiday for free food is Ramadan. In Cairo the rich actually provides free dinners to everyone in the city for 1 whole month.
6) Raid The Maids Carts
If you’re really hungry and in need of a quick pick me up, hotel maids carts are never in short supply. Simply sneak into a quality hotel, head up to the top floor (where the suites are) and search for a cart. Here you’ll often find candy, snacks, and other items destined for the mini fridge. Check out How To Sneak Into Anywhere.
7) Steal
This is the least advisable option and should only be utilized as a last resort. Karma is real and when you steal food, more times than not you will end up with diarrhea or with several birds pooping on your head. True stories.
Conclusion
To sum up, if you’re not too strapped for cash, shop smart and eat less. If you’re starving, be savvy, hit the dumpster and stay positive, you never know when you might run into an old friend for the first time for a meal at their house.
Good luck and safe travels
-Leif
Ps. If you have ever utilized these techniques or have some of your own, I would love to hear about them. Feel free to post below.
Another nice technique is hitting the food court at a nearby mall! People tend to leave many left overs on there trays just waiting for you! Pop a squat and enjoy yourself some nice left overs. When you finish that plate, scope out the next and repeat :)
Nice, good tip Luke! Hope things are going good dude!
We’ve got honesty boxes up north leif! Rhode island
Really! That’s great. To be honest, I’ve never really gone backpacking in the US ><. Maybe that's my next adventure.
^ Honesty boxes are usually on farms/side of the road, they have the eggs/fruit/bread there for you to take and leave a locked box for you to put your money in as no one is around to ‘watch’ the stall.
Those sound so cool. I’ve never seen one. I’m guessing their mostly in the South and Mid West?
Not necessarily, many in the small towns up north as well. Try the Adirondack mountains someday, extremely beautiful.
We have honesty stores in batanes, philippines!
Hey Ian, good to know! That’s really cool!
these tips are epic!
usually you see tips for well off travellers, “try and eat at a roadside cafe instead of restaurants, youd be amazed at what you can save!’ oh would that i could.
My boyfriend and I live in pretty much the same way all of your tips describe, and we have just relaised the beauty of travel. on a fuckin shoestring!
1)Buying bread and stealing cheese/chocolate etc. and i dont feel guilty stealing from supermarkets, just never independant shops, although once a really awesome kiwi lady let us off with 2 free fish and chip dinners in new zealand provided we came and paid her the next day which we promised faithfully to do, whilst not looking at each other, and feeling really guilty cos we knew we werent, obviously we didnt enjoy doing that but a free fish and chip dinner is a free fish and chip dinner when you have little to no funds
2) dine and dash from chain restaurants. pizza hut-sit buy the door. or if you do decide to pay buy one pizza each and one unlimited salad, fill up tupperware boxes under your table and refil your water bottles under the table too! eat half your pizza each, fill up on salad and have them box up your pizza and you have a meal for later
bin diving, feels a bit scary when in foriegn countries, and ive yet to build up the courage to actually do that but we live off it at home.
3)buying a gas stove and buying off roadside vendors and the honesty boxes by farms and country houses. (i NEVER steal from honesty boxes or id be dammed in the karma stakes) buy eggs, avocados, tomatoes, fruit, potatoes, and make giant omelletes and salads for next to nothing.
4)fill up on hostel breakfasts and consider paying more for a hostel that serves breakfast. and steal the rolls for lunch. with your stolen cheese you dont even have to buy bread! pair that with your gas stove omellet, a big tub of fresh strawberries from a roadside vendor and youve got a nice lunch
5)we always fill our water up at petrol/gas stations, the little tap that is next to the air pressure machine i susually free.
hahaha, yea, there are too many articles like that. Nice techniques! I never heard of honesty boxes, what are they exactly? Where are you traveling? -Leif
Also a good idea, if you don’t plan on getting a steady job..
Is to get into jail for short times in west european countries.
For example in the Netherlands being in Jail is like being in a hotel. Actually most jail go-ers over here have better food than the people that struggle with their job to make a living.
Hahah, I love it. Jail treated me well in Greece, lots of gourmet greek food.
I can’t even imagine how nice it is in the Netherlands. Maybe I will try it ;)
I love these facts and tips, I eat free meals every day xD
Got this idea from a rap song (Dead Prez – Hell Yeah) Order delivery food and rob the driver. If your REALLY hungry (and desperate) {Just wanted to add I don’t recommend stealing from anyone, but i would rather be in a jail eating food than lying on the floor dying of hunger.} Also maybe even carry seeds of quick growing edible foods, sit still for a few months… Having an understanding of the local edible plants (and consciously keeping an eye out for them) can help with money and hunger (and knowing the seasons for the plants).
