Author, reporter, and NPR correspondent Scott Huler recently returned from an epic journey tracing the tale of Homer’s “Odyssey.” After reading “No-Man’s Lands,” his insightful recounting of the trip, we asked him for advice on planning a similar journey—on a budget.

Scott had some great advice:

When Odysseus set off on an epic voyage, he had some non-cheapo advantages: his ships were filled with treasure from the Trojan War, and if supplies ran low it was perfectly reasonable to come ashore and make a brief pirate raid on a coastal town.

That wasn’t going to work for me. When I set out to retrace his journey from Troy to Ithaca, I had little more than a backpack, a tight budget, and a pregnant wife at home. Just the same, I found the cheaper-than-cheap backpack route from Troy to Ithaca perfect for me. I had more than a dozen stops to make. Add to that Athens and the tiny Turkish town of Kesan, and my journey covered around 20 cities in Turkey, Greece, Tunisia, Italy (where I visited the catacombs in Rome), France, and Malta. Finally, I arrived on the western tip of Sicily.

Here are five things you should know if you ever make an epic journey on a small-scale budget:

1. Get your doner on!

In Turkey, if it’s spinning on a vertical spit, it’s probably doner, which is like Greek gyro and delicious almost beyond imagination. But beware: If it’s spinning on a horizontal spit it’s probably kokorec, which is sheep guts, and tastes like sheep guts. If you suddenly find yourself buying kokorec, just get them to put a lot of pepper on it. You can get a few bites down before you turn the corner and find a trash can. Be sure to smile and wave at the vendor. You’ll be a good story for them.

2. Use your words.

Don’t be embarrassed to take a guided tour in the language of your choice: you left home to understand people and places different from you, right? You’ll learn a lot more, and if you stick with trustworthy sources (the museum’s free audio guide rather than the guy who starts plucking at your sleeve after you walk in), you’ll pay only a reasonable fee augmented by, of course, a reasonable tip. I had a guided tour of Troy that got my journey started just right, and I might have missed some very cool stuff had I been too savvy for it all.

3. Buy cheap(er) overnight accommodation.

Here’s how. Take an overnight ferry and pay the extra euros for a room. If you’re traveling alone, pay the addition for a single. Defending territory on couches in saloon bars or hunkering down in chilly winds on deck sounds romantic in a post-college kind of way, but unless you’re absolutely destitute, the extra € 20 will be well worth it, turning a sleepless night into a night of almost delightful, private peace.

4. Take the bus (especially in Turkey).

Not only is the bus one of the cheapest—and greenest—modes of transport, but it’s civilized beyond measure. In Turkey, for example, where I rode the bus everywhere, there’s air conditioning, oriental rugs down the center aisle, free cakes, water, and orange soda. Plus every couple hours or so an attendant brings around a little dash of bergamot cologne. Talk about luxury for less! (Visit the main bus terminal in Istanbul to learn more or to get moving.)

5. When in Rome, stay near the train station.

In Rome, I loved the Hotel Stromboli. Tourist guides will tell you to avoid the hotels near the Stazione Termini, but I think they’re crazy. Cheap rooms abound (if you’re clever, you can get them at the Stromboli for 50 euros or so), and there are tons of paninotecas with delicious and cheap hot sandwiches that keep travelers fueled for a couple euros a pop. Plus, you’ll find plenty of nearby nasoni fountains to keep water bottles full for free and you have constant, convenient access to the train station. No place in Rome is too far to walk from there and when it’s time to head to the airport, that’s exactly where the cheap buses depart from. There are dozens of cheap, clean, and safe hotels in this unfairly maligned neighborhood. It’s where you want to be.

See EuroCheapo’s recommendations for hotels South and North of Termini Station in Rome.

