In 2017 we quit our jobs to take a trip around the world (RTW trip = Round the World trip). And it was just as awesome as you’d expect it to be.
But the whole experience would not have been possible without us first crafting a super long, detailed budget to keep us in check so we didn’t run out of funds halfway through our allotted time! Some people think we’re crazy for keeping track of everything so closely, but we think we’re awesome for it! And now you get to benefit off our crazed money tracking skills! #yourewelcome
Before we get into the list, we’ll explain how we came up with our method of deciding where was cheapest. If you read our post titled “How We Created Our Round the World Travel Budget (and How You Can Too)” you’ll understand even better how we tracked everything and came up with these numbers.
Basically, we kept track of all of our spending in each country and broke everything up into different categories such as accommodations, food & drink, activities, local transportation, mishaps, etc. With all of our spending totaled at the end of our stay, we were then able to divide the total amount we spent in that country by the number of days we were there to come up with what we refer to as average daily spend (ADS). We have days in that country where we spent more than the ADS and some days where we spent less, but when you divide the total dollar amount by the total number of days, you get the average dollar amount we spent in a single day.
Total dollars spent ÷ Number of Days in Country = Average Daily Spend
The average daily spend is how we rank all the countries on this list. So to clarify, this does not mean that we spent the least amount of money total in each of these countries – that differed a lot based on how many days we stayed in each country. So we decided the best metric to determine which countries were truly the cheapest was to base it off of the average amount of money we would spend in one day there – which evens out the playing field a lot more.
Keep in mind, this is the spending for everything for TWO people (except for transportation getting to the country and transiting between cities). And if you’ve reviewed our RTW Trip Budget, you probably noticed that Macau actually comes in at the cheapest destination at a whopping $26.52 per day. But this figure it not really comparable considering we stayed with a family friend the whole time we were there. Macau is NOT one of the cheapest destinations we went to. Just wanted to clarify that!
We traveled to 22 countries on 5 continents in 292 days (see our full RTW itinerary here) and these were the cheapest countries we visited:
1. Laos $38.50/day
Laos was by far, no contest, the cheapest country we’ve ever been to! And sadly, this country gets skipped a lot when people are planning their South East Asia adventures. It’s so unfortunate because not only is this country super cheap, it is also full of amazing experiences, views, culture, and food!
Our experience getting to Laos, wasn’t an easy or a pleasant one. We were shuffled around on buses, ended up in the wrong city, and spent 2 nights in a row on a bus from Vietnam for a total of 38 hours, when it should have been 25 hours – talk about exhausting. Basically, Laos had to really impress us to make it to the point where we didn’t hate our time there and this little country totally rose to the occasion!
We spent our time between Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng. And both places are totally a backpacker’s dream destination. There are inexpensive places to stay, the local food is crazy cheap and so tasty, and best of all, there are loads of exciting activities to partake in. For example, while in Vang Vieng, we checked out the beautiful Blue Lagoon, explored caves, tubed down a river full of bars, and tubed through a cave all within 2 days. And there is seriously so much more we could have done. If you like adventure, and you like it cheap, Laos is a great place to start.
2. Thailand $41.59/day
So we have a confession to make. Although Thailand is already a super cheap country, this ADS number should have technically been higher.
Don’t get us wrong, you probably could make it in Thailand on this amount of money for two people, but you would have to indulge a little less than we did. The truth is, we accepted a job filming a conference in Bangkok for 5 days, and that’s pretty much the only reason we even went to Thailand considering we had just went the year before.
We were paid for our work and received free accommodations (probably the nicest place we stayed the whole trip – check it here) and food out of the deal. We didn’t add the money we made to subtract from our expenses, but our ADS is significantly lower because we had about 5 days out of our total 15 days there that was completely free for us.
But even if you exclude those 5 days and just take our total spend of $623.92 and divide it by the 10 days where we were paying for things, the ADS of $62.39 would still fall in the top 10 cheapest destinations we visited. Therefore, Thailand totally earns it right to be on this list.