Not that I really know, but I plan on traveling the world for cheap/free (out of necessity), so I watch a lot of Bear Grylls and Ray Mears (currently downloading a bunch of Ray Mears videos and books). This guide has given me some much needed confidence for cheap/free world travel. Thank you.
(I also love the http://www.travel-the-world-for-free.com site, great stuff) I hope you finish that book someday. Goodluck with your travels.
Haha, thats funny but nuts. I like your second Idea though, sit still for months :) Good stuff dude. Those guys are good role models. Thanks man, I’m going to keep building that site and get some good articles from people who also have experience traveling free. After your trip, maybe you can contribute. Cheers, Leif
These are excellent techniquies, when I was in Thailand I lost all my cash and litteraly haggled a street food vendor to give me some spring rolls in exchange for a t-shirt I had. xx
haha, thats awesome. You gotta do what you gotta do. I remember I once traded my coat for a shish kebab and a coke in Turkey.
Well, in Norway there is this store called Kiwi. They have a durability guarantee that says; If you find something that expiers today or tomorrow you get it for free! What most people don’t know is that you don’t get the expierd product, but a new one for free! And if they don’t have what you need; the money for the product… In CASH! Also, if you find beer or tobacco products, then you get the cash back, since it’s illegal to give you these for free!
I spent 25 minutes in a Kiwi store and I found a lot!
I got cash for theese; 3 six-pack’s of beer, 4 packets of Skruf Potion.
And this I got a new product; 5 plates of chocolate, a packet of Oreos, 3 packs of Pringles, 300g beef, 3 packs of sliced cheese and a diet coke!
Though you may have to look for a while, you’ll most likely find something, and you just say that it’s expierd to the cashier and; cashing! Money or free new product! :D
Oi, det er fantastisk. Takk. That’s great to know, next time I’m there, I’m definitely doing that!
Hey, I am usually working ona cruise ship, so not travelling alone. however I do visit quite some places.
I love norway, as also: Whenever you get thirsty…from most rivers and waterfalls it’s perfectly ok to drink the water. the locals even get their water from there instead of from the tap!
Yea, everything is so crisp and clean in Norway you could probably eat food off of the street.
I’m not travelling at the moment, but whether I’m at home or on the road, I’ve always relied on dumpster diving as means of survival. However, this has come back on me on one occasion. A while ago i was at home and struggling to get by, so to cut some expenses out of day to day life, i went into my local bins every couple of days. However, I would go at night so i never had a good view of what i was doing while in the bin. It’s dark in there. Anyway, I started to get ill. I thought it was maybe because I wasn’t getting enough iron or something. But as i got more and more sick, i ate less. There was a loaf of bread i’d found that hadn’t even gone out of date when i took out of the bin and after 2 days of not eating due to being sick, i went into my bread bin to find that it was all mouldy. It shouldn’t have been. I’d cleaned that bread tub a few days before. So i went to the bin, in daylight, to see what was going on. When i looked in, the bin has gotten mouldy. I mean, really mouldy. Turned out, they’d been delaying pick-ups for the rubbish by an extra few days for the previous weeks which meant all the food at the bottom of the bin had gone rotten, and the bin was more disgusting than usual.
Like i said, i got ill. Turned out (from eating mouldy foods and inhaling mould spores on a regular basis) I had gotten sinusitis and the infection had spread to my lungs. This explained why i couldn’t breathe. I was proper ill for weeks.
It hasn’t put me off dumpster diving. But the moral of this story?? If you go at night, take a torch and have a scope of the bin before climbing in. Check the expiration dates on the packets. Be careful of dairy/meat products. Anything vegan is usually fine. Be cautious of anything that looks like it’s been in there for a while. And if it’s raw fruit/veg, try and find a way of washing it!
Hope you find this story useful Xx
Hey, thanks for sharing. This is definitely a good lesson.
Quick question, how can you tell if the food has bacteria and/or maggots on it? And what are the consequences for eating food like that?
The best way , if you can’t see anything visibly wrong with it, is to simply sniff it. Trust your nose cause it can usually tell.
In dowtown Portland (Or) they have these waterfountains on the sidewalks everywhere called ‘The Benson Bubblers’, if you’re down there looking for water.
