Packing your passport and luggage to fly to another country seems like a very carefree thing to do. But if you want to maximise the time and spend within a budget, planning your trip in advance is highly recommended. While I didn’t have a thorough day-to-day itinerary, I took some time to research on the hotel options which allowed me to save some money while having a decent stay. For some context, we travelled to Bangkok and Khao Yai.
After the entire trip, I realised that we only spent less than $700 per person for the entire 2 weeks – all inclusive of flight, accommodation, insurance, transport, food, transport and miscellaneous spending (Excluding shopping).
Here’s our breakdown of expenses (per person):
Flight Ticket: $130
Accommodation: $180
Food: $140
Transport & Misc: $150
Travel Insurance: $66
Flight Ticket:
We booked the air tickets on Trip.com few months before the trip and I found the cheapest combo from 12 to 26 July. I think we were quite lucky as other travel combination dates were priced near $200. If your dates are slightly flexible, trying shifting the dates back or forth by 1 to 2 days to check for price change.
The flight cost was $130 per pax not inclusive of luggage check-in. It’s quite sufficient even for a 2 weeks trip unless you need space for shopping loots.
Accommodation:
Khao Yai: Viewpoint at Khao Yai (Booked on Agoda)
$28/ night
This was a really good steal considering that the hotel has an exceptional score of 8.0 on Agoda and almost 5 stars reviews on Google. The hotel room was extremely decent for that price, though it was slightly small but clean and good service. There is a bonus: the mountain view was amazinggggg.
Bangkok: Chapter One Modern Dutch Rat Burana (Booked on Airbnb)
$24/ night
While the location is not really near the central area of BKK, we had a motorcycle so traveling was quite convenient. $24/ night is a really good rate considering that the airbnb is inside a well-facilitated condo and on the highest floor as well. The room was quaint and cosy with a spectacular river view too.
Food
Khao Yai and BKK has plenty of nice cafes but we chose to stick with authentic local Thai food for the experience (and of course to save money). If you look hard enough, there are many options of local stores along the roadside that costs only 50 baht (SGD 2). We’re not compromising on taste as we try our best to find those with at least 4 stars Google reviews. So far 90% of the time the food was pretty good, some really really delicious, so much that we went back again. For occasional hopping, we usually just order a drink to share as I cannot finish one by myself.
Transport
Most people travel to Khao Yai by renting a car or hiring a driver. We rented a motorcycle instead as it is way cheaper and more convenient. Many would feel that a motorcycle is dangerous especially when riding overseas but I just can’t deny the multiple benefits that came along with it. Besides the overall cheaper expenses, it was just easier to park the bike anywhere while we’re playing or eating. Traffic was definitely smoother compared to cars.
The downside is that motorcycles cannot go on expressways, but they come with tolls anyway so it doesn’t matter to us that we can’t go on it. The worst part was unpredictable weather but we got ourselves prepared by packing disposable raincoats and slippers inside the bike.
We rented a Yamaha GT125 which was the base model and it costed about $80 for 2 weeks. Our petrol costed only $46 (1363km) for the entire trip. In fact, our grab expenses ($36) which were needed for airport transfers and returning the motorcycle were almost as expensive as the petrol.
Attractions & Misc:
Khao Yai attractions are generally quite affordable, most farm and zoo visits fall under 50 to 200 baht ($2-8) per person. And there are also free activities such as Ban Tha Chang Spring and Khao Yai Bat Cave.
In Bangkok, we visited some free art galleries and mostly night markets. Most of the time we were just shopping around (Our shopping expenses are not included in this budget). We also found some Graffiti park to spend some time taking photos there.
Travel Insurance
Our travel insurance was bought from AXA as it was one of the more affordable options that has decent coverage compared to other companies. I chose the mid tier coverage since we were traveling for 2 weeks and on a motorcycle as well.
Budget travel can be really fun and adventurous, hope this helps you with your travel planning!
