Which countries in the world offer the most value? Where can you travel to in 2024 that will allow you to go for longer, enjoy a higher standard, and save more money? The following are 15 destinations around the world that offer the essentials – accommodation, transportation, and food – for less:
Our Favorite Cheap Destinations Quick List:
- Best in Southeast Asia for Food: Vietnam
- Best in Southeast Asia for Beaches: Philippines
- Best in Asia for Hiking: Kyrgyzstan
- Best in Europe for Food: Greece
- Best in Europe for Beaches: Croatia
- Best in Europe for Quaint Towns: Estonia
- Best in Europe for Smaller Crowds: Georgia
- Best in the Americas: Guatemala
- Best for Safari: South Africa
ASIA
1. Laos, $30/day
Back in my budget backpacking days around Southeast Asia, Laos was one of the two destinations where I was able to keep my budget at $30/day, even though the accommodation was slightly more expensive than most places in Southeast Asia at that time. Many of the amazing activities you can do in Laos are cheap. I paid $2.50 to see one of the most beautiful waterfalls in the world, $7 for a full-day tubing experience along the Vang Vieng river, and $6 for an awesome tiger balm massage. You can also rent a motorbike for cheap and venture off to the smaller towns, where everything is even cheaper! With more and more new hostels built to cater to the increasing number of backpackers, you can go for cheaper for longer. However, if you have a bit more to spend, you can get a gorgeous room for closer to $35 which would easily cost $100 in the US.
- Meals: $3 – $9 per day. Some hostels provide a basic breakfast
- Accommodation: $5-$10 per night in a hostel
- Transportation: $6 – $15 for a motorbike for the day (prices may vary depending on the bike condition and your haggling skills), or up to $25 for an intercity bus ticket
- SIM card with data: $6 for 1.5GB with 30-day validity
2. Vietnam, $35/day
I probably had the healthiest and cheapest street food in Vietnam. Think a soup with rice noodles, cilantro, amazing broth, and a whole shank of pork for $1.50, or a cup of strong, aromatic coffee for $1. Regarding transportation, if you rent a motorbike, you are all set for the day. However, I understand that not everyone is comfortable riding a motorbike, especially in countries like Vietnam where the road traffic can be overwhelmingly chaotic. The good news is that GrabBike (similar to Uber but on bikes!) is widely available in all major cities, and the cost is as low as $0.50 for a 2km ride! Long-distance buses and trains are also affordable and reliable. Accommodation is similarly pleasant and easier to afford than almost anywhere else in the world.
- Meals: $5 – $12 per day. Some hostels provide a basic breakfast.
- Accommodation: $5-$10 per night in a hostel
- Transportation: $8 – $15 for motorbike rental or GrabBike trips
- SIM card with data: $6 for 1.5GB with 30-day validity
3. Cambodia, $30/day
I know for sure that if you choose to rough it, you can easily spend a month in Cambodia with just $1000. Dorms are very basic but can be dirt cheap, the same goes for food and alcohol. I also had my haggling skills to thank as I was almost always able to talk my way out of being charged unfairly by the Tuk Tuk drivers. There are some one-off expenses such as the 3-day pass to Angkor Wat, which is currently set at $62, and diving trips that add up, but there will also be days of riding bicycle in a small village and eating cheap and delicious meat skewers when just a dollar or two could stretch very far.
Another thing is to consider the gorgeous, mostly new boutique hotels on booking.com. They are obviously not as cheap as staying in hostels, but for the price, they are so worth it! I’d definitely splurge on a couple of nights and have some R&R time by the pool.
READ NEXT: 23 cheapest 5-star hotels around the world
- Meals: $5 – $10 per day. Some hostels provide breakfast.
- Accommodation: $5-$15 per night in a hostel
- Transportation: $6-$15 for a motorbike for the day (prices may vary depending on the bike condition and your haggling skills) or for an intercity bus ticket
- SIM card with data: $2 for 1.5GB with 30-day validity. Yes, it is that cheap!
