Grand Tour Europa: vambora?!!

Para quem viajou, viajará, sonha em viajar, para os curiosos, para quem quer matar tempo no trabalho ou até mesmo para usar nas aulas de inglês, segue um blog muito legal que andei lendo:

http://frugaltraveler.blogs.nytimes.com/

Pelo que entendi, essa cara é um jornalista do New York Times que faz uma viagem budget por ano e reporta tudo nesse blog. Seguem alguns excertos que explicam mais ou menos a idéia do blog e a viagem desse ano (Grand Tour Europa!):

"Why Europe? Why retrace a route established centuries ago and since beaten into the dirt by countless millions of tourists? Why write about the most written-about countries in the world? Why spend money in the most consistently expensive region of the planet? For one thing, with the dollar in a long decline against the euro, frugal travel tips for Europe are needed more now than ever. I plan to show that just because your vacation budget is suddenly that of a backpacker, you needn't forgo a reasonable level of comfort.
(…)
But just as vitally, I want to discover Europe anew. We may think we know a place from constant exposure, but Europe now is not what Europe once was. Borders are dissolving, people migrating, languages overlapping, and I aim to bear witness, not just to new cultural phenomena but also to the beloved customs and institutions that persist. I will go beyond the path of the original Grand Tourists, who generally stuck to France and Italy, and cross into some of the European Union's newest members — Romania, Lithuania and Poland — as well as the perennial question mark that is Turkey, or rather, the Turkish side of Cyprus. Along the way, I'll be stretching the dollar as far as I can. The past two summers, as I circled the globe and drove across the United States, I stuck to a budget of roughly $100 a day for food, lodging, travel and entertainment. This year, unfortunately, I must make a concession to circumstances and raise my ceiling to 100 euros — about $156, at $1.56 to the euro. But before my dear readers start declaring that I'm out of my not-so-frugal mind, remember this: That startling figure is a maximum, a theoretical limit to be avoided even as I pursue a measure of luxury. (The Frugal Traveler is not a backpacker.) For the most part, and especially after I leave France and Italy behind, I plan to stay well under that amount."

Dentre algumas dicas pra lá de interessantes desse Blog, algumas só pra despertar o apetite:

- aluguel de apartamento para turistas em Paris: pra que pagar fortunas em hotéis e albergues xexelentos quando se pode alugar uma casa por 1 ou 2 semanas, sem burocracia nenhuma???;
- Couch Surfers (http://www.couchsurfing.com/): esticando o conceito budget ao máximo, pra que alugar um apartamento se você pode dormir no apartamento de alguém de graça???

- WWOOF (http://www.wwoof.org/): e agora ultrapassando o conceito de turista, pra que fazer turismo se você pode plantar batatas? Curioso? Dê uma olhada neste site, hehe.