I used to be down and out once, but some how I found myself in a top notch hotel eating smoked salmon sandwiches in the sauna.

Callum Swift, who had come to film for his new film the Uprising, on the other hand was sleeping rough in the parking lot. Here’s his story on how to do World Cups on the cheap.

I decided pretty close to the time that I should take a few days off work and go to film the first round of the world cup in Maribor. After a quick search of the net I found some pretty cheap flighs to Graz, which isn’t actually in Slovenia but fairly close. I thought I could get a bus or something to Maribor and sort everything else out from there. I was late for the flight and very surprised when I got on the plane to find that it was pretty much a world cup charter! Thanks to that I managed to hitch a lift to Maribor with DC from Burgtec which was mint. The first night was spent on the floor of Ben Bakers hotel room, but that plan was soon shot down when the owner of the hotel clocked onto me. So I caught a bus into town to try and buy a tent, as I didn’t have space to bring one with me. The only thing I could find was a toddlers play tent for €10 from a toy shop so that would have to do. It turns out that 2-6 year olds are actually quite small, so I could fit my head and shoulders in then the rest of me was out on the parking lot.

But I wasn’t complaining, the weather was awesome and I was getting some stunning footage, so a rather cold and lumpy nights sleep was a small price to pay. Unfortunately the wind got the better of the tent and it broke, leaving me with all my belongings enclosed in a tangled plastic sheet. After the racing on Sunday I packed up all my stuff and left it in the broom cupboard of a hotel, which left me free to spend the night wherever I wanted after the party in town. That went off big time, the only thing missing was some dancing from Josh but after his crash I doubt he was in the mood for a party. Luckily Nathan Rennie unleashed his best moves topless so that made up for it.

The sun was up and I had some floor space arranged, but that was at the top of the hill and apparently we were going to walk up there. I wasn’t so keen on that idea so I found some cardboard in the parking lot and settled down on that, only to be woken a few hours later by the garbage men hooting me to get off their cardboard! I managed to blag a lift to the airport and got home in one piece, and the total expenditure of the weekend was as follows:

Return flights to Graz: £80
Kids play tent :£6
Food: about £8 (the majority of my food and water was obtained free from the press center)
Extras: £15 (that covered drinks and a dance from a lovely Slovenian lady)
All in all I think £109 for four days in the sun watching a world cup is a pretty good deal, that’s only £40 more than a dragon round!

callum swift