About the author: Scott Huler has written for such newspapers as the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Los Angeles Times and such magazines as Backpacker, Fortune, and Child. His award-winning radio work has been heard on “All Things Considered” and “Day to Day” on National Public Radio and on “Marketplace” and “Splendid Table” on American Public Media. He has been a staff writer for the Philadelphia Daily News and the Raleigh News & Observer and a staff reporter and producer for Nashville Public Radio. He was the founding and managing editor of the Nashville City Paper. He sometimes serves as guest host on “The State of Things” on WUNC-FM. No-Man’s Lands is his fifth book. He lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with his wife, the writer June Spence; they have a son and another child on the way.

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Sebastien Tellier is representing France in Eurovision this year.

It’s sunny again today! Here are some of the things we’ve taken a shine to this week:

On Wednesday, Amsterdam became the World Book Capital for one whole year! Thanks to Trippist for reading up on this, and getting us excited about the city-wide book fair scheduled for May 18th!

Meanwhile in Paris, Heather Stimmler-Hall recounts in her “Secrets of Paris” blog her tale of wine dating on the 56th floor of the Tour Montparnasse. What is “wine dating,” you ask? It involves tasting three types of wine, mingling with available Frenchmen, cold cuts, and a towering view. Sign us up.

And then there’s the flight news! Less Than a Shoestring got us all knotted up about UK and Irish airports charging surprise, unavoidable airport taxes. And from a vending machine, no less!

Meanwhile, BudgetTravel alerts us to Cheapo-friendly fares in May from NYC to Rome, Naples, and other Italian cities on Eurofly. Fares are from $499 and don’t include $75 in taxes.

And finally, thanks to Alex of Spendthrift Shoestring for swinging by the office to play us some official entries in the Eurovision 2008 contest. We’re especially excited about Sebastien Tellier (pictured above on a boat), Jelena Tomašević, and, of course, No Angels.

What a way to kick off the weekend!

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The other day, a copy of “Fodor’s Budget France ‘82″ landed in our office. The cute little book, measuring no larger than a pocket-sized Agatha Christie novel, has captivated and charmed us ever since.

For one thing, it’s so simple. The 178-page book is all text, providing three maps (France, Paris, and the Metro), ten chapters, and a phrase index in the back. The only photo to be had was an advertisement on page 174 for a Fodor’s language course, audio cassette-edition. The book retailed for $5.95 (about $13.00, adjusted for 2008).

Money and prices abroad in 1982

Obviously in 1982, France used the franc, which had an exchange rate of about $.17, or 5.89 francs to the US dollar. That is, if you exchanged your travelers checks at a bank. The book explains that travelers’ checks “are still the safest and simplest way to carry money.” Today, of course, travelers’ checks have mostly been replaced by credit cards and ATM machines, which can be found in airports and on every other street corner in Paris.

MasterCard? Visa? ”Credit cards are not widely accepted in France, and you’re very unlikely to find restaurants … that accept them.” We were in mid-snicker before we realized that there are still many small hotels and restaurants in Paris that don’t accept credit cards. Some things don’t change.

Sample costs in 1982

According to the book, you could expect to pay the following prices in Paris in 1982 for these “everyday expenses”:

• A ticket to the opera - 80-200 ff ($13-34 in 1982; $29-75 adjusted for 2008)
• A “tot of whisky or gin” - 15-25 ff ($2.50-$4.25 in 1982; $5.25-9.15 in 2008)
• A woman’s shampoo and set - 60-100 ff ($10-17 in 1982; $21.50-$36.50 in 2008)

In other words, prices haven’t really changed that much, even with the dollar tanking against the euro. Perhaps that shampoo and set would cost you more today, but you could still find plenty of “tots of gin” for less than €6.30 ($9.15).

Hotels in 1982

The Fodor’s guide recommends over 40 budget hotels in Paris, categorized as either “Inexpensive” or “Moderate,” and lists them all, with impressive brevity, on just two pages! Several of the hotels mentioned can still be found 26 years later in our Paris guide. (Don’t worry–we’re reasonably certain that they’ve purchased new sheets!)

