List: Fifteen Ways to Celebrate Your Journey Even When Your Cash Is a Downer

So you ran out of travel money and need to be cheap for a couple of days? Instead of feeling sorry for yourself for the silver spoon that was sadly missing on your natal day, find ways to enjoy yourself. Think local. There's a good chance that by slowing down, you will actually have some of your best and most authentic travel memories and have some of your favorite photo opportunities ever.

1.) Any place in the world, you can sit at an outside cafe' as far away from the tourist district as possible, relax with whatever food or drink will get you a legitimate seat and luxuriate in the fine art of people watching. As a courtesy, don't stay too long if you are taking a table they need, or maybe intentionally choose a time when the establishment is not busy and they don't care how long you watch. Even better, see if you can share a table with some locals and get a fresh perspective on this place so far from home.

2.) Find a park where the local kids' teams play and spend an afternoon watching soccer or their equivalent of little league and root for the home team. Watch the kids where ever you go. Watch how parents, umps, kids, different teams cheer for their team or behave towards their opponents. How are they similar or different from the games you have watched in your own hometown?

3.) Go to a local Thrift Shop and search for bargains. Stuff will be much cheaper and less touristy than in the venues created for tourists. Think local. I have a rich sister who always looks for the thrift shops when she travels because she finds such interesting things. If there are any yard sale type signs along the way, track them down and search for a good souvenir to take home.

4.) Find a place that will sell you an inexpensive bouquet of flowers and give them out to ladies with little children or perhaps older women or whoever won't misinterpret your gesture. Tell them it is a Random Act of Kindness and explain the concept. Take pictures of these ladies you charmed, and their smiles will reward you for years.

5.) Get a local paper and find a listing for church or school activities and look for bazaars or Fall Festivals or choir performances. Listen to the local choir sing Bach or Beatles or Orthodox music and be enriched.

6.) If your location has water, whether ocean or river, go to the docks and watch the boats and people coming in and out, whether working or playing. The ancients said that water is a gazing glass for the soul; look at your shimmering image in the water as if you lived 2, 000 years ago in this land and imagine who you would have been if you lived here then.

7.) Visit the oldest cemetery in town and read the oldest epitaphs. Take some great pictures and congratulate yourself for your creative use of time. Care about the lives of the people buried there.

8.) Find a local non-touristy hangout where they have a television and watch television with the locals. Root for their team, toast the good plays or laugh at their jokes.

9.) Go to the local McDonald's or KFC and see if your favorite combo back home tastes exactly the same here. Do some great people watching and see if you can tell the locals from the other broke tourists. Take notes for an interesting travel article.

10.) Instead of rushing through every possible famous site and paying multiple entrance fees, take your time and take some great pictures of details or unexpected angles so that your pictures don't look like everyone else's.

11.) Go to a local park and enjoy the flowers or lake or watch the kids play or the older couples walking hand in hand. Sit a while, walk a while, sit some more, take pictures of everything you see. If you are really tired, fall asleep on a park bench for the first time in your life, knowing that no one knows who you are.

12.) Focus on people instead of tourist sites. Take photographs of people who are not posing for you. (Of course, within the realm of common courtesy or with permission.) Try to make conversation everywhere you go. Learn enough of the local language to demonstrate that you respect them and don't just expect them to cater to you. Using their language is one of the best ways to connect with people.

13.) Spend hours browsing in a bookstore. See how many countries actually have their own versions of an "Idiot's Guide."

14.) Stay in a very cheap hotel and rejoice in the money you save. I mean if it is safe and clean, what more do you need?

15.) No matter where you are in the world, no matter how tired you are, make sure you watch the sun rise and the sun set. Take a picture every time you can, record your location. At home, create a photo journal of the sun's rhythm against the rhythm of your traveling days, and the metronome the sun provides for your journey.