Tlow backpacking = 6 great reasons Why no meals on trips? 

Ever since our inception back in 2012, when were called tlot.in (rebranded to tlow.in in 2016) we have never ever had food included on any of our trips.  The reason for never including food on any of our tlow trips, is to help make us stand out in an over saturated industry which only runs on service with a staple mind set.  

History

We at tlow, have always believed that food is one of the primary reasons that makes travel worth all the effort. From saving money each month to applying for leave and everything that comes in between. 

Even if you haven’t ever travelled multiple days on a no meals included trip, just think about it before you freak out. Food is the sole reasons why others end up charging 40-50% more for their so called “holiday package”. The ones who will offer you all meals or dinner and breakfast in a budget cost aren’t really giving you anything more than average food which will be dal, rice, roti, mixed vegetables, paneer/ chicken/ egg curry. 

Food

This will be the set menu for every day of your travel. We at tlow believe a very different philosophy of travel, which is where one eats and does what they want after we are done exploring the sights.

Freedom of exploring on foot each day, leads to exploring various street food and local run food stalls which will come up along your stroll in a new town, village or city. If like the rest, we keep meals included would you end up trying out different cuisines each day? 

It’s very unlikely you will end up eating anything beyond the package, which will actually only help tlow and its partners.  But it’s through this no meals included each traveller has a choice to go and explore food of his choice.  From a street stall to a fine dine, it’s on each individual.

Maths

When you actually do the maths of how much you end up spending when meals are not included, you will realise, even if you’re travelling solo or in a group, it will work out much cheaper without meals included as compared to when you go for a package with meals. The same budget for food will help you or your group try out different cuisines and at the same time you are not eating the same food every day of your trip. 

Money

Without adding meals to our trips, we have been running trips around Asia since the last decade. And the fact that we don’t include any meals has attracted the correct network of people, who are like minded and understand that travel is about meeting people and tasting the local food. It’s not about travelling to the ends of the world to eat the same food that you eat back at home. 

Extra

Even if you intend on paying us extra to include meals, we won’t do that. We are flexible in every aspect other than adding meals to our trip plans.  That’s one area that we firmly believe is a primary deciding factor in if you are a traveller or a tourist. Our entire setup at tlow has been backpacker experience oriented ever since the start. 

To explain this in layman terms, imagine buying a smartphone with preloaded apps that you can’t make any changes to. Freedom to choose is what makes the smartphone versatile, like wise on our tlow trips all that’s important is taken care of by us (transportation, stay, entry fee, etc).

Fun

All that you have to is take care of how to have fun. To help with deciding where you should eat. we have a on trip content host + plenty of blogs on the tlow site listing cafes, street food and restaurants in each place where we run trips. 

We at tlow are a blogging setup and food a vital element of exploring and experiencing the culture of each place.  This helps the locals as well as they get an opportunity to give you a taste of their pride – their food.