Budget Southeast Asia: Two Weeks Under $1,000

Southeast Asia has been the backpacker proving ground for decades, and for good reason — it’s one of the few places left where you can travel well on almost nothing. Not roughing-it-nothing. Eating-incredible-food-and-sleeping-in-a-real-bed nothing.

Two weeks, three countries, under $1,000 all-in (excluding your international flight). Here’s how to do it without living on instant noodles or sleeping in airports.

The Route

Bangkok (3 nights) → Siem Reap (3 nights) → Ho Chi Minh City (2 nights) → Hoi An (3 nights) → Hanoi (2 nights)

This moves roughly west to east, which keeps transport costs down and avoids backtracking. Each stop is different enough to feel like a different trip.

Bangkok: Days 1-3

Skip the Khao San Road hostel scene unless you want to spend your first night listening to someone play Wonderwall on acoustic guitar. Instead, stay in the Ari or Saphan Khwai neighborhoods — local, well-connected by BTS, and full of street food stalls that aren’t marked up for tourists.

Daily budget: $35-40

• Hostel dorm or basic guesthouse: $8-12/night
• Street food meals (three per day): $5-8
• BTS/MRT transport: $3-4
• Temple entry (Wat Pho, Wat Arun): $5-8
• Evening beer at a rooftop bar: $4-6

The real move in Bangkok is eating. Pad kra pao from a street cart at 11pm. Boat noodles in Victory Monument for 15 baht a bowl. Mango sticky rice from the woman with the cart outside Chatuchak. This is where your budget works hardest — world-class food for the price of a vending machine snack back home.

Siem Reap: Days 4-6

Fly from Bangkok to Siem Reap on AirAsia — book a few weeks out and you’ll pay $40-60 one way. The bus is cheaper but eats an entire day, and the border crossing at Poipet is a masterclass in bureaucratic chaos.

Daily budget: $30-35

• Guesthouse with AC: $8-10/night
• Meals (mix of street food and restaurants): $6-10
• Angkor Wat three-day pass: $62 (works out to ~$21/day)
• Tuk-tuk for temple circuit: $15-18/day (split with another traveler)

Everyone tells you to wake up for sunrise at Angkor Wat. They’re right, but here’s the better advice: go to Angkor Thom and Ta Prohm in the afternoon when the tour buses have left. The light is better, the crowds thin out, and you can actually hear the birds.

Buy your temple pass the evening before — they let you in after 5pm for sunset at no extra charge, and the pass starts the next day.

Ho Chi Minh City: Days 7-8

Fly Siem Reap to HCMC. Budget airlines run this route daily for $30-50. You only need two days here — enough to eat your body weight in pho, see the War Remnants Museum, and let the organized chaos of the motorbike traffic rewire your brain.

Daily budget: $25-30

• Hostel dorm in District 1: $6-8/night
• Pho, banh mi, and com tam meals: $4-6
• Coffee (ca phe sua da): $1-2
• Museum entries: $2-3
• Grab motorbike across town: $1-2

Stay near Bui Vien if you want nightlife, or in District 3 if you want to sleep. District 3 has better local food anyway.

Hoi An: Days 9-11

Take the overnight sleeper bus from HCMC to Hoi An — about $15-20 and saves you a night’s accommodation. The buses are better than you’d expect. Lie-flat seats, blankets, the works.

Hoi An is where you slow down. Rent a bicycle ($2/day), ride to An Bang Beach, eat cao lau at the central market, and wander the lantern-lit old town after dark. This is the most photogenic town in Vietnam and it knows it, but the charm is real.

Daily budget: $25-30

• Guesthouse (private room): $10-15/night
• Meals: $5-8
• Bicycle rental: $2
• Tailoring (if you want a custom suit or dress): $80-120 (optional splurge)
• Beach and Old Town: free

The tailors are legitimately good. A custom-fitted blazer for $100 sounds like a scam until you’re wearing it. Get measured on day one, fitting on day two, pickup on day three.

Hanoi: Days 12-13

Fly from Da Nang (30 minutes from Hoi An) to Hanoi. VietJet or Bamboo Airways, $30-50.

Hanoi is tighter, older, and more intense than Saigon. The Old Quarter is a maze of streets named after what they historically sold — Silk Street, Silver Street, Paper Street. Now they mostly sell coffee and tourist t-shirts, but the architecture is gorgeous.

Daily budget: $25-30

• Hostel in Old Quarter: $6-8/night
• Bun cha (the dish Obama ate): $2-3
• Egg coffee at Giang: $2
• Water puppet show: $5
• Beer corner (bia hoi): $0.30 per glass

Yes, thirty cents for a beer. It’s draught, it’s fresh, and it’s served on tiny plastic stools on the sidewalk. This is the cheapest beer in the world and it tastes like victory.

The Budget Breakdown

Category	Two-Week Total
Accommodation	$120-160
Food	$80-110
Transport (flights + local)	$180-250
Activities & entry fees	$80-120
Miscellaneous	$50-80
Total	$510-720

That leaves buffer room for a cooking class in Hoi An, a night out in Bangkok, or the overnight train from Hanoi to Sapa if you want to add a mountain detour.

Tips That Actually Matter

Bring a debit card with no foreign transaction fees. Charles Schwab or Wise are the standards. ATMs are everywhere; carrying wads of cash is unnecessary and stressful.

Download Grab. It’s the Uber of Southeast Asia and works in all three countries. Saves you from haggling with tuk-tuk drivers who quote you triple.

Book transport one to two days ahead, not weeks. Prices rarely change, and flexibility is your biggest advantage as a budget traveler.

Eat where locals eat. Not because it’s some authentic travel cliche — because a packed street stall means fast turnover, which means the food is fresh and the cook is practiced. The empty restaurant with the English menu is where you get food poisoning.

The $1,000 ceiling is conservative. Most people come back from this trip having spent $600-800 and wondering why they waited so long to go.