[owenversteeg]

Although the third world can be surprisingly cheap, it is often surprisingly expensive. Add that to the cost of flights (a $990 round-trip flight to a place equals $33 a day if you stay a month) and things begin to add up. And although billions of people in the third world do eat for cheap, the cheap/local food and what you want to eat may not match up. Combine that with different prices for foreigners and your lack of local knowledge about cheap, good places and you'll be paying a lot more than you'd think.

Only go to places that maintain an illusion of hygiene and prices will rise fast. For example, you might pay the equivalent of $3 more per meal for a place whose employees wear gloves. But in reality, the dirty-looking place next door is actually cleaner; they throw lemon juice on their boards after cutting meat. At the same time the nicer-looking place lets raw chicken touch everything while handling money with the same gloves they use for food.