What You Will Find in This Post
We are Jan and Marty, the couple behind the established travel website Budget Travel Talk.
About Budget Travel Talk.
After forty years of world travel our aim is to help you travel affordably.
The best thing about travel in our 60’s is our flexible travel style, allowing us to enjoy great experiences, good food and fun people. We are always looking for ways to save money, to ensure we can travel into the future. As with most things in life, it’s all about priorities.
Enjoying Autumn Travel in Kyoto, Japan.
We’re retired achievers with time to enjoy the Journey, Destination and Experience.
How we can help your travel journey.
- Finding you great places to stay
- Building your Itinerary
- Finding off the beaten track experiences
- Caravanning and Free Camping tips within Australia
- We sit slightly out of the box – I think you will like us!
How did Budget Travel Talk come into existence.
I’d spent a fair chunk of my time scouring travel blogs, gleaning information and putting it to good use on our travels. After a month in Vietnam in 2011, I realised it was time to start giving back and Budget Travel Talk was born.
We believe in paying it forward.
Who does what at Budget Travel Talk
Jan handles research, itineraries, writing, editing photos, deciphering expenditure, social media and back-up photography.
Marty is our logistics person – he is unflappable, dependable and gets us where we need to be AND on time. He drives in foreign countries and when towing the van. He is our photographer – the very best photos on the blog are from his old Pentax K200. It is a heavy beast so I’m happy it is his to carry. My iPhone 6+ and I capture the unexpected and occasionally food before it gets devoured.
How we travel at Budget Travel Talk
We catch planes, rent cars, take trains and love Turkish buses. We do bicycle tours – and we Urban walk – a lot.
The accommodation we use depends a lot on which Country we are in. You’ll most likely find us in apartments, boutique hotels or family run places that pride themselves on great service.
Luxury is not our style, but Comfort and Friendliness is.
Airbnb.
In Europe we use Airbnb almost exclusively. We understand the current dilemma of Airbnb sky-rocketing prices for locals. As a result we’ve made the decision to stay with the host in their own home whenever possible. This helps the host financially and if more Airbnb users do this, it should lead to more affordable apartments for locals to rent. We’ve met some lovely hosts who have made a positive impact on our travels and enriched our lives.
Hotels.
We stay in hotels with reviews that reflect a focus on friendly, helpful service. We are also partial to a nice view and a good breakfast.
Housesitting.
We love to house and pet sit and have done so for some lovely families both in Australia and Overseas. We are members of trustedhousesitters.com and use them to find housesits and a Housesitter when we need one.
House Pets we’ve loved and looked after while housesitting.
“Lulu” the Spanish dog ran the house, understood English and loved me back.
Staffy-cross “Mazzy” had eyes that dissolved our hearts at thirty paces. We had our work cut out stopping her from vigorous activity to protect her recently operated on leg.
The troupe of mischievous banana-eating horses we “horse-sat” at Port Douglas were part of the family and would walk into the house if the screen doors weren’t closed.
“Blue” the Blue Heeler survived being run over by a car just weeks before our house-sit and needed loads of our tender loving care.
Then there was the lone fish, who required minimal food and a nice clean tank.
Caravanning.
When at home we travel with our Coromal Caravan. It is a great way to explore Australia it took us to Notch Point, the place that made us fall in love with Australia all over again.
This 18ft Van (it’s kind of our baby) is not our first caravan, but it will be our last. Eventually it will take us around Australia with our readers riding shotgun.
Something you might not know about us.
We both have an affinity with the ocean. Marty particularly so, in his work for the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority for over thirty years. We owned two boats for 26 years. Our little car topper tinny dodged crocodiles in tiny mangrove creeks and our runabout transported us to tropical islands and reefs.
I’ve worked a variety of Office Administration jobs and was with the same employer for fifteen years prior to retirement.
We’re so happy to see you here. Let’s talk Travel.
Jan and Marty
PS If you’d like to know more, read on.
Or return to our home page.
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Jan turning Pula Arena in Croatia upside down.
As you’re still here you must want the Nitty Gritty so here it is.
At age 20 I explored Bali, Java, Singapore, the U.K. and Europe as a Solo Traveller.
In 1979, as a new couple, we spent eight months in Europe, the U.K. and Ireland and a month in Bali on the way to Perth, Western Australia.
There was a romantic three week romp through Europe, Ooh la la, a winter spent on a Devon farm and a Spring trip around the U.K. in a ridiculously small Campervan. The roof popped up on a rakish angle while the back fell down like a concertina. Picture a car doing a cartwheel and you’re half-way there. At the end of our trip we sold it to a Car Dealer from Sydney Australia, for $100 less than we paid eight months previous. We were stoked.
In Perth, Australia we worked, saved like crazy and hatched a plan to buy a campervan. We bought an E20 long wheel based campervan and after two years exploring the South-West corner, said goodbye to our Sandgroper lifestyle and headed north to Darwin via my beloved Broome and across “The Top” to North Queensland. It broke our hearts to leave Perth, but living where both our families were made sense. It freed up more time for travel to other destinations.
With our kids we’ve camped, water-skied, snorkelled fringing reefs, explored tropical islands and repeatedly holidayed on the Sunshine Coast. And there was that family ski trip to Perisher in the Snowy Mountains…
We’ve campervanned in New Zealand, dodged bullets in Bangkok, a volcanic ash cloud in Italy and an aborted bombing attempt in Times Square.
We chilled in Canada for a couple of months, bartered in Saigon, hung out in Hanoi and trekked in Sapa Vietnam.
I fell in love with Luang Prabang Laos, years before we arrived and could happily live there today, except Marty doesn’t approve.
We both share another passion. Turkey – East and West, North and South – it is an amazing Country with wonderful locals who go out of their way to assist travellers. Merhaba Turkey.
On the way home from Turkey we visited Cambodia. A charming country with a haunted past and people that have a limitless hope for a better future.
Our blog is full of posts about Italy, from Rome, all the way down to Sicily and north again to Tuscany and Liguria. We’ve road tripped through Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Montenegro and stayed on the Croatian Islands of Vis and Hvar.
Travel is fun.
Travel is challenging.
Travel makes us better people.
