Backpacks, Banter and Budget Travel: Andrew Markham on Around the World on a Pound a Day

Around the World on a Pound a Day is part travel memoir, part budget masterclass, and entirely entertaining. Chronicling Andrew Markham’s incredible 1,254-day journey across 23 countries, the book offers a lively and often laugh-out-loud look at what happens when you swap a steady job for a backpack and try to see the world on less than the price of a pub lunch.

From the sands of the Thar Desert to the backstreets of Bangkok, Andrew’s storytelling is sharp, self-deprecating, and full of heart - with plenty of cultural insight, unfiltered reality, and unexpected kindness along the way.

We caught up with Andrew to talk about what inspired him to take the plunge, what he learned along the way, and how it feels to now be telling the story in print.

Around the World on a Pound a Day is such a bold and brilliant concept. What sparked the idea to attempt this kind of trip, and to document it along the way?

I’d always been fascinated by maps, history and geography at school and wondered what lay outside of the small market town I’d been brought up in.

Inspired by my time in the scout movement and seeing people like John Noakes on Blue Peter, I yearned to take my sense of adventure one stage further and go out into the world and see some of the sights that I had learnt so much about.

At age 23 I’d just been made redundant, and I was at a loss as to what to do next with my life. After some careful thought I decided to plan a journey around the world.

With the lack of job prospects locally, I opted to head for Aberdeen, where I was told jobs were easier to come by.

As I was able to survive on £50 a week dole money (without bills, of course), I worked out if I saved £2500, that would be enough for £50 a week for a year’s travel. That would be my plan.

To keep in touch with home (mainly so Dad could see where I was), I arranged to send back articles to my local paper. I also arranged with BBC Radio Humberside to give them a call to report on my progress.

When I arrived in Calcutta about 7 months into my journey, I got speaking to a lady I met in the British Council Library, where I spent time escaping the 40-degree heat of the city. She suggested that, as I expected to be away for a while longer, I ought to keep a detailed journal of my trip. I decided the easiest way for me was to keep small mementos, tickets, etc., scribble notes on them and send them home from time to time.

You covered 23 countries on a shoestring budget. Were there moments when you genuinely thought, “What am I doing here?”

Yes and no for different things. Yes, when standing next to an iconic landmark like Ayers Rock or Niagara Falls. I would ask myself in almost disbelief, “How did I get here?” Even when I found myself in difficult situations, I never once thought that I wished to be back home in Brigg.

Although there were difficult times, I never regretted being there. From the moment I set off, I saw it as one big adventure, and I was out to experience this planet regardless of what was in store. I couldn’t expect everything to go smoothly; I had to experience the bad to appreciate the good.

There were, however, times when I had time to reflect on a particular incident. For example, in Iran, where I was lucky not to be caught up in an Iraqi raid, or when I was picked up by a lorry in China and we lurched up into the mountains on a gravel road on the way to Guilin. I felt relieved – but I survived to tell the tale.

The book is packed with humour and honesty. How did you strike the balance between sharing personal struggles and keeping the tone light and engaging?

Sometimes one has to see the humour in negative situations; otherwise, I would never have continued. In my life I’ve always found humour a good way to connect with people. It helps to create a rapport and breaks the ice. Dad always told me not to take life too seriously and smile at it when you can. Being able to laugh at myself meant that as I was writing the book and reliving some of the situations I had been in, I had to make sure that I wasn’t too negative.

There are some wonderfully vivid cultural moments throughout the book. Was there a particular place or encounter that left a lasting impact?

This is a difficult question. I met so many wonderful people from all sorts of cultural backgrounds. It’s difficult to say one place was better than another. The world is so varied, and we can learn so much on how to live our lives from other cultures.

However, the place that I feel left the most impact was India. It has so many extremes. Whether it was the way people lived with very little, as I saw in Calcutta, or the opulence of the palaces in Jaipur and Jodhpur in Rajasthan.

The landscape in India can be very bland, especially in the more arid desert areas such as Rajasthan. But this is balanced by the colour of the buildings and trucks. The vibrancy of the fabrics and the rich sounds and smells of street life in the cities.

Travelling on such a tight budget must have required a mix of strategy and spontaneity. Did your approach to risk or comfort change as the journey went on?

I researched as much as I could before setting off, like general costs, but often the only way to know the lie of the land ahead was by taking advice from fellow travellers when I stopped in a place before moving on.

The £50 a week was in anticipation of paying for everything as I travelled. I also set aside an amount that Dad could send out to me to get me home should I run out of cash. It did worry me for a start, but once I met up with fellow travellers and they advised me on the work I could find and where to find it, I was reassured. As I moved on, I found it easier. Thanks to my working as I travelled, I was able to earn enough money to both feed and rest myself but also to pay to see tourist attractions as I went along.

It does amuse me somewhat that despite the advances in technology, some people yearn for holidays they see as a DIGITAL DETOX – “OFF THE GRID”. Maybe I started a trend?

Were there any unexpected moments of kindness or connection that reminded you of why you took the trip in the first place?

So many to mention… I felt so humbled that people were willing to help a stranger like me, whether it was inviting me to travel along with them or offering me hospitality in their own homes.

This was the case in almost every country I visited. Even in Iran, where I was expecting hostility. A local (Mehran Majosny) helped me and my Swedish travelling companion negotiate our journey through his war-torn homeland.

As this seemed to happen as often as it did, I was sure my mum was looking over me as my guardian angel.

There were unexpected links to home with people who had moved away from Brigg, especially in Australia. This kept me connected to home. It also reminded me that people all over the world are generally kind and good.

Writing from memory across so many different locations can be a challenge. Did you keep journals along the way or rely on memory, photos, and instinct?

I did keep a small diary and was able to keep tabs on the route I was taking. This helped with jogging my memory. The articles I had fed back to my local paper en route helped, and on returning to Brigg, I did a further series of reflective and more detailed articles for that paper, which formed the basis of this book. Along with giving talks and relating my trip to friends, it kept it alive. Also, I had (then) over 300 photos and lots of assorted memorabilia to keep it in mind. Looking back through the photos as I wrote also triggered memories to help.

What was it like revisiting the experience through writing - did it make you see the trip differently?

The articles provided me with memory prompts, and what started out as a compilation of anecdotes soon became a lot more as I edited the book and remembered things that I’d left out.

As I travelled, I was in a bubble and at the time just lived for that moment and at the next place I wanted to go. Writing about the trip made me look outside of that bubble and reflect on the overall experience.

Writing the articles, as with anything in life, gave me the gift of hindsight. It allowed me to see my journey through rose-tinted glasses. Even things that were terrifying at the time – like being questioned by Chinese police – I looked back on in context, i.e., culturally and politically, what made people react to my presence in their country. It helped me understand how misunderstandings can occur.

If someone told you they were planning to do something similar - budget travel on the edge - what’s one piece of honest advice you’d give them?

When you’ve decided where to go and researched an approximate route – just GO.

Trust your gut instinct with people. There are, I found, many lovely, genuine humans out there, but be on your guard for those that aren’t. Don’t expect to be able to work in every country, as some have tightened up on foreigners working. This is especially true of Australia, where 40 years ago there were no mobile phones or GPS systems, which can now be used to track you, so it’s far more difficult to go under the radar.

Most countries like to know where you are staying. As I travelled, I rarely knew where I was going to stay for the night – whether I would have a bed or whether I would be out in the open. In Australia, for example, I spent a lot of time sleeping outside, whereas in China I generally had a hotel or hostel bed. I would usually find accommodation when I arrived in a town, either for an overnight stay or something longer. Now, of course, you can book a hotel miles away at the press of a button.