4. Northern Thailand, $32/day
The north of Thailand is easy on a tight budget. As one moves south, costs for accommodation start to double, triple, and even quadruple. Stay up north if you are short on time and budget for your Thailand trip. Even in popular places like Chiang Mai and Pai, you can easily find basic dorms for less than $7. If you stick with eating street food (To each her own, but why eat pasta when you can have pad Thai, am I right?), not only will you save yourself some money, the experience will be much more authentic and delicious, too. As far as activities go, you really do not need a lot of money to enjoy your day as most activities such as visiting the White Temple, hiking, or gathering three other people from your hostel to rent a car and go on some day trips, are all affordable.
Meals: $5 – $15 per day. Some hostels provide breakfast
Accommodation: $5-$10 per night in a hostel
Transportation: $6-$10 for a motorbike for the day (prices may vary depending on the bike condition and your haggling skills) or a rental car split between 4 people
SIM card with data: $7 for 1.5GB with 30-day validity
5. Indonesia, $35/day
The thing about Indonesia is that it can be really cheap, or it can be quite expensive, depending on one big thing – transportation. Intercity traveling can be very time-consuming and costly, as is traveling from one island to another with a private boat. To save costs, stick with a region or two! There’s a lot to do and see, and spending more time in one place will only allow you to travel deeper and have a more meaningful experience anyway. If you want to travel far and wide on a budget, my biggest tip is to take the local transportation!
On the flip side, food and drinks are cheap throughout the country, not to mention absolutely delicious too! Riding a scooter through the mountains costs very little, and so does hiking, chasing waterfalls, and slouching in a hammock by the beach all day long. Hostels are plentiful, social, and affordable, especially in places like the Gili Islands.
- Meals: $5 – $15 per day. Some hostels provide breakfast.
- Accommodation: $7-$15 per night in a hostel
- Transportation: $8-$15 for a motorbike for the day (prices may vary depending on the bike condition and your haggling skills)
- SIM card with data: $5 for 2GB with 30-day validity
6. The Philippines, $37/day
The Philippines’s archipelago can cost quite a lot of money and time to get around, and the hostel options aren’t nearly as abundant as in other Southeast Asia countries. While these two factors seem like a big turn-off for travelers trying to stretch their budget as far as possible, there are ways to keep your travel cost in the Philippines low. If you choose to travel during shoulder seasons, book your flights and plan your journey way in advance (it is not the country to always wing it!), and try to stick within 1-2 regions, the Philippines can still be affordable. On top of that, the country has some of the most gorgeous islands, beautiful dive sites, affordable group island hopping tours, and hidden gems you’d have had to pay so much more to experience in other parts of the world. In that sense, the Philippines is worth every peso you spend.
- Meals: $5 – $15 per day. Some hostels provide breakfast.
- Accommodation: $7-$20 per night in a hostel
- Transportation: $10-$15 for a motorbike for the day (prices may vary depending on the bike condition and your haggling skills) or $15 – $20 for a boat ride from one island to another
- SIM card with data: $6 for 2GB with 30-day validity
7. Malaysia, $40/day
Being one of the most economically developed Southeast Asian countries, Malaysia is often perceived as expensive. On top of that, when I visited Malaysia for the first time, a few people told me it wasn’t worth staying long. However, I ended up meeting lots of locals, more able to communicate and find more common ground with them than I had in Cambodia or Laos, and had so much fun exploring Cameron Highlands, the jungles of Borneo, and the gorgeous islands. The cherry on top? They were all affordable. An overnight bus from Kuala Lumpur to the Perhentian Islands costs as little as $15, there are so many interesting local neighborhoods and markets that are free to explore, and finally, the Malaysian cuisine is like no other – you can find food from just about any culture, and it’s so cheap and delicious – but not necessarily healthy. Malaysia is also one of the cheapest places in the world to get a PADI scuba diving certificate.
The one thing that could make Malaysia expensive to travel in is alcohol, which is highly taxed. However, if you don’t plan on drinking every night, that will not be an issue.
