If you know about budget travel then you have probably heard of backpacking. In a short sentence it means you travel around with just a backpack. The backpacking life is very different from someone who is on holiday as many backpackers volunteer abroad rather than spending all their time sightseeing. Backpacking is undoubtedly more common amongst your people as it is much more affordable to manage.

The obvious draw to many people who want to backpack is that it is cheap. Backpackers use local forms of transport instead of the tour buses many other tourists take. Whether you are backpacking overseas or you are doing some volunteering you live a much more simple lifestyle and also get to meet a lot of new people along the way. You also more often than not make great friends amongst other travellers.

When you are backpacking you also become exposed to a lot of the things you would not see as a tourist including some of the local cultures and traditions. As a backpacker there is no stopping who you might meet. Locals are great to show you the spots that tourists never get to see. If you are a volunteer in Kenya or you are backpacking in South Africa you will be able to be at one with the country and almost feel like a local.

Another advantage of being a backpacker is the fact you are able to spend more time abroad as you are spending less money whilst you travel. There are different periods in people’s lives when they decide to go on a gap year or volunteering and it is now mostly common amongst students leaving schools and universities.
This movement has grown recently as travel has become cheaper including airline fares and travel overseas. The internet and resources such as the lonely planet are not readily available making trips abroad a lot easier for people to organise.

All foreigners make mistakes when they are overseas but mistakes can mean different things in different countries. Although everyone is human there are just some mistakes that can and should be avoided. There are some mistakes that you make subconsciously and although you do not realise you are making them you can really offend the people around you and the country you are in.

When you are volunteering overseas for long periods of time you should really try and stick to a budget. This is not a holiday where you are able to spend as much money as you want and just go home to recover the damages. Try and avoid overspending by travelling to all the tourist hotspots, buying lots of souvenirs, going out to every pub and club in town and eating out every night. In a lot of cases many volunteers have decided to rent out a property while volunteering and have blown their budget all on accommodation.

While trusting people is important for friendships to blossom, trusting people while abroad is a different matter altogether regardless of whether you are a volunteer in Tanzania. Not everyone you meet abroad is a friendly face and many cannot be trusted, they are only there to take advantage of you. It’s not uncommon for locals to watch you withdraw cash from the cash machine and the look to rob you afterwards. Even when asking locals for advice many a time people will not give you the correct advice for one reason or another. Always ask for second opinions when you are away as one person’s advice is never quite good enough.

Many people who are volunteering abroad spend far too much time communicating with friends and family that they miss out the whole volunteering experience as a whole. Now a days due to the advancements in technology it has become even easier to keep in contact with friends and loved ones. You can communicate now through email, Skype, mobile phones, Facebook & twitter. It is important that you don’t fall into this trap as miss out your whole experience abroad because of the draws of communicating with home.