Boryeong Mud Festival that takes place every summer in Korea is definitely worth a visit. The mud in the region is said to have healing properties. And it's true, because having fun is good for you and you will have a lot of fun there. The next festival is happening between 18th July 2014 and 27th July 2014.

Boryeong (보령시) is a city on the west coast of Korea. The festival is located in Daecheon (대천동), which is a small township near the city center. Getting to Boryeong is very easy, there's a train from Seoul all the way there (Yongsan station, approx two and half hours).

When you get to Boryeong, you need to take a bus to Daecheon. It stops at the train station. Remember to say: "Beach-e", when you want to go to the beach. That's how you pronounce beach in Korea ;)

I visited the festival in 2011 and it was simply awesome. Everything was mud and mud is fun. Mud slides, pools, showers. There were plenty of games that will hep you make friends very quickly. Some of the games ended up in a mud lynch.I quickly learned that the most important thing when you lose is to cover you ears!

I've been to the festival twice the same year. Both days were equally fun. Most of the visitors were young Koreans and travellers. Some other travellers a I met said it was not as much fun during the weekend. I guess it gets a bit crowded (with sexy people though :)). I also made a lot of new friends, even though there were some funny misunderstandings between us, because they did not really speak English and I of course speak zero Korean. One moment totally cracked me up, when one of the guys offered me to go on a slide with his girlfriend by saying: "Do you want to enjoy with her?"

Here's some more info about the festival:

• http://www.mudfestival.or.kr/english/festival/festival1.php
• http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/SI/SI_EN_3_2_1.jsp?cid=697135
• http://www.boryeongmudfestival.com/

The cost of travelling can be divided into four groups: transportation, accommodation, food and other expenses. I've been always able to cut the cost of my travels to minimum by paying nothing for accommodation and it is certainly possible to save on the other three as well.

Free accommodation?

While people usually try to save by going to cheaper hotel or hostel, it's possible to pay absolutely nothing. Today I received my new couchsurfing.org (CS) postcard. CS is one of the social network and its target audience are travellers. There's more than just CS in the same category, but I have been using CS the longest. The oldest is probably hospitalityclub.org and one of the newest ones is bewelcome.org.

 The postcard is just a proof that I live where I claim to live ;)

In all these networks you are able to find friends that will host you at their homes. By visiting meetings and being a good guest and host yourself, you become more trustworthy, increasing your chances of finding a host or friends.

Living a place instead of just visiting

People all around the world like to meet travellers and show them around (for many reasons... :)). I've seen the world from a different perspective. I like to travel to a destination and live there instead of being just a tourist. And the traveller social networks certainly enable me to do so. When I am lucky the locals invite me to their homes and their lives and that's more valuable to me than just sightseeing. They say that the best things in life are free. I don't agree, because nothing is really free. The saying should read: "The best things in life can't be bought." and I'd agree with that one. Travelling on tight budget gave me more than I could ever buy.

I have always loved Japan and I sometimes wonder myself how could have I spent so much time there without knowing any Japanese and how did I manage to find such great friends with a huge language barrier. I must have been very lucky.

You've probably read or heard about Japanese bathing culture. Everything is true. You enter the hot bath naked and there can be other naked people as well. But most guides won't tell you one secret - you can actually bath all by yourself or with your partner (or anyone you wish ;)).