Maya Calderon
I arrived in Bangkok with $1,487 for what was to be a 30 day sojourn through 3 countries. 31 days later, after having traveled to 12 different cities, I left Thailand with $1,462 having sustained itself for some time on the consumption of copious amounts of pad thai, and with the Solo Travel bookings growing a phenomenal 42% between 2002 and 2004 on the main Travel websites in the market place for Budget travel to Southeast Asia.
However, this article will attempt to delve deeper into the day to day expenditure of such a trip. Instead of general tips on how to travel, we will show you how various decisions as to how to spend your budget can have vastly differing effects upon your overall costs.
Most Travel Guides for the Budget-Conscious Backpacker Ignore the Compounding Cost of Small Decisions When Planning A Trip.
Most budget guides to traveling in Southeast Asia are based off of common knowledge about budget travel, which in most cases isn’t enough to plan an affordable trip. Every backpacking forum or blog posts repeats the same advice such as stay in hostels, eat from street food stalls and travel by bus, but they rarely go into details of how different choices can effect the total cost of the trip in a significant way. While knowing these basic tips is a good starting point for planning a trip, it is not enough to plan an affordable trip.
A great example of this was my travel from Bangkok to Siem Reap. Instead of taking the $85-$120 flight I opted to take the bus ($28-$35) and cross into Cambodia at the border. Yes it took 9 hours instead of 1.5 but because I am paying $8-$12 per night to sleep in a hostel I didn’t want to burn through that kind of cash by taking too many flights. Nomadic Matt (Matt Kepnes) a very well known backpacker wrote a great article on this very subject called “Cheap vs. Expensive – How to Save Money on Long Distance Travel in Asia”. His article helped shape my traveling strategies and saved me a lot of money on this long journey.
I used Rome2Rio to map out my route between cities. This multi-modal trip planner showed all of the ways to get between places, including the cost and time for each. It was really useful for planning, because some of the cheapest single-leg flights or buses didn’t necessarily end up being the cheapest overall option, after taking into account the time spent traveling and the cost of accommodations at the destination.
Post-pandemic revenge travel has maintained momentum, particularly in the US, where Americans took an average of 17.5 vacation days in 2024, the highest in 20 years. Whether you have 30 days to roam or 14 days for a quick jaunt, time compression affects your spending. If you have a long time, slow travel can save you money. If you have a short amount of time, however, some flights may end up being cost effective for your trip.
Here is how I actually spent the $1,462 throughout the 31 days of travel in the 3 countries.
Here’s where the $1,462 went, with daily averages:
Category Total Spent Daily Average Strategy Used
Accommodation $341 $11 Hostel dorms, occasional guesthouse privates
Food $403 $13 Street food breakfast/lunch, sit-down dinners
Transportation $387 $12.50 Buses, trains, one internal flight, local transport
Activities $218 $7 Temple passes, cooking class, boat tours
Miscellaneous $113 $3.65 SIM cards, laundry, pharmacy items
This number surprised me. But I pay $11 per night. For a mix of $6-8 dorm beds and the occasional $15-18 private room of a guesthouse, I need for recovery. 6 nights of Chiang Mai accommodation cost me $7.50 per night on average, and 10 nights of Ho Chi Minh City accommodation cost me $9 per night on average. Most of all, I’m proud of the free breakfast at the hostel in Ho Chi Minh City where I stayed for 10 nights. This hostel’s breakfast served actual eggs – not just toasted bread. I paid $1.50 for street pad thai for breakfast, and $4 for restaurant pad thai for dinner. Thus, I averaged $13 per day for food.
I treated my food costs as my splurge for my trip (while street food is generally very cheap there are very few instances where you can get a good, cheap, healthy meal of any kind). And so for breakfast and lunch I would get Pad Thai from the street vendors and markets for $1.50. For dinner, I would go to a nice restaurant, usually in an air-conditioned room, where I would pay $4 for the same dish I had for lunch. The result was I was generally able to keep my food costs to $13 a day, which for me is healthy.
One internal flight in the region (BKK to CM) cost $42 on Hopper. That saved the cost of two nights of accommodation and 12 hours of bus travel. The price prediction for the flight-booking-app also proved to be correct with a saving of $18 when booking on Tuesday as opposed to Sunday.
Thailand Versus Vietnam Versus Cambodia: The Budget Reality Check
While the three countries have different cost structures, which most guidebooks ignore, in summary: Thailand is most expensive but has best infrastructure, Vietnam is best for food value, Cambodia is cheapest for accommodation but the most expensive for main attractions. I chose to travel first the way most budget travelers do and then the second way which felt longer but saved 40 minutes in the end.
Angkor Wat’s 3-day pass costs $62, which is 17% of my total activity budget for 31 days. The Grand Palace in Bangkok costs $17. Vietnam’s Halong Bay overnight tours start at $85. These flagship attractions dominate destination costs.
Here’s what I learned about each country’s budget sweet spots:
Thailand: Chiang Mai vs. Bangkok as a travel destination for budget travelers. Chiang Mai has 40% cheaper accommodations than Bangkok. I spent $83 across 6 days in Chiang Mai versus $67 across 4 days in Bangkok. When it comes to food for budget travelers the night markets in Chiang Mai have way better value than Bangkok. For Vietnam, I noticed that Hanoi and HCM City had similar price points, whereas Central Vietnam (Hoi An and Da Nang) is 20% – 30% cheaper than up north. My average expenditure per day in Hoi An would be $38, compared to $51 in Hanoi. Cambodia: The cost of tourism in Siem Reap (the main destination in Cambodia) is extreme. The town exists for Angkor Wat, so everything and everyone there has a price tag for tourists. Phnom Penh (the capital) has a wide variety of very affordable hostels with beds for $4-5 (as opposed to $7-9 in touristy Siem Reap).
