Meg Travels Solo on a Budget Across Southeast Asia
I met Meg through a friend who said, very casually, that if I was going to Southeast Asia I should ask her about budget travel. That turned into a long conversation about Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia and the Philippines, and the sense Meg has of where money goes furthest and how to travel well on very little if you know what you are doing.
Meg does not believe that travel has to be expensive. She has believed this for a long time and she has tested the theory extensively across the region. Her conclusion is that Southeast Asia remains one of the best places on earth to travel well on very little money, provided you know what you are doing and you are not trying to recreate the experience of a five-star hotel on a hostel budget.
The mistake most first-timers make is arriving without a plan and paying tourist prices for everything because they do not know what anything should cost. Southeast Asia has two price systems running simultaneously in most places, one for visitors and one for everyone else. The gap between them is significant. Closing that gap is mostly a matter of attention and a willingness to walk half a block away from the main street.
Where your money goes furthest
Vietnam is Meg's top answer for budget travel done properly. The food is extraordinary, the accommodation is genuinely cheap even at the good end of the market, and the country is long and varied enough that you can spend a month there without running out of things to do. Hanoi in the north, Hoi An in the middle, Ho Chi Minh City in the south, with plenty worth stopping at in between. The overnight sleeper trains between cities are comfortable enough, cheap, and save you a night's accommodation at the same time.
Cambodia is worth including in any Southeast Asia trip and is often cheaper than its neighbours. Siem Reap for Angkor Wat is obvious, but Phnom Penh is a more interesting city than people give it credit for and the south coast around Kampot is one of the most relaxed places Meg has been anywhere. Guesthouses there are still priced the way Southeast Asia used to be priced everywhere before the crowds arrived.
Food is where you save the most
Eating at street level is not a compromise in Southeast Asia, it is an upgrade. The best food Meg has eaten across the whole region has come from small plastic-stool places with handwritten menus, night markets where you point at things and hope for the best, and the kind of family-run lunch spots that do not have a sign outside and fill up with locals at noon. These places cost a fraction of the restaurant options and the food is better. This is not a controversial opinion among anyone who has spent real time in the region.
Learn two or three dishes by name in each country. Know what you are ordering before you order it. Be willing to eat the same excellent thing multiple times rather than hunting constantly for novelty. Meg ate bowl after bowl of bun bo Hue in Hue because it was the best thing she had ever eaten and it cost less than a pound. There is no logic in walking past that in search of something different.
Getting around without spending a fortune
Overnight buses and trains are Meg's standard mode of transport for longer distances. They cost very little, they move you while you sleep, and the overnight bus from Hanoi to Sapa in a sleeper seat is genuinely comfortable. Within cities, motorbike taxis and tuk-tuks are cheap if you agree a price before you get in. Apps like Grab work in most major cities now and remove the negotiation entirely, which some people prefer.
Avoid internal flights unless the distances are genuinely too large. The time you save rarely justifies the cost difference when you factor in getting to and from airports, and the journey itself is often part of the experience. Meg took a slow boat down the Mekong from the Thai border to Luang Prabang in Laos over two days. It cost almost nothing. It was one of the best things she has done.
The solo part
Southeast Asia is one of the easiest regions in the world to travel alone. The infrastructure for solo travellers is well established, the people are friendly, and the hostel and guesthouse circuit means you are never far from other travellers if you want company. Meg has done most of her time in the region alone and has never once felt unsafe or isolated for long. The trick is to stay somewhere social when you want to meet people and somewhere quiet when you need to recharge, and to know which one you need on any given day.
The other thing Meg would tell anyone going alone for the first time: slow down. The temptation is to see everything and cover as much ground as possible. The trips she remembers best are the ones where she stayed somewhere longer than planned because she was not ready to leave. That is always the right reason to stay.
The Best in Travels,
Your Friend Fushia