Tim Leffel
Articles and Columns by Tim Lefel
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Tim Leffel is an award-winning travel writer who has circled the globe three times and has dispatched articles from five continents. His stories have appeared in a wide variety of publications, including some that managed to stay in business even after his articles appeared, such as Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel, International Living, and South American Explorer. Leffel is the author of Make Your Travel Dollars Worth a Fortune: The Contrarian Traveler's Guide to Getting More for Less and The World's Cheapest Destinations, now in its third edition. Tim has just released Travel Writing 2.0.
Tim publishes an award-winning Cheapest Destinations travel blog and a web magazine called Perceptive Travel, home to interesting and award-winning stories from some of the best travel writers on the planet. See more about him at www.TimLeffel.com.
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Click on the covers below for more on Tim Leffel's books and to order.
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Review
Traveler’s Tool Kit: Mexico and Central America
by Rob Sangster and Tim Leffel
(Menasha Ridge Press, 2008)
You won’t find Traveler’s Tool Kit: Mexico and Central America in the bookstore until March 2008, but if you’re headed south of the border thereafter, purchase a copy; it will no doubt save you money in the long run. Both authors are seasoned travelers who know how to get the most valuable experiences for their dollar. There are three chapters on finances: How to Save Money, How to Prepare a Reliable Budget, and How to Manage Money Successfully.
Following Sangster’s successful publication of Traveler's Tool Kit: How to Travel Absolutely Anywhere (3rd. ed., 2000), Sangster and Leffel chose to focus on Mexico and Central America because they consider these regions to be “today’s smart destinations.” They cite them as budget friendly, safer than America, easy on travelers’ health (comparative to other world regions), and ideal for the adventurous and culturally minded traveler.
While Traveler’s Tool Kit: Mexico and Central America does not bill itself as a guidebook, the authors provide enough detail for each destination to enable you to start planning your trip. Highlights, 1-week itineraries, sections on “helping out,” and advice on choosing a tour operator or traveling independently are offered for all countries, along with the standard fare. As a bonus, there are special sections, such as “Meeting People,” “Remembering,” “Etiquette,” “Safety,” and “Woman on Her Own.”
What I like most about this book, besides its treasure trove of resources, is the worldview Sangster and Leffel infuse throughout its numerous pages. Their perspective doesn’t come through rose-colored glasses, but it is nonetheless inspiring: they remind us of the power of travel to change lives and to teach us “how people elsewhere live and what they care about.” This book will help you get the most out of your trip(s), and then some.
—Sherry Schwarz editor of Transitions Abroad Magazine.
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Review
Make Your Travel Dollars Worth a Fortune
by Tim Leffel
"As the title says, Make Your Travel Dollars Worth a Fortune is about saving money—lots of money—on travel. But this important new book is much more than a list of money-saving travel tips. Tim Leffel unfolds his philosophy of “the contrarian traveler,” drawn from years of travel and living abroad, including three extended trips around the globe. Leffel is Transitions Abroad’s Resourceful Traveler columnist and an accomplished and widely published travel writer. See his website, www.perceptivetravel.com, for an ongoing collection of travel stories meant “to entertain, to amuse, to challenge, and to provide a real window into the world.” His book does all these things plus it draws together the best information on how to cut your travel budget to a minimum.
Among the fictional devices Leffel uses to give his travel advice a feeling of immediacy is an imaginary typical traveling couple, the Smiths, who decide where they want to go (London, they had no idea the dollar had dropped 25 percent against the pound) and when (summer, when rates for everything are at their highest). The other fictional couple, the Johnsons, spend half as much and enjoy their trip twice as much. Chapter by entertaining chapter Leffel details how to travel like the Johnsons—primarily by avoiding “the peaks,” including peak crowds, peak seasons, peak destinations, and peak hotels. Each chapter ends with a list of “contrarian” questions designed to help readers get the most for their money from every aspect of their travels.
The revised and expanded edition of The World’s Cheapest Destinations is not simply a budget travel guide. The new edition is much changed from the first—the biggest change being a country-by-country analysis of what the fall of the dollar against European currencies means for travelers, and how to respond. Romania has replaced the Czech Republic in Europe (Turkey, Bulgaria, and Hungary remain) and Nicaragua and Argentina have replaced Venezuela and Mexico among Latin America’s cheapest destinations. Leffel calculates that a couple can travel around the more than two dozen countries mentioned in the book for $400 to $1,000 a month at the budget end, and $750 to $3,000 a month if they stay in hotels with private bath and air conditioning and use the best ground transportation. His arguments, in both books, are convincing and the hesitant traveler will want to put them to the immediate test."
—Dr. Clay Hubbs, the founding publisher and editor of Transitions Abroad Publishing.
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