Comments on: Travel and Value: What Can You Buy For $0.66?

By: Audrey Scott

Audrey Scott — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 16:52:43 +0000

Thanks to everyone for sharing your $0.66 (give or take a few cents) stories from the road. We really enjoyed the creativity and variety of the comments.

But alas, there can only be one winner. And for that, we choose TR (comment #16) with his story about popping into a small cafe to order tea (for $0.66) in Cape Town and meeting the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Great story!!

TR, I am heading now to the post office in Sucre, Bolivia to mail your prize. Hopefully, you’ll receive it in the next couple of weeks.

By: HERE BE DRAGONS

HERE BE DRAGONS — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 22:08:56 +0000

I’ve rarely found anything for quite that cheap. However, a ponytail holder purchased minutes before heading into the rainforest (la jungla) was highly valued by me.

By: CJ

CJ — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:58:17 +0000

Oh – and the cost was less than .66 cents!

By: CJ

CJ — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:57:46 +0000

The best meal I ever had in China was for 6 potstickers, cooked in a large metal pan, alongside the street. I brought my own chopsticks since the threat of hepatitis was big at that time .. but I will never forget how good those fried dumplings were to eat!

By: Phil

Phil — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 19:28:02 +0000

I bought a pair of leather sandals in Morocco for a little more than that (I think I figured it at 88 cents at the time, but I can’t remember exactly). They were obviously pretty cheaply made, but they were comfortable and light and did just fine for my trip. I wasn’t normally a sandals guy, but that trip was so hot my feet were absolutely disgusting, and my socks were worse, so it was a welcome move, both from the standpoint of cooling me down and sparing my girlfriend the pain of sharing a room of with my feet and socks after a day in hiking boots.

The big down side with them was that they smelled like fish whenever they got wet (which wasn’t really an issue in Morocco–more so after I got home). Ultimately, they didn’t last that long after I returned home (the metal buckle rusted and fell apart, and the thin sole start coming a part) but they were just what I needed at the time.

By: TR

TR — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:54:49 +0000

I stopped in a quiet, off the beaten path, coffee shop one afternoon in Cape Town for a cup of tea. I was the only one seated in the coffee shop. Several minutes later HRH Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu walked in, ordered tea, and then before seating themselves to the table next to me, first walked over and shook my hand and introduced themselves. That might have been the best .66 cents ever spent for me!

By: WildJunket

WildJunket — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:09:47 +0000

Loved the piece, pretty insightful! I just got back from Peru, and wished I had made better use of my 2 soles. But yes, coca leaves are a definite! They taste so good as well, I couldn’t stop munching.

By: Darrin

Darrin — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 16:10:06 +0000

For 2000 riels (about 50 cents), I scored a sweet street treat — a bag of four fried tarantulas in Skuon, Cambodia. Next best was a pay-toilet visit in Peru for 1 sol, but only because the attendant gave me a receipt that looked like it was printed in the same ornate style they’ve been using since the 1920s.

By: Weldon

Weldon — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 12:37:25 +0000

A banh mi from a street vendor in Viet Nam. You can get a delicious one with everything on it for well less than $1. I’ve had loads of great purchases that were $1 or less, but the banh mi is the one I’m most want to repeat.

By: Mike

Mike — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 01:01:20 +0000

Realistically, the best .66 ever spent was probably .66 given away to someone who needed it.

Something I bought for that little, though, was in Jerusalem – a few pieces of broken pottery that had been unearthed in an archaeological dig. They find so many of these thousands-of-years-old shards that they’re useless to the researchers, so they sell them to students coming through. I took the shards home and gave them as gifts to some friends & family who couldn’t make the trip.