{"id":45611,"date":"2026-02-19T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/?p=45611"},"modified":"2026-02-16T14:46:32","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T21:46:32","slug":"lodging-hacks-unusual-tours-better-asia-nomad-options","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/lodging-hacks-unusual-tours-better-asia-nomad-options\/","title":{"rendered":"Lodging Hacks\/Unusual Tours\/Better Asia Nomad Options"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Lodging Hacks to Save You Money<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve mentioned many money-saving lodging strategies over the years in this newsletter, but I collected them all in one place in this blog post<\/a> and it\u2019s likely there\u2019s at least one you haven\u2019t considered. I mention day passes, home exchanges, credit card hacking, and alternative apartment services, but here\u2019s an easy one to try for your next trip. When booking a hotel or apartment, stay somewhere near a metro stop well removed from the main tourist zone if you\u2019ll be in a popular city. The rates are almost significantly lower for the lodging, but by extension for restaurants and grocery stores too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Truly Off-the-Beaten Path Tours<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Nomadico co-founder Kevin Kelly has taken several tours with Young Pioneer Tours<\/a>, whose motto is \u201cleading group tours for people who hate group tours to destinations your mother would rather you stay away from,\u201d<\/strong> and at budget prices. They deliver all that, famously taking small tours to restricted places like North Korea, Turkmenistan, Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and to \u201cUnrecognized Countries\u201d mostly in Africa. They just started offering a new tour to Least Visited Countries<\/a>, mostly Pacific island \u201ccountries\u201d that are normally very hard or expensive to reach. While these tours may sound dangerous, they don\u2019t go where it is actually dangerous. Rather they are adventurous. See a North Korea story from the founder<\/a> in Perceptive Travel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

United and Jet Blue Now Connected<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I announced last summer that a big alliance was forming that would let Jet Blue and United loyalty members seamlessly access (and earn from) each others\u2019 flights and now it looks like they\u2019ve got the systems connected. This gives you many more destinations options (plus JFK in NYC) if you\u2019re sitting on a lot of United miles and opens up the world if you\u2019ve got JetBlue ones instead. Eventually you\u2019ll be able to book one ticket that includes both airlines too and they say that elite status recognition will be reciprocal eventually. See the details here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Digital Nomads Getting Slightly Better Options in Southeast Asia<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Asia is a hugely popular continent for digital nomads, especially in the desirable countries with low living costs like Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Indonesia. Trying to stay on legally and work remotely has historically been tough, however, and as this article on recent changes<\/a> points out, \u201cNomads spent money locally, governments avoided costly enforcement, and everyone looked the other way.\u201d While Thailand\u2019s DTV that\u2019s potentially good for five years is far and away the best on offer now, the other countries are scrambling to compete by finally making it attractive for non-retirees to stick around legally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

A weekly newsletter with four quick bites, edited by Tim Leffel, author of A Better Life for Half the Price<\/em><\/a> and The World\u2019s Cheapest Destinations<\/em>. See past editions here,<\/a> where your like-minded friends can subscribe and join you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nomadico issue #194<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13684,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[2385],"tags":[2386],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45611"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13684"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45611"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45618,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45611\/revisions\/45618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kk.org\/cooltools\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}