Exactly How Much I Spent Backpacking Thailand (and what YOU should budget)

hello everyone i hope that you are well my name is christiane and welcome to my channel backpacking bananas i have recently returned from a backpacking trip through thailand i was there for two and a half months and in this video i'm going to share with you exactly how much i spent we're going to be going into the details of where my money went how i could have improved and how much i recommend you guys to budget on your trips to thailand based on your own personal travel style because even though we might all be backpackers budgets can vary quite a lot depending on preferences and interests but no matter what your preferences and interests are you want to make sure that you're getting the absolute cheapest price for what you want to do right especially for accommodation the price of the same accommodation can vary massively depending on what site you book it on it can take a lot of time and effort going through the multiple search engines making sure that you're getting the cheapest price and even then you're not even entirely sure if you are getting the cheapest price many people don't even bother to shop around and end up paying a higher price unnecessarily but i wouldn't want you guys to struggle with any of that which is why i would like to introduce you to ratepunk who are kindly the sponsors of today's video greatpunk are a browser extension that scans all the main booking sites and runs a live comparison on the same hotel and it's completely free to download no signups no commitment no catches it's just a simple really cool new tool that's going to save you a lot of time and money and give you confidence that you're definitely going to be getting the best deal on your accommodation when booking on your next trip ratepunk is coded to pop up in seconds every time you choose a hotel and wish to see prices for it on all major booking websites and there's no extra steps to do after the extension is installed on your laptop every time it will just start working 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accommodation immediately i wish i had rape punk before i traveled to thailand because maybe these rates would be a little bit lower here we go let me share with you exactly how much i spent in 2.5 months backpacking thailand or 74 days to be exact i just want to say that i initially budgeted 900 pounds per month for this trip which would mean that in 74 days i shoulda woulda could have spent 2 250 pounds but let's see what i actually ended up spending can i have a drum roll please in 74 days in thailand i spent [Music] 2898 pounds awesome so yes i did very much go over budget for this trip but let's take a deep dive into what happened where exactly my money went and what the big budget breakdown actually looked like so i've split up all of my costs into my first 30 days my second 30 days and my final 14 days so we can have a look at how all of this varies in my first 30 days i spent 923 pounds so that's not too far over budget in my second 30 days i spent 966 pounds also not outrageously over budget and in my final 14 days i spent 1010 pounds and that ladies and gentlemen is where things seemingly got a little bit out of hand but i believe that there are three very good reasons for this which i will get into so make sure you keep watching to find out so the first breakdown is having a look at how much i spent on accommodation so in 74 days i spent 678 pounds on accommodation so this averages out to be about nine pounds per day when i was traveling with jeremy we would split private rooms in hostels that were always very nice and when i went solo on this trip i would normally stay in hostel dawn beds that were also very nice i definitely am on the higher end of the backpacker budget when it comes to my accommodation i like to stay in the nicest hostels for the most part in thailand you could budget five pounds per day for accommodation in a hostel dorm room and still be very comfortable because you can nearly always find something for this price as for travel and this is just my internal travel in thailand so not including my international flights in 74 days i spent 479 pounds 109 pounds on three internal flights 20 pounds on taxis and grabs 80 pounds on buses fans and trains 126 pounds on ferries and boats and 145 pounds on scooter rentals and fuel so this is an average of six pound fifty per day on travel and transport to be honest i don't think that there is anything that i could have really done differently about this most days of this trip i would rent a scooter it costs around five pounds per day to do this and i think it's just the best way to explore obviously if you are always sharing with another person that would be 2 pounds 50 per day making your costs lower as for food and drink in 74 days i spent 1 000 and 7 pounds in total with an average of 13 pounds 60 per day and i've split this up into eating out coffee and alcohol because i think that that's all important to note so i spent 705 pounds eating out which is an average of nine pound 50 per day i ate a mix of both local food and street food and in western restaurants as well if you ate entirely local food you could easily budget five pounds a day for this but personally i like the mix especially when