A Budget Traveller's Surprising Journey to Kazakhstan

A Budget Traveller's Surprising Journey to Kazakhstan

A budget traveller booked a holiday for less than the cost of a pint – and you might be surprised where it was. Curtis Mitchell Jones, 27, recently visited Kazakhstan where he managed to snag a one-night stay in a hotel for just €5 (£4.20). The average cost of apintin the UK now costs around £5. Although Curtis, from Newcastle, booked a single bed, he was even given a bonus upgrade to a double. However, he soon realised the hotel had its challenges. Curtis says his room had some rather unexpected features – including a detachable toilet seat, a bathroom that looked like it had “dissolved a human”, a broken TV and exposed plumbing. Also, the only heat source he had was a “tiny radiator". He stressed that while the room had its problems, the staff were “lovely”. Curtis, who works in marketing, said: “It was the cheapest room I could find and given I was arriving at 5am, I didn’t really want to spend much on a place I’d only be spending a few hours in.” While Curtis admits he didn’t have high expectations for the budget stay, he thought it would be a little more comfortable after viewing the hotel online. He also says he didn’t expect to be kept company by cockroaches as he tried to get some sleep. The self-confessed seasonedtravelleradded: “I wasn’t expecting much, but based on the photos I had expected a little more – they’ve got a good photographer. I was meant to have a single bed, but they gave me a double, so there’s that. “The WiFi didn’t work though so I was disconnected from the world, I only had the roaches to keep me company. The hosts were very nice and helped me organise a cab to the train station - can’t complain about that side of things. “The lock only worked on the room if the key was in it, though, which was fine when I was there but meant when I went out I had to carry my valuables on me or leave them in an unlocked room.”

Kazakhstan is a landlocked country, primarily in Central Asia that is bounded on the north and northwest by Russia and on the east by China. It is the largest country in Central Asia and the ninth largest in the world, according toBritannica. Kazakhstan is a “very affordable destination to visit” and is in the “top 10% of countries in the world for its affordability”, as perBudget Your Trip. The budget travel website says that a one week trip to Kazakhstan usually costs around $164 (£126.90) for one person and $329 (£254.59) for two people. This includes accommodation, food, local transportation, and sightseeing. Tripadvisorhas shared several tourist attractions in Kazakhstan, from Kok-Tobe Hill where you can see panoramic views atop a cable car journey, to the scenic Big Almaty Lake and Bayterek Tower, an observation tower with a three-tiered deck that offers panoramic city views and features a distinctive gold-mirrored sphere. Unbelievably, a night in Kazakhstan wasn’t Curtis’ cheapest stay. He previously paid just €3 (£2.53) for a dormitory bed in Mexico. He recalled: “That was far worse – it was a dorm bed with some very questionable people staying in it. I’m pretty sure the staff stayed up with some of the guests smoking crack until about 3am. I had two nights booked there, but left after one – it was truly abhorrent.”