Many supermarkets have a section near the back with marked-down items that are old or damaged, with the UPC written over with a new price. Cashiers ring up these items using the new price no questions asked, so one can do this for any item.
If you can find an old CueCat or other cheap bar code scanner you can scan some inexpensive or generic item that you find in the trash and then print new UPC’s on sticker paper to stick onto goods at the market, be sure the description is close to what you are sticking or a sharp checker might bust you. Don’t try this scam too often with the same checker or at the same store in case the management starts looking for you.
Another method is to enter a supermarket armed with shopping bags and a receipt(from said supermarket). Put what you want into a shopping cart. When you’ve got what you want, find a low traffic, low security area(The bedding section, garden center, discount aisle) and put your goods into the shopping bag(s). Then just walk right out(with the receipt in hand). If you’re stopped, hand them the receipt, they usually won’t take the time to check for each item. This works best during medium to peak business hours.
hello guys,
i ran away yesterday and came home an hour later, it was an decreasing experience and very exciting, i advise everyone to do it!!!!!! i am doing it again tonight for 2 hours this time WOW :O so if i come on the news then you’ll all know where i am. up the top of my street. love you all and safe journeys … p.s i you run away then i’ll meet you in manchester, much love run away friends xxxxxxxxx
… Leaving the house for an hour isn’t running away. That’s going for a walk.
I had a friend who would walk into a grocery store and fill up a cart and walk right out. He did it 100’s of times but got arrested 1 or 2 times and had to stay in jail for a few weeks. He also did dining and dashing. Though when I traveled with him we started a system where we got things cheap or for free from dumpster diving and sold on ebay and craigslist. That made enough for us to travel and eat. If your overseas you can often offer to teach english for room and board with a local family. It worked for me a few times. Also if you got some skills with website design or anything else you can offer that to local business for $$$ or food. There are so many options for bartering and making money anywhere one goes.
I had a friend who would do the same thing lol. Crazy guy. There definitely are a lot of opportunities to make money and ways to get by so you don’t starve while on the road. Thanks for sharing your experiences.
another option is to eat in the supermarket but do it carefully away from employees so try to sneak it into the restroom. one way is to rip the bar codes off the food and hide it on you.
those are some good but risky/illegal tricks. Gotta do what you gotta do to survive sometimes though
i noticed you never mentioned anything about water but ya where i live if you drink from the water in the lakes you get really sick so what do you do ya cant boil the water ethier bc of what you are doing so what would you do for water ?
You’re right. I usually get water from restaurants. I just ask them if I can fill up my bottle and it’s usually ok with them.
I’ve done it many a time.
Stuck in an airport waiting 24hours for a flight I had no money what so ever I managed to get an English bloke who had just arrived to buy me a meal, I asked him if he had any spare change, explained my plight and he was kind enough to buy me a hot much needed meal.
I’ve stole countless times, supermarkets are piss easy in europe, europe is very very naive and it’s extremely easy to do.
People can be really kind. I found that the more poor the country the kinder the people. I think it’s because they know what it’s like to suffer. I have hit up the markets a few times but every time bad karma would follow me. Birds shitting on my head, people robbing me ect. Any run ins with karma for your self?
When you are hungry, you just never know what you’ll do or what you’ll eat.
I travel around the country, living out of my van for a year for a project I call Leafless Diaries. It’s self-funded, so I’ve been living on the cheap since the start, 8.5 months ago.
I, at times, will ask restaurants just before close if they have anything they’re going to just throw away. This works well with bakeries of sorts, if they don’t have a deal with a local shelter.
One thing I’ve been having fun with as of late, and probably something every broke college student knows well, is trying a myriad of concoctions with a protein (such as canned tuna or hot dogs) and condiments. Over my time on the road, I’ve collected a buffet of various condiments, and I’ll tweet or Facebook my meals. And sure enough, I generally have those who have eaten something similar.
My favorite, however, if you’re really craving a warm meal on a budget, you can opt for asking the local gas station for use of their microwave, OR do what I do, and use your vehicle’s engine. I had a great tasting Thanksgiving meal last year because of this technique. Aluminum can be your best friend. :)
Why not just check with the local government offices. Most areas have food banks or homeless shelters/soup kitchens.
Bakeries are great. Ask employees when they do their food turn around and ask if they could keep some of their throw always.
As far as drinks. Find a place that offers free refills. Buy one take away cup and go back to refill.
Hey Shauna, that’s true. When I was in Southern France I used to get break fast and lunch at social services and dinner at the local church :)