- Meals: $5 – $10 per day. Some hostels provide breakfast
- Accommodation: $7 – $15 per night in a hostel
- Transportation: $5 – $7 for a full day of train and bus rides, or $15 – $20 for an overnight intercity bus ride
- SIM card with data: $8 for 2GB with 30-day validity
8. Sri Lanka, $35/day
Like many countries, Sri Lanka can be seen on a backpacker budget, or one can spend a small fortune there. The biggest kicker was the price of activities, such as safaris, and admission into the UNESCO World Heritage sites. With each running about $40-$50 per ticket, this made Sri Lanka more expensive to fully explore. That said, Sri Lanka can be done on closer to $30 per day on the days that you don’t pay for expensive activities. Food, transport, accommodation, and Internet are relatively cheap. One thing to note about transportation is that in some cases, taking a taxi / uber (in major cities) can be cheaper than renting a bike. Hiring a driver for the day can be as low as $5 per person if you can find people in your hostel to split the cost. The cheapest transportation is the train, which is delightful and IMO, the best way to travel through Sri Lanka.
Disclaimer: 2022 saw a great amount of unrest in Sri Lanka. As of the publishing of this post, the country is still under a level 2 advisory (exercise increased caution) from the US State Department.
- Meals: $5 – $10 per day. Some hostels provide breakfast
- Accommodation: $8-$15 per night in a hostel
- Transportation: $15-$20 per person for a private car and driver split between 4 people, or $3-$5 for a second-class cabin train ride between cities
- SIM card with data: $2 for 1.5GB with 30-day validity. Yes, it is that cheap!
9. Nepal, $30/day ($15/day if trekking)
Nepal is a very cheap country to travel through, with most food, accommodation, and transport running at just a few dollars if you eat, sleep, and travel using local options. For food, while I never seem to get any stomach problems eating street food, street food in Nepal does not have the best reputation. You can get cheap and delicious home-cooked meals in local-run small cafes though. Be very mindful when you book your accommodation online, as big corporations have taken over local homestays and turned them into boutique hotels and resorts. The “local guesthouses” you’ve booked may very well be part of a big hotel chain. I suggest booking the first couple of nights online, and looking for accommodation from real local guesthouses when you arrive.
If you end up trekking, as long as you do so independently and avoid Mt. Everest itself, which costs tens of thousands of dollars, you can travel for as cheap as $10 per day on food and accommodation at the lower elevations, and closer to $20 USD at higher elevations on popular routes like the Annapurna Circuit.
- Meals: $5 – $10 per day. Some hostels provide breakfast.
- Accommodation: $7-$12 per night in a local guesthouse
- Transportation: $10-$15 per person for a private car and driver split between 4 people, or a local bus ride between cities
- SIM card with data: $3 for 1.25GB with 30-day validity. Yes, it is that cheap!
10. Taiwan, $45/day
Two words: street food. For less than $2, you can get a plate of fragrant rice with pork/chicken on top, a large deep-fried chicken chop, or a bowl of delicious vermicelli with oysters. Food in Taiwan is delicious and ridiculously cheap. If you are a foodie on a budget, you know where to go! In cities like Taipei and Tainan, you can register for their city bikes, which cost less than $0.50 per hour per ride and are free for the first 30 minutes. This means you can possibly get around the city all day without spending any money on transportation at all.
That said, high-end food and clothing prices in Taiwan can sometimes be at US-level. Intercity traveling is either expensive with the High-Speed Rail (HSR), or time-consuming with slightly cheaper options. Internet is also not as cheap as in the countries above.
- Meals: $5 – $10 per day. Some hostels provide breakfast
- Accommodation: $10 – $35 per night in a hostel (I highly recommend this one in Taipei!)
- Transportation: $0 – $3 for a full day of bike, bus, and train rides, or $20 – $40 for an HSR ride between cities
- SIM card with data: $33 for unlimited data with 28-day validity
11. India, $25/day
India is perhaps the cheapest country to travel to, but if and only if you’re willing to haggle and hunt for deals. Keep in mind that cheap rooms that run in the $3 range will be very basic and it’s normal to shower with buckets of heated water. You will be hard-pressed to find cheap gems in the north, but the south with its gorgeous beaches may prove more fruitful when it comes to budget accommodation.
The best way to travel through India on a budget is to book things yourself. This means no agents and no online booking sites (except for some intercity travel. For that, check out 12Go Asia). Similar to Nepal, if you walk into local guesthouses, restaurants, and tour companies, you could easily get the same things in person for half the quoted price online.
