Cheapest Countries in Asia
What’s the cheapest country in Asia? This post compares the bare minimum travel costs of 17 Asian nations. Daily travel costs range from under $4 to over $30. Here’s a hint: the two cheapest countries both start with the letter “I”.
This post follows up where Cheapest Countries in Latin America for Travel left off. Asia has long been known as budget travel paradise, so we compared the countries of Asia to find out which is the cheapest country in terms of baseline travel costs.
And the winner is: Indonesia, with India as a close runner up. And Asia’s budget-friendly reputation appears healthily intact, especially within South and South-East Asia. Excluding Bhutan, there are four more Asian destinations under the $10/day threshold, and that’s pretty astounding.
About these figures: the Baseline Daily Budget is an extremely low estimate, and your actual travel costs are likely to be significantly higher, even if you’re careful. The figure is for one person, but assumes you are sharing a room with a friend. Two budget restaurant meals are included; you’re on your own for everything else: transport costs, entry fees, groceries, additional restaurant meals, street food, alcohol, etc.
Also in this series: Cheapest Countries in Western Europe and Cheapest Countries in Latin America.
Ivan
Interesting! and more surprisingly, the government just can’t take advantage of any of these. It’s just cheap because the low rupiah value, compared to USD or even Euro.
Oh, not to mention that multi-million travel site …
May 27th, 2008 at 7:48 pm
Waiguoguizi
These are averages that do not reflect reality.
I have live in several places in China. In some my costs easily exceeded your estimate, in others I only used half your stated amount and drinks were already included.
I think a better estimate in general is to look at the GDP of a country as a guideline and then check the city you want to go.
Feb 16th, 2010 at 9:28 am
budgetmonkeydave
Yeah, prices certainly vary between big cities and small towns, and between touristy areas and off-the-beaten path destinations.
I’m not sure, however, that per capita GDP is the best indicator of prices. The problem is that GDP doesn’t take into account the value of a currency and other cost of living factors, like availability of goods and services. For instance, I imagine the very poorest countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo or Haiti would be much more expensive than Thailand or Vietnam. Of course these are extreme cases and generalities tend to break down at the margins.
It’s an interesting theory though, and I’d be interested to see how closely related cost of living (and travel) is to GDP per capita.
Feb 17th, 2010 at 4:13 pm