For example, here’s what they have to say about de la Sorbonne, a charming little thing in the Latin Quarter: “6 rue Victor Cousin, a Latin Quarter special, atmospheric and genuine.” Did you notice what was missing, besides room descriptions? Prices! And phone numbers!

The book explains broadly: “Inexpensive hotels will charge about 80-140 francs ($13-24, 1982) for a double room, moderate ones will charge 150-220 ($25-37, 1982).” Those really were the days. Today, as we note in our “Expect to Spend in Paris” guide, you can easily find an acceptable budget hotel for €80-130, or $116-188 ($53-87 in 1982). So yes, hotel prices seem to have outpaced inflation. Hotels, however, have probably upgraded their standards.

As for reserving that special place, well…

“Remember too that many inexpensive hotels have guests on an almost permanent basis and aren’t interested in tourists wanting accommodations for a few nights; as many of them won’t take advance reservations and don’t answer letters, your best bet is to go from hotel to hotel until you get lucky.”

So much for the good old days!

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It’s not often that we feel compelled to essentially offer advertising copy for another publication, but we’ve fallen in love with Time Out’s Country Walks Volume 1, a compendium of 53 walks (one for each week of the year plus one reserve) within a short distance of London.

The country walks listed in the book were honed over several years by an informal group of London area walking enthusiasts. The book, originally edited by Nicholas Albery and first published in 1997, is quite palpably a labor of love. Suggestions for lunch and tea are made for each walk. Length of walks, transportation information, and a toughness scale for each walk give prospective a sense of what to expect.

We admire the volume’s sheer enthusiasm and attention to detail—sections on lyme disease, the suggestion that walkers invest in “a compass with a swivelling rim marked in degrees,” maps, and its careful descriptions of walks and potential hazards (”exclamation marks in square brackets —[!]— mean ‘pay careful attention to the route here, it is easy to go wrong’”) are all super informative and helpful.

There’s also a second volume, which we haven’t yet checked out.

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Photo by oliviagiovetti

If you ask the older Expat Czech-set, The Globe isn’t what it used to be since it moved seven years ago from the Holesovice to the trendier address on Pstrossova, near the National Theater. Howevery you can still find them in the corner of the bookshop-slash-café that puts Borders to shame.

Browse the wide selection of English books in the storefront (including the box of freebies by the door), and don’t be shy to ask the English-speaking staff if they can order a copy of what anything don’t have in stock. After you’ve grabbed an expat (or expat-in-spirit) appropriate book, head to the back café and sit on or under its grand balcony.

The current owner has a keen eye for the aesthetic experience which works in the café’s favor, making it atmospheric without the overkill. Currently the works of Roman Zakrzewski, whose collection “The Only Woman in the World” features portraits of his wife at various ages, flirt with the eye (and can be purchased for a decidedly non-Cheapo price of $3,000 each).

A hand-picked mix of jazz, European house, and techno remixes of opera arias msehes well with the reasonably priced drinks (stop in for half-priced cocktails every day between 6:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m), and the live music featured on Friday and Saturday nights. In addition to the print menu of beverages and desserts, there is also a dinner menu that offers great portions, wonderful flavors, and prices as friendly as the waitresses.

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Photo by antausento (Villő)

Visitors to Hungary should consider buying a copy of the novel The Hungarian Girl Trap, written by English ex-pat Ray Dexter, who lives in Miskolc (a still life of which can seen above) in the east of the country.

The title is a reference to the scores of foreign men who are drawn to settle in Hungary by a beautiful Hungarian girlfriend. Dexter’s observations on living and working in his adopted country are always witty and sometimes laugh-aloud funny. Alongside the humor, he makes intelligent reflections on the socio-political quirks of a country that since 1989 has been continually in transition.

The novel also functions as an effective travelogue for those planning to travel beyond Budapest.

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It’s a big week for literary events in Dublin, with free readings popping up all over the place.