Most travel influencers are either paid to travel and promote destinations or hotels and flights. This is known as #sponsored. I estimated that in total travel influencers must receive around $15 billion of advertising value each year from social media. And many of them specialize in traveling around Southeast Asia. Most of the posts you see of these influencers though are not of them backpacking around and staying in budget hotels. Rather they are of them lounging by the pool of an infinity pool of a 5 star hotel and then of them in a beach front villa.
“Mass tourism is a disaster not because there are too many tourists but because they concentrate in time and space. Most of them end up in a handful of “top” destinations, which quickly become expensive and overcrowded while nearby places with similar attractions remain affordable.
Instead of going to crowded Sihanoukville I went to Kampot. The same beaches for 60% less. And no masses of people, no armies of cruise ships.
The Strategies That Actually Moved the Budget Needle
Most budget travel advice is written as a series of very small tweaks to optimize cost – spend a few dollars less here, haggle for a few dollars less there. That type of optimization is not worth the mental energy required to achieve it.
One major way that I saved money was by ensuring that I stayed in each destination for at least three nights. This got rid of so much of the “arrival tax” to any new destination, where you would spend your first day just trying to figure out where to eat, and the best place to buy a local SIM card, and how to get around on public transportation. Each time I arrived in a new destination, I would waste half a day and spend around $15 to $20 to figure everything out. However, by cutting down my moves from 12 to 8 over the course of my 31 day trip, I was able to save around $60 to $80.
Book your accommodation a day prior and not weeks in advance. If you’re traveling in Southeast Asia, be aware that there is a massive supply of hostels, and you can save $2-4 per night by booking on a Walk-In basis as opposed to online in advance. Only during festivals and or public holidays does advance booking of similar accommodation online as well as on a Walk-In basis become similar to Rick Steves’ advice on advance booking in more expensive parts of the world and that is to book up as far in advance as possible.
Third, one good restaurant meal a day (for roughly $5 to $7 per meal). This strategy has many merits, not least of which is it can save you from a lot of discomfort and expenses due to too much street food. After weeks on the road I can attest that this strategy worked for me every single day for 31 days straight while my $13 per day budget for food allowed for for all sorts of great, healthy options along the way.
D) Tours: Self-guided versus paid guided tours. For many of the famous sites in Asia such as Angkor Wat, most of Ho Chi Minh City, and much of Bangkok, one can easily explore these on one’s own for a fraction of the cost of an organized tour. In the case of the Angkor Wat archeological park, the cost for the pass was $62 for three days, and the cost for a tuk-tuk driver for three days was $6, as opposed to $90-130 per person for a 3 day organized tour.
Experience activities have value. Take the Vietnamese cooking class that I took for $28 that was worth every penny whereas the Thai massage course that I signed up for for $180 for 6 days would have cost me the same for 18 actual massages around the country.
What Most People Get Wrong About Southeast Asia Budget Travel
My final misconception or rather way of thinking, that has been revolutionized during my numerous travels is the way of thinking regarding prices and budgeting. For years I’ve been reading blogposts from fellow travelers, talking to other backpackers on the road and doing research online regarding prices of tourist attractions, hostels, restaurants and even plane tickets. What I have always kept in mind, even before I started traveling, was the golden rule of $50 per day. Now, I am fully aware that this rule was established many years ago, around 2015-2017, when travelling was much cheaper than it is today, and therefore it’s not applicable anymore. My own daily budget for the month of traveling around Vietnam was $47.16 per day and I managed to stick to it thanks to the certain trade-offs I was making. I have changed my way of thinking and regarding this topic I am currently in the phase of fully agreeing with my current way of thinking.
I avoided the typical island-hopping route: The islands of Koh Phi Phi, Koh Samui, and Phu Quoc are among the top budget-killers for travelers. While the beaches are absolutely stunning, the cost of staying on the islands is typically double that of a mainland city, and once you’re on the island, you are forced to pay island prices for food and other supplies. For travelers who really love beaches, there are coastal cities on the mainland, such as Da Nang in Vietnam or Kampot in Cambodia, which offer beach access at far more reasonable prices.
I didn’t budget for any alcohol and thus drank no beer or wine. In theory 2-3 beers per day should only cost about $60-90 per month, but the fact that I decided not to include it in my travel budget already makes it out of budget before even going.
Instead of spending $85 to take the Halong Bay cruise, I spent an extra day in Hanoi where I enjoyed that cities street food for a mere $15 on that extra day. The Halong Bay cruise is one of those expenses that you just cannot justify in order to keep within your budget. (Unless it’s an absolute birthday treat, or similar special event).
Some points regarding overtourism: The aspect that overtourism affects differently than say luxury tourism is very valid especially with the overtourism occurring in places that have historically been poor and in which tourism is developing in an unregulated manner. Price mechanisms are becoming a way in which destinations are managing crowds and for poor backpackers these can price them out of certain destinations in a way that may not affect higher-spending travelers as much. However in many cases it is better for destinations and for travelers in terms of value, for tourism to develop in secondary destinations and for slow travel to be promoted in these places in order to allow for more sustainable growth.
Sources and References
Booking.com Solo Travel Survey, 2024. Published data on solo travel booking trends across major platforms.
STR Hotel Performance Report, 2024. U.S. hotel occupancy rate data and historical comparisons.
World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) Annual Reports. Taleb Rifai statements on overtourism and destination management strategies.
U.S. Travel Association Vacation Time Study, 2024. A study regarding American usage of vacation days and how that relates to travel before and after the pandemic.
Sofia Almeida reviewed this against her existing knowledge of slow travel in the area.
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