Our time in Thailand was split between Bangkok and Krabi. We had been to Thailand once before and had also been to Chiang Mai, Phuket, and the Phi Phi Islands. Although we didn’t hit up the latter cities this time around (and subsequently don’t have spending data for them), we still highly recommend all three, but you’ll definitely have to be a little more careful with spending, especially in the islands.
3. Indonesia $46.58/day
Ok so don’t hate us, but we have another confession to make! Part of our time in Indonesia was also cheaper for us due to a free accommodation we surprisingly came up on!
We met an amazing women on our flight from Cambodia to Indonesia who offered for us to stay in her villa with her and her husband. She was a Canadian women who split her time between Bali and Kuala Lumpur . At first we politely said thank you, assuming we weren’t going to take her up on such a gracious offer, but after some careful thought and little Facebook stalking, we thought “why not?” (There are plenty of reasons why not considering safety, but in this particular instance, we decided to go for it – and we’re happy to say NO REGRETS!)
So with this instance, we were paying for most everything, but for 3 nights we did receive free accommodations, so take that as you will. But even if we did pay for another 3 days of accommodations, Indonesia would still be on this list.
We spent all of our time in Bali (in various parts) and in the Gili Islands. We spread out our time in Bali between Ubud, Lovina, and Denpasar and spent the majority of our time on the Gili Islands on Gili Trawangan or Gili T for short. We were able to snorkel, go on a dolphin tour, and check out the Sacred Monkey Forest among other things even on this super cheap budget!
4. Colombia $48.27/day
We really were spoiled at the beginning our our trip with a country like Colombia. Not only is it uber cheap, but the country is full of different landscapes and climates suitable for any type of traveler. There are cities and jungles and beaches and mountains. What more could you want?
Maybe we were a little conservative with our spending here since it was our first country of our Round the World trip, but even then, I can’t think of anything we wanted to do that we skipped out on purely because of our budget. Colombia really is just cheap!
We started out in Cartagena and worked our way to Medellin and then down to Salento. We mostly stayed in Airbnbs while in Colombia, but we also had our first hostel experience, which was quite pleasant (and we even got a free upgrade)! We did tons of activities like a took a boat to the Islas del Rosario, a coffee plantation tour, a day trip to Guatape, and visited Parque Arvi. And still, the cost for both of us was less than $50/day! We are still in amazement over this!
5. Serbia $50.20/day
Serbia was the only European country on our whole RTW trip, but we made a stop there for good reason – to attend a friend’s wedding! The timing worked out just perfectly that we were sort of in the area (in between Egypt and India) and we had some days to spare.
Although we were in Belgrade for a week, we didn’t do too many things besides hang out with our friends and the other wedding attendees. Our largest expense was on accommodations, but even that was super cheap because we stayed in a hostel with a private room the whole week. A few days of meals were taken care of because of the wedding and rehearsal dinner, but we did go to the local pekara (bakery) for treats almost daily and were there just long enough to attend a Beer Festival.
Serbia would probably have been a bit more expensive for us if we were not visiting for a wedding, but even then, it still is a fairly cheap spot in Europe to check out.
6.Vietnam $53.36/day
We traversed basically the whole coast of this country and feel confident saying that it’s one of the cheapest destinations in the world. We were able to do SO much with such little money, it’s insane.
We started off in the South in Ho Chi Minh and worked our way up the coast stopping in Nha Trang, Da Nang, Hoi An, Ha Long Bay, Sapa and ending in Hanoi. We purchased tour packages for Ha Long Bay and Sapa so our Activities spend really included our Accommodations, Food & Drink, and Local Transportation as well. We also spent many nights sleeping on overnight buses which are great ways to save time and money on Accommodations.
Overnight buses are great ways to save time and save money on accommodations 🚌 #budgettravel Click To TweetWe definitely did stick to mostly budget options while in Vietnam though – opting for cheaper hotels and tour packages (which sort of bit us in the butt when we got on the boat for our Ha Long Bay tour only to find out the ceiling of our room was held together by bandaids). You could spend a little more here and be a bit more comfortable, but it was just fine for us. Plus, all the crappy experiences make for the best travel stories.
