How much does it cost to do a backpacking trip in Asia for 3-4 months on a budget?

LiveOnce

Hi all,

How much does it cost to do a backpacking trip in Asia for 3-4 months on a budget?

I am willing to live in hostels, eat basic food and travel by foot, buses, or trains (and flights if it's cheap).

I am looking to go to:

Thailand
Philippines
Cambodia
Vietnam
Nepal

Or most asian countries near to each other in Thailand.

Can anyone give me estimates of how much it costs? Or if you did it how much it would cost?

Kernow666

there's plenty of specialist websites for this if you have a look


I can give you basic costs off the top of my head you could easily live and stay somewhere for £10 a day


http://www.travelindependent.info/


http://whatsdavedoing.com/25-tips-for-backpacking-around-south-east-asia/


http://whatsdavedoing.com/25-tips-for-backpacking-around-south-east-asia/


http://beforeyoubackpack.com/


http://southeastasiabackpacker.com/20-unusual-travel-tips-from-a-seasoned-pro-in-south-east-asia/

LiveOnce

None of them seem to talk about a realistic budget though.

Like how much would it roughly cost to travel for 3-4 months touring the countries and places?

Hutchch0920

I went for six weeks back in 2010 around Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Flights were £400 and the rest was £1200. We stayed mostly in double rooms in hostels and B&Bs, nothing extravagant. Check out https://www.lonelyplanet.com for more up to date figures.

LiveOnce

Do you feel 6 weeks was enough Hutch? Thanks for the tip btw

HappyMJ

LiveOnce wrote: »

None of them seem to talk about a realistic budget though.

Like how much would it roughly cost to travel for 3-4 months touring the countries and places?

They are all going to priced differently. What standard of hostel would you like to stay in. There are 12 (or more) bed dorm rooms from £10/night or you could stay in a 4 bed dorm room and pay £20/night. You might be happy cooking your own food in the hostel which would be reasonably cheap at just a pound or two a day or if you're going to get out and see the country you'll be buying food on the go. Will you buy street food or will you sit down in a restaurant? What standard restaurant will you choose? I prefer to eat in casual dining restaurants and usually spend under £10 when I'm in the UK. You can buy street food for under £1.

I would budget for £50/day which would be more than enough for most people willing to stay in hostels. You could budget for £20/day and you will have enough to get by but I don't think it's enough to actually do anything but I think you would have a lot of fun trying to get good value out of that.

So...3 months - 90 days I would budget £4,500 plus whatever you need to spend in flights to get there and back.

4 months - 120 days I would budget £6,000 plus flights.

If you had £100/day to spend you wouldn't need to worry too much about spending excessive amounts of time to find value and could spend more time seeing and doing things. So that would be between £9,000 and £12,000.

Doshwaster

Really depends on how much you want to rough it. For £100 a day you'd be able to do pretty much anything you want. At £50 you'd have to keep an eye on the money you are spending ad have the occasional low-spend day but it should be manageable. £10-20 a day could be done it would be a fairly miserable existence of sleeping in crappy hostels, living off instant noodles and not having enough money to do anything enjoyable.

If you do decide to "rough it" most of the time and go for the full backpacker hostel experience then it is still worth budgeting for a decent hotel maybe once a week as a treat.

Internal flights in SE Asia can be got very cheap and can save a you a lot of travel time. Once you've done a 12 hour overnight bus journey on bumpy roads you'll happily spend a little extra for a 1 hour flight.

Don't forget to budget for the cost of visas.

LiveOnce

Brilliant advice. Have you guys done it yourself?

callum9999

LiveOnce wrote: »

None of them seem to talk about a realistic budget though.

Like how much would it roughly cost to travel for 3-4 months touring the countries and places?

Because there's no such thing as a "realistic budget". You could do 4 months for £100, you could do it for £10,000 - and yes, you'd get people deeming £10,000 for a 4 month trip to be "on a budget".

The quotes given above are perfect examples of this. As a backpacker myself, I wouldn't even entertain Doshwater's suggestion of £50-100 a day (I tracked finances on my last trip through Europe out of curiosity and spent about £15 a day - including flights and accommodation). Nor would I go along with HappyMJ's suggestion on hostel pricing. Both of their opinions however are perfectly valid and are what many/most people would consider a budget trip.

As is very often a problem on this forum, if you want useful answers then you need to give useful information. What standard of accommodation do you need ("hostels" isn't a valid answer)? Where do you want to eat? How do you want to travel?

DUKE

Have a look on the Tripadvisor forums too, this will give you an idea of the prices of accommodation & stuff that you want to do ....

Check out the homestays too, as you'll get a cheap room with a local family, & loads of good advice too.

Also be aware of who replies to your questions on tripadvisor as some people (Americans especially) will usually say that things are expensive. Although they probably are for them, but not so much for us.

LiveOnce

So a little bit more information:

I am prepared to live in a reasonably clean hostel / place / whatever as long as it has A) Clean bed A hot shower.

Food wise: I am happy to eat street food and live by that

What I want to do: I just want to see Asia in terms of nature, the outdoors etc. I am not fussed about luxury resorts etc. Occasional spends on wonderful things to see is fine though, like scuba diving, snorkling, visiting smallers islands.

I am fit and have no health issues.