here's no better time to travel than during a global financial meltdown. Price wars between airlines have led to plummeting ticket prices, and posh hotels are practically giving away their beds. Promotions on all kinds of products – ranging from hot chocolate to haute couture - make it possible for even unemployed bankers to get a taste of the good life. We asked our local bloggers to uncover the best deals, and to tell us about the simple and inexpensive pleasures that can always be found in their cities. With cheap tickets and insider advice, there's no reason why a shrinking economy should stop you from expanding your horizons.

Melbourne

Photo: Ali MC

"Money, money, money… root of all evil..." So sings reggae legend Horace Andy over the thump thump thump of deep reggae bass pulsating from my stereo. It’s dastardly hot, I can’t sleep and I’m hoping the vibrations of the music will keep the mosquitoes away.

Horace Andy might well be right. A global financial crisis is underway – nothing like this has been seen since the great depression, or so they say. Governments scramble to pass bailout packages through legislation and the list of unemployed grows longer each day. One can almost see the four horsemen of the apocalypse appear over the horizon, brandishing scythes of sudden death.

Kevin Rudd deliver the national apology to the Stolen Generations. Photo: Virginia Murdoch

Australia’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is an odd fellow in more ways than one. A Labor politician, he speaks fluent Mandarin and claims to have been drunk on only two occasions. Needless to say, he is worlds away from previous Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke, who once held the world record in drinking a yard glass of beer.

As you would come to expect from a Mandarin-speaking teetotaller, Rudd’s policies can be equally baffling. In the midst of the flood of rising debt and one of the worst droughts on record, he has decided to issue almost every adult Australian with $950 cash.

Free. No strings attached. Just go and spend up big. Seems that Rudd, while grappling with the complexities of Mandarin, failed to grasp the elementaries of Mao.

Not that I’m complaining, mind you. I’m trying to save money to go travelling later this year, and 950 big ones would look good in my bank’s savings account, eventually to be spent in numerous Cuban bars and Jamaican dancehalls.

Photo: Rimi Khan

But for the time being, the belt tightening continues. So, in light of the strapped-for-cash world in which we have recently been plunged, I’m going to spend the next few months exploring Melbourne, looking for the best the city has to offer.

So stay tuned for information. Along the way, we’ll meet some of the quirky, funky locals who kick about this great city and get their tips on where to go and what to do.

And if living on the cheap gets all too hard, well, I’ll let you know how my $950 weekend of debauchery pans out.

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