- Meals: $3 – $6 per day
- Accommodation: $5 – $10 per night in a local guesthouse
- Transportation: $1 – $3 for a full day of bus and train rides, or $8 – $30 for an intercity train ride (sometimes a domestic flight costs as little as $30, if you want to splurge without actually splurging!)
- SIM card with data: $3 for 1.5GB with 30-day validity. Yes, it is that cheap!
12. Kyrgyzstan, $25/day
Kyrgyzstan is the country of choice for most travelers interested in trying out Central Asia, and thus most well-suited to travelers of all budgets. Food is cheap and interesting, and so is getting around using the minibusses. Public transportation prices are fixed and are probably the cheapest aspect of traveling in Kyrgyzstan. As for accommodation, you can find hostels in major destinations and local homestays in more rural places for less than $10. If you are doing a multi-day hike like the Tian Shan Mountains, the tour price should include most things.
- Meals: $4 – $8 per day
- Accommodation: $8 – $12 per night in a hostel or a local guesthouse
- Transportation: $0.20 for a local minibus ride, or $4 for an intercity bus ride – that’s right!
- SIM card with data: $3 for 3GB with 30-day validity. Though I wouldn’t expect it to work in the mountains
EUROPE
13. Romania, $40/day
If you are planning a European trip that’s affordable and a little bit off the beaten path, Romania is perfect for you. While the country is known for Dracula, many charming towns and free activities remain unknown to most foreigners. Whether you’re taking a long stroll through the medieval villages, or people-watching in one of the beautiful parks, Romania is great for anyone after a European experience on a budget. You can also make use of the free walking tours to check out the numerous historical sites. Hostels run $10-$15 per night, and food is hearty and delicious (a money-saving tip: Have your breakfast at the hostel, have a big hearty meal for lunch, and cook your own meal for dinner. It’s easy and affordable to get fresh produce from the local market, make sure your hostel has a kitchen!), and public transportation is reliable and affordable.
- Meals: $10 – $15 per day
- Accommodation: $12 – $20 per night in a hostel or a local guesthouse
- Transportation: $5 – $10 for a full day of bus and train rides
- SIM card with data: $6 for 3GB with 28-day validity
14. Georgia, $30/day
Georgia is another underrated European destination that’s absolutely beautiful and affordable. Also, get this: most of you will be able to enter Georgia without a visa, and stay for one year. Say what?!
Quality hostels at a reasonable price range, a meal at a local restaurant for as low as $3, and a local minibus ride for less than $1 are just some of the great things Georgia can offer to its visitors. What’s more? Entrance fees to museums and historical sites are mostly less than $2. The locals are extremely warm and welcoming, and hitchhiking is totally possible for short and long-distance travel. There are many day trips, hikes, and monasteries in Georgia, where one can easily spend months and not get bored. It’s perfect if you have more time than money.
- Meals: $10 – $15 per day
- Accommodation: $10 – $15 per night in a hostel
- Transportation: $3 – $5 for a full day of bus and train rides, $5-$10 for an intercity ride, or $0 if you hitchhike!
- SIM card with data: $3 for 1GB with 1-month validity
15. Greece, $45/day
Timing is crucial if you want to travel in Greece on a budget. While prices of flights, accommodation and tours have been largely cut down since the country’s debt crisis in 2010, summer months still cost more than others. This means avoiding July and August, which are the hottest and busiest months in Greece. Instead, go a few weeks before or after summer, and you will be able to enjoy Greece with smaller crowds and a lower budget. You can also cut down on food costs by buying fresh produce from the market and making your own meals, since eating out in restaurants can be expensive in certain parts of Greece. A little picnic by the gorgeous beach can be as enjoyable as a lavish meal at a seafood restaurant!
As far as activities go, opt for the free walking tours available, and if you are planning to do some island hopping in Greece, plan well and stick with a group of islands to minimize transfers. Remember that sometimes a domestic flight can be cheaper than a bus ride for any long-distance travel.
- Meals: $10 – $15 per day
- Accommodation: $10 – $15 per night in a hostel
- Transportation: $10 – $15 per person for a rental car split between 4 people (note: scooter rental costs about $25 – $30/day), or $10-$20 for ferry tickets around the islands
- SIM card with data: $12 for 2GB with 30-day validity
