Things to do on a budget culture vacation

Traveling on a budget will often allow you to become part of a local community as you're invited to stay a night or two at a family home aka: a homestay. In Kerala, you'll eat like royalty and in Japan you'll bathe like royalty. In Cuba music fills the home and in Jordan, the desert envelops Bedouin camps under the stars.

Avoiding expensive private cars and domestic flights by opting for an overland vacation. Public buses, sleeper trains, minibuses and custom built overland trucks are a great way to cut costs and discover a country – or multiple countries – at ground level. Real life happens on the ground, often away from busy tourist areas, and traveling across a country, overland, allows you to see how one region knits into the next as well as discovering the differences between life in a remote rural village and what you'll find in more built up urban environments. Delhi to Goa; La Paz to Santiago; Vientiane to Bangkok; overland travel is an affordable means of experiencing a country's cultural heritage, natural landscapes and preferred packed lunches. Sleeper trains reducing accommodation costs in favour of excitement on the overland express; while public buses give you chance to mingle with local people, heading out to work or to visit far-away family members.

The buzz, the melody, the sights, the smells; this is what makes life on the streets of Marrakech, Cusco and Ubud such exciting prospects for cultural travelers. Outdoor markets, street food stands and daily life will appear before your very eyes, just as it always has, as it always will. Chat to your guide and find out who sells the tastiest momo (Nepalese dumplings) in Kathmandu, the best banh khoai (pan fried crepe) in Hue or just pull up a plastic pew and trust your senses.

Most of us are searching for meaning and often that search has led to the creation of some incredible architectural designs, palatial properties and places of worship. From crumbling Mayan pyramids in Tikal National Park in Guatemala to Cambodia's Angkor Wat and the Hindu temples and Mughal mosques of India's Golden Triangle, ecclesiastical architecture and spiritual sites offer an incredible example of a country's ideology as well as a thought provoking back story to accompany art, symbolism and religious iconography.