Homestay a budget approach to Travel and Explore Himalayas and its cultural life

                         

 Travelling in Himalayas is always an offbeat travels in terms of accessibility,  budget, adventure, research etc. They are not normally under a mainstream short term family recreation and fun tour. For me they are more purposive, investigative, adventurous and  research oriented. You need a bit long time to fell it and get it in real sense. Mingle with the community, learning the language, understanding local culture, art, architecture, environment, ecology or exploring nature wherever you are interested is time consuming factors. Consuming more time is consuming more money means you should be in strong budget. Your budget and your dream may not be always parallel.  Here I gona share you tips to visit Himalaya in your desire budget  not compromising your real purpose in mind.

1. Follow Homestay:

Always follow homestay, try to contact the operator directly, they are actually very affordable if you able to bypass the agency. I know very affordable homestay below INR 600 in  highly  popular community operated homestays in the hills of Nepal and within the range of INR 800 in Sikkim too. It is jus upon you to search and find original homestay owner. It makes your travel  to Himalayas very affordable viable for long-term study and exploration tour. For me even good is to go for picking some home not actually operating homestay professionally. 

2. Always carry your light camping gear:

Camping at Maenam wildlife sanctuary

Carrying own light camping gear is always a great advantage for managing your Himalayan tour. It may be village site camping or hiking. Stay and learn and enjoy from your host family. It always not necessary to have a good bedroom in your host family rather use your own gear. It will give you confidence to chose any short of professionally non involved family to your host pick. More over they have good knowledge of hiking and exploring offbeat site of their place but they lack gear to support you. In this case if you have bare basic equipment just be relax and explore. I personally enjoy such unprofessional host family since they are good in the sense of understanding the natural lifestyle of the people your are studying. In case of those  habituated and professional host I have observed some short of misrepresented theme of, I mean the cultural product which in fact are not living among them. They are the revived and acted dead  tradition. It give us some times the figure of misrepresented facts, I mean a cultural history in place of living culture.

3: Follow the principle helping/ volen-tourism:

Himalayas are desperately waiting for its conservation but conserving Himalayas without promoting the interest of marginalize  Himalayan dwellers is myth. So, a responsible tourism demand voluntarism from the part of guest also. Doing some research in the field of dying cultural values, and art, promoting it, organising community and outsourcing the the out come for greater benefit of the local tribe and marginalized people add value and life into you. It inspires and motivate for continuous exploration, learning and cultivating values in societies through more tour to Himalaya. 

4. Learn from and teach them too:

For a visitors its a great time to learn from community but equally its a time time to contribute. Now it your turn to give something to the local community. It boost the real  purpose of touring. Here you can connect your tour with the greater cause of community. I have posted a great example of such type of activities which some pro-community eco- tourist contributed in the field of conservation of indigenous architecture of local people , a new prospective  of contributory tourism, can be an idea to you.

End Note:

Managing locally at your own initiative,  travel plan to offbeat Himalayan tour destination bring you to desired budget. Take support of local community and support them.