In order to track our spending in each country we visit, we are keeping a spreadsheet of overall expenses. We have decided to keep track of our expenses for interest sakes, to help others plan a trip, as well as to make sure we do not run out of money!
We spent a total of 29 days in Thailand with a total bill of approximately $2,035 this includes:
Accommodation (hostels and hotels)
Food & Toiletries (the bare essentials – food, shampoo, soap, etc)
Liquor (have to try the local drinks)
Transportation (public transit, buses, trains, etc)
Entertainment (what we paid to do) and
Miscellaneous items (clothing, laundry, books etc)
TOTAL COSTS
Accommodation – $670
Food & Toiletries -$525
Liquor – $150
Transportation – $330
Entertainment – $180
Miscellaneous items – $180
AVERAGE COSTS
Our average cost per day in Thailand was $70 for the both of us.
Note: ALL costs are in CANADIAN FUNDS!
FLIGHTS
Once again we have not included our flight from Malaysia to Thailand in the costs listed above to prevent skewing the overall costs of the country since we never know where people are coming from. But to help out, our one way tickets from Kuala Lumpur to Krabi were $150 for the both of us with Air Asia.
MORE INFO…
Overall, Thailand is VERY cheap. We always stayed in private rooms with en suites during our time there and didn’t find ourselves holding back much at all. Food is also insanely cheap for excellent quality.
If you would like to view a a more detailed break down of our costs you can view the spreadsheet here. If you have any questions regarding our costing sheet please do not hesitate to comment and we will respond.
Hi Jackie,
I need your help, i will be going to Thailand this October for 5 days and my maximum budget would be 350-400 CAD. I plan to stay in hostels to make it cheap. The thing is i will be flying to bankok and than probably a day or day and a half i will roam around and than would want to explore phuket. So can you suggest me the following:
A lot of Google and i finally found your blog
1. How to get to phuket from bankok(very very cheaply)
2. what activities i can do there (again keep it cheap)
If you’d like to give me any private details you are welcome to send me a mail
looking forward to your reply thanks in advance…
Your budget should be fine for 5 days in Thailand. The above costs are for 29 days, and for 2 people.
Honestly, you will probably be ok staying in cheaper hotels while you are in Bangkok or some decent guesthouses. I would recommend checking agoda.com for some good deals on hotels. We also used hostel world for guesthouses. We stayed on Sukhumvit both times while we were in Bangkok and found it really good, away from a lot of the backpacking scene.
As for getting to Phuket check out the train/bus combo (~$35 CND) at this website: http://www.seat61.com/Thailand.htm#Phuket
While we were in Thailand we did not go to Phuket due to cost, we decided to hit up Ko Lanta instead. Phuket and Ko Phi Phi are two of the hot spots for tourist and therefore more money. We really enjoyed Ko Lanta and found it pretty kick back.
As for things to do I imagine it is similar for any of the islands. Depending on how much time you have you can:
– rent a scooter for the day (~$10) and cruise around to find some remote beaches or just check out the island
– check out some of the smaller islands around
– hang on the beach and drink some beer
– rent some snorkel gear
Let me you know if you have any more questions – check out our Thaialnd stuff to see what we all did!
Hope I could help! Cheers
Jackie
I am so glad I came across your website! My husband and I leave in two weeks for our honeymoon and will be going to Thailand and Cambodia for 40 days. I had been stressing out so much as to whether or not we had budgeted properly for this trip and after reading your post I can relax. We are the same age as you, from Alberta and seem to have similar interests so I think we will be more than prepared financially for this trip! It is nice to finally have someone break ALL of the costs down and that it is current costs not something from 2005! Where did you stay in Koh Lanta and Chiang Mai?
Great article, I have just finished writing an upto date budgeting guide for backpacking in Thailand, gives a good idea of the costs for those planning a trip.
Cost of Backpacking in Thailand