A memorable trip -- priceless

I know backpackers who have traveled around the world on $5,000.

On the other hand, TCS Expeditions, a high-end tour company in Seattle, sends about 90 people around the world in three weeks, to visit such sights as Machu Picchu in Peru, the Taj Mahal in India and the Serengeti Plain in Africa.

It costs $38,950 per person, but that includes stays at some of the best hotels on the planet, such as the Amarvilas in Agra, about 650 yards from the Taj, which has enormous picture windows in the rooms. Participants also get to travel on a private 747, which gives them all the space and comforts of commercial business class, complete baggage handling and expedited passage through customs.

Choosing which way to go doesn’t depend solely on how much money you have in the bank. In some ways, it’s a philosophical matter.

“Travel should not be a rich person’s thing,” says Rick Steves, the author of 24 books about visiting Europe on a budget and the host of public television’s “Rick Steves’ Europe.” “Sometimes the more you spend, the bigger the wall is between you and the things you see.”

Luxury travel can be isolating. “At the upper end of the hotel spectrum, you may only see the bellman, maid and clerk,” says Mike Reed, director of the hospitality division for Hostelling International in Washington, D.C. “Hostels are communal.... People get to know each other and go around together.”

A friend who is intimate with first class says disappointments at the high end are worse than those at the low. When she took her four children to Europe on the Concorde, she thought business travelers were treated better than her family. Conversely, I once flew coach from New York to Brussels on now-defunct Sabena Airlines for about $400 round trip, and the wine flowed, the flight attendants were charming and by chance I had two seats to stretch out in. Maybe there are fewer disappointments in budget travel because expectations are low to begin with.

High-end travelers sometimes get in trouble simply because they look rich. “If you don’t look upper class and aren’t being taken care of, you’re not as much of a mark,” says Reed of Hostelling International.

The “ugly American” label has affixed itself to first-class travelers, even if it’s undeserved. Simply wearing a good watch, carrying a fancy camera and eating in expensive restaurants can make high-enders seem insensitive in developing countries, where the disparity between rich traveler and poor local is especially wide.

“The ugly American is someone who can’t deal with the locals,” says Adrienne Forst, director of leisure travel for Protravel in Beverly Hills, which caters to the sort of people who stay in $500-a-night hotel rooms. “It’s a matter of attitude, not money.”

There are some compelling reasons to travel first class.

Certain places -- say, the Cote d’Azur or Newport Beach -- are distinctive because they have a moneyed air, making it difficult to fully enjoy the experience of being there on a shoestring.

Forst says people who take budget tours are often treated like cattle. Or the packages themselves are substandard, as I discovered on a camping tour in Alaska a decade ago. It was led by a guide who knew less about the places we visited than I did after reading a guidebook.

Budget travel can be physically taxing, especially as you get older. At the end of a 12-hour plane ride, I need a comfortable place to stay with the kind of amenities -- good beds, room service, a health club -- that help me fight jet lag.

Above all, perhaps, spending money freely on nonstop flights, taxis and guide services makes travel possible for people with limited vacation time.

After devoting himself to budget travel for 30 years, Steves now thinks the wise use of time, which can be expensive, is as important as saving money. Moreover, choosing budget approaches in an unthinking manner is futile when it’s actually less expensive, and easier, for a group of travelers to take a taxi from the airport to the city instead of a bus or train.

I used to travel frugally. I lugged my own bags and chose the cheapest airfare, no matter the carrier, inconvenient departure hour or number of stops. You would never catch me in a hotel that charged more than $100 a night. When I wound up on a long, gruesome bus ride across South America or in a dismal bug-infested New Delhi hotel room, I tried hard to find something to like about the experience.

Back home, I proclaimed the true virtues of budget travel: the way it puts you in close touch with the people and places you visit, the serendipitous adventures it offers. Only my parents, whom I once called, weeping, from New Delhi, knew I was a thwarted princess at heart, dreaming of a night at the Amarvilas, where I could see the Taj from bed.

Because I yearned for first class but had only enough money for steerage, I was driven to find the best tours, ways of getting around and places to stay for the least money. Sometimes I failed, but when I found a great hiking tour of southern Morocco or a wonderful little budget place in Oaxaca, Mexico, I was more content than I’ve been in $400-a-night hotel rooms. Never mind philosophy. Getting the most value for your money is the bottom line.

Steves is right. You don’t have to be rich to travel. Nor do you have to wander aimlessly around the world eating street food, with dirty clothes in your backpack. Take it from someone who’s tried both and learned there’s a happy medium.