It’s a common sight - the affluent Westerner haggling with the local who has perhaps 0.1% or 0.01% of the Westerner’s wealth. The traveler is enjoying the ‘challenge’, and the local is thinking about the children to feed or the school books to buy.

Bartering is viewed as entertainment, ‘part of the experience’, or a kind of sport for many travelers, especially in some destinations - Peru, Bali and India, for example. I consider myself a pretty good negotiator, but ‘bargaining’ with someone over a dollar that might represent 10% of their daily income just doesn’t feel right. I have all the power, and the interchange becomes more about their degree of desperation than anything else. If I REALLY needed cash, I’d sell things at or below cost, too, even if it made no sense long-term. This kind of bartering is economic bullying.

Getting a bargain is very important for many travelers, or rather the prospect of feeling ‘ripped off’ doesn’t feel good at all, psychologically. That’s natural, but would you cry foul because you paid $X for an item at one store and then saw a similar item for $X-1 at another? We accept in our own economies that different stores sell similar or identical goods at different prices. We may regret having paid more than might have been possible, but it’s almost laughable to think we might consider ourselves cheated. However, I’ve seen this exact scenario played out many times while traveling in poor countries. Just because one merchant is even more desperate than another doesn’t mean everyone should drop their prices to match the lowest. Why not set a price you’d expect to pay in your country, and be happy if you pay less than that? This helps to prevent accumulating a lot of things you don’t really need or want, just because they were cheap.

There’s a rapid process of acclimatization that occurs when traveling in a poor country. Initially everything seems very cheap, but soon the mind calibrates to the new currency, and every peso counts. I’ve been alarmed to find myself quibbling over the equivalent of a dollar, before I stopped to think about what the amount in question would represent back in my ‘real life’. Nothing. If you want to barter in a healthy way, be aware of the tendency for this recalibration to occur.

What about the argument that failing to bargain will lead to price hikes for everyone? Good, I say! Expecting to be able to travel to a developing and take advantage of low pricing is just that - taking advantage. I see no reason why tourists shouldn’t pay more than locals, on average - how else are these tiny businesses going to get ahead? I feel most comfortable when I’m happy with the price I’m paying (which will almost certainly be far below what I’d pay in a first world country) but I also have a feeling that I might have made their day just a little bit. Incidentally, I don’t see why I shouldn’t tip generously in poor countries either - just because it’s not generally done doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be. If someone works just as hard for me in Tanzania as in LA, why should they receive only a tenth of the tip just because I can get away with it?

What about the inflated prices asked by many merchants who hope to either encounter a fool, give themselves room to bargain, or simply charge what the market will bear? This can be a little tricky. My approach is to be up front in telling merchants that I don’t wish to bargain and that I wish to pay a fair price - if they don’t respect my request, I politely thank them and move on. If it’s something I really want and am not likely to find elsewhere, I try to reason with them again. It can be a challenge to stop this from descending into garden-variety bartering, but I do my best. Even stating my intention to leave the item in question can become inadvertent bartering, with the price dropped instantaneously. I find it helpful to have a general idea of the asking price for the item by asking around a little, and then aiming to pay roughly that much for the one I like best.

I realize there are many who will disagree with my views on this point. That’s OK with me - these are the values and decisions that feel right for me, and I’ve shared them just in case they resonate with you too. There’s a much greater satisfaction in completing a purchase thinking ‘That’s a great price for me, and I bet I made his day!’ rather than ‘I definitely got the very lowest price he would accept.’ I think of it as doing my little bit for the local economy.

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