7. Cambodia $62.12/day
Maybe we were tired of seeing temples by the time we reached Cambodia near the end of our nearly 5 months in Asia, but even so, we can’t deny the level of cheap that is Cambodia.
We spent time in both Phnom Penh and Siem Reap with a big chunk of our time spent at Angkor Archeological Park to see Angkor Wat and the surrounding temples. We bought a 3-Day pass so we could see as much a possible (the whole park is massive), but we saved some cash by doing a self-tour the first two days and riding bikes rented from our hotel and then the third day, being picked up by a tour guide before the sun came up to see the sunrise at the temple.
Cambodia is an awesome place with a lot of history (albeit a sad history) and fun places to relax and party. We didn’t spend any of our time there near the beaches, but we’ve heard they’re pretty awesome and I’m sure the prices are comparable to what we spent in the big cities.
8. Ecuador $65.02/day
Ecuador was the second stop on our Round the World trip, and again, this destination totally spoiled us. Can you believe two of the cheapest countries we went to were our first two stops? They set the bar way too high!
Not only is Ecuador super cheap, and modern, but they also use the US Dollar! If you are a traveler from the US like us, this is really beneficial to you considering you don’t have to trade your currency, thus losing a fraction of the money in the transaction.
We were able to travel around the cities and the whole country for really cheap by bus. A lot of places are really walkable and safe to travel to also which is great for the budget since walking is free! We traveled to Quito, Latacunga, Baños, and Cuenca and were able to visit the Middle of the World (Mitad del Mundo), Cotopaxi Volcano, and La Casa del Arbol as well as go ziplining and canyoning down waterfalls. There is definitely no shortage of things to do on a budget in Ecuador!
9. Zimbabwe $67.28/day
Ahh Zimbabwe. Our memories of this country are not entirely positive, but it’s worth a nod all the same. It’s low cost got it on this list so it deserves to be here. Lots of people visit the country every year and stay in ultra luxury, modern resorts and go on fancy safaris and eat decadent food. But if you want the cheap backpacker experience, you have few options, so keep that in mind if you like having a lot of things to choose from.
It’s important to note that it was nearly impossible to get cash out of ATMs in Zimbabwe at the time we went (2017) and pretty much no where we went accepted credit or debit cards as a form of payment. We had to survive the entire 6 days we were there on the little bit of physical US Dollars we brought with us, instead of doing what we normally do, which is take out small amounts of local currency from ATMs as we go. Luckily we did not have to convert a bunch of money either because the Zimbabwean Dollar is worthless anywhere outside of Zimbabwe meaning you would not be able to convert it to another currency like you are able to with most others.
The inability to get cash at a whim might have played a part in our low expenses in this country, but we did get to see Victoria Falls which was insanely beautiful and got the extra unique experience of riding an overnight train between there and Bulawayo.
10. Argentina $67.80/day
Our time in Argentina started off really rocky with Ashly sick and with an Airbnb host that wasn’t letting us in, forcing us to sit outside in the cold while nothing else was open since it was extremely early in the morning. But these setbacks didn’t last long and Argentina turned out to be a beautifully modern and cheap stop for us in South America.
Many of the ‘activities’ we did in Argentina didn’t cost any money besides transportation. One day we walked around Recoleta Cemetery, one day we volunteered at a food bank, one day we walked around the city and ended up at a Polish festival in Buenos Aires…true story. We marveled at the beautiful architecture and walked around the outdoor markets. We ate ice cream and tried faina on pizza. We cooked for ourselves in our Airbnb more than a few times. But one activity we did pay for was the entrance fee to Iguazú National Park to see the amazing Iguazú Falls on the Argentina side.
Although Argentina is probably not what comes to mind when you think of cheap destinations (especially in comparison to other South American countries higher up on the list), you can definitely travel there without breaking the bank!
Have any questions about how we traveled to these destinations for cheap? Let us know in the comments!
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Ashly is the founder of reversible travel clothing brand, SPLICE clothing, and half of the budget travel couple, Happy Nomad Couple. She is from Las Vegas, USA and has been to 32 countries on 6 continents. She’s the mastermind behind this blog and does most of the traveling planning and dreaming for her & Carlos.