On Thursday, May 10 (2007) Anne Haverty will be reading from The Free and Easy, a satirical look at modern Ireland as viewed through the eyes of a returned emigrant from America. Haverty is an Arts Council of Ireland Writer Fellow and the 1997 winner of the Rooney Prize for Literature. Her reading will begin at 7:30 p.m. at the Robert Emmet Theatre, Trinity College Dublin, free of charge for the general public.

On Friday, May 11, poet Colette Nic Aodha will read at the Irish Writer’s Centre at 1:15 p.m. Nic Aodha writes mainly in Irish and teaches at NUI Galway. Admission to this event will also be free.

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A sibling love affair, a taxidermic incident with the family dog (whose name, of all things, is Sorrow), and a dancing bear. Need we say more? These plot details are just the tip of the iceberg in John Irving’s novel, The Hotel New Hampshire.

The story follows a family from New England as they open their Hotel New Hampshire and endure various travesties. They take the show on the road, moving to Vienna to run a Gasthaus for an old family friend, Freud, a former European refugee who, along with his traveling companion—the dancing bear—originally brought the parents together. Intrigued yet? You haven’t even reached Vienna.

We don’t want to spoil the plot, so we’ll just say that once you arrive in Vienna you can look forward to a hotel floor of prostitutes and a plot by radicals to blow up the Vienna State Opera. It’s a wild ride, and we are willing to bet you won’t want to put it down.

Because Vienna is a fairly placid place, a novel like this one provides an enjoyable and counterintuitive take on the Austrian capital.

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Every year the city of Vienna gives away 100,000 books to the masses. In 2005, John Irving’s “Setting Free the Bears” was given away for free. Irving’s first novel was directly influenced by his long stay in Vienna.

Last November, it was Toni Morrison’s turn. Her debut novel “The Bluest Eye” was the city’s pick. Morrison’s story is about humanism and racism in early 1940s America. Its themes intersect powerfully with Vienna’s seemingly never-ending fight against xenophobia.

As far as we’ve been able to tell, Vienna is the only city in the world that hands over free books written by internationally known writers for mass consumption.

Through May 1, ORF Wien and the cultural magazine Wien Live are requesting input from the public regarding favorite literary picks as part and parcel of the launch of the Read Me: Mein Lieblingsbuch program.

By signing up, inhabitants are eligible to win prizes. This week, a complete tea service is up for grabs. We’re hoping to be notified that our tea service will arrive shortly. The main prize? A weekend trip to London for two.

A huge gala announcing the top 100 choices is scheduled for May 2 in the Main City Hall. Andrej Kurkow—a Russian best-selling author—will grace the event.

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Photo by Philip Sheldrake

It’s no secret that Londoners love literature just about as much as they love their tabloids. When not sifting the mags to find out where Posh and Becks are currently being preposterous, Londoners are usually nose-in-novel on the Underground or while queueing at Sainsbury’s.

Here are just some of the places where we find our favorite wordsmiths in London:

1. Foyle’s bookshop was co-created by two brothers in 1903 after they both failed their civil service exams. The store first sold only textbooks; today it hosts author events (Chuck Palahniuk ring a bell?) and gallery tours at its flagship location in SoHo. It may not be the largest and most exciting shop, but it’s distinguished and impressive.

2. Travel fans (know any of those?) should visit Daunt Travel Bookshop in Hampstead, where it’s rumored that George Orwell once clerked. The bookstore has long been known for its courteous, brilliant staff (owner James Daunt writes reviews for The Times and The Guardian) and though the names that grace their events diary may not be household to us, the talks at Daunt sure do enlighten. Ol’ Jimmy Boy co-hosts many events with another famous lad from around the corner, John Keats.

3. Waterstone’s. If you like your bookstores big and comprehensive, then Waterstone’s is the place for you. The store on Piccadilly has six floors of literary madness. Look for JK Rowling when she signs copies of the next (and last) Harry Potter here in July.

Happy reading!

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