traveling for a long time i spent 88 pounds on coffee which is an average of one pound 20 per day mainly on iced caramel lattes if you're not someone who likes takeaway coffees or drinks on the regular this is probably not an expense to concern you at all and finally i spent 214 pounds on alcohol with an average of two pounds 90 per day i am a social drinker i didn't really have any big binges on this trip other than the full moon party and my night out on bangla road in phuket but the thing is when i do drink i prefer to have a glass of wine or a cocktail as opposed to a beer so this does make my alcohol spending higher than what it would be if i only drank br but of course if you are not an alcohol drinker this is not an expense that you would need to factor in but on the other hand if you consider yourself to be a big drinker i would definitely budget more than what i have as for sports activities and tours excluding scuba diving in 74 days i spent a total of 260 pounds my three-day two-night trekking tour in chiang mai cost 80 pounds a day trip to anton national park costs 45 pounds my half day professional rock climbing excursion in riley cost 23 pounds two weeks of unlimited muay thai and crossfit training at super pro gym and kosamui cost 90 pounds so those are a few of my examples to go on a very common thing to do in thailand is to get your open water scuba diving license in koh tao this costs around 230 pounds if you use my code to get 10 off at la bombona diving school in koh tao i'll have a link to that offer in the description and in terms of everything else i spent a total of 14 pounds on massage and spa experiences it costs an average of seven pounds for an hour-long thai massage often even cheaper i spent a total of 34 pounds on entrance fees into various places and national parks i spent 21 pounds in sim cards you shouldn't be paying more than 8 pounds or so on a sim card for the month in thailand which should give you at least 20 gigs of data i spent 91 pounds on visa extensions i extended my visa twice with the covet extension program i spent five pounds in total on laundry it normally costs around one pound per kilo at most laundry services in thailand in my opinion this is not a big expense but you can obviously save that money if you decided to hand wash your own clothing and i spent 44 pounds in total at the supermarket on snacks on water toiletries general groceries obviously that's not a whole lot to spend in two and a half months in thailand but a big reason for that is it's so affordable to eat out in thailand and you don't really need to buy groceries to cook a lot of the hostels don't even have kitchens so realistically you're just not going to be spending that much on groceries so christiane why did you spend so much more in your final two weeks in thailand compared to the first two months of your trip well there's actually three reasons but the main one being scuba diving i became a little scuba obsessed in my last two weeks in thailand and spent a total of 265 pounds on fun dives a hundred and forty of that was on two dives in ritual rock departing from cow lake this was a particularly expensive dive trip because the speedboat had to travel a really long way to get to the dive site and it was a particularly incredible dive site and had quite an expensive national marine park fee i spent about 65 pounds doing two fun dives in kopeepi and around 65 pounds doing two fun dives in colipe so as you can see scuba diving is an expensive activity in the grand scheme of things however it is cheaper to go scuba diving in thailand than in many other places in the world so if it is something that you are wanting to try out thailand is definitely a good place to do it but still compared to all of the other activities in thailand scuba diving is definitely one of the most expensive so i always calculate it separately to the rest of my budget as an additional expense also it's an activity that not everyone does so it doesn't make sense for everyone to have to factor it in so as well as scuba diving there are two more things that contributed to me spending more in my final two weeks in thailand firstly was the region that i was in i spent my first 30 days in northern thailand and koh samui i spent my second 30 days in copenhagen and i spent my final two weeks on the west coast of thailand in locations like phuket kopipi calipe and this region of thailand i found to simply be more expensive than the others and i believe it's because it's just more touristy at least that is what i gathered in general the restaurants are more expensive the ferries are more expensive the activities are more expensive the accommodation is more expensive and i found there to be less room for negotiation and secondly i was solo backpacking in my last two weeks of thailand as opposed to the first seven weeks of my trip where i was traveling with a partner and we shared the cost of a lot of things we shared the daily scooter rental and fuel we would share private room accommodation we could share on taxis and private transport when you're solo travelling unless you are splitting the costs with new people that you have met on your trip i often find that i do spend a little bit more because you are covering everything yourself so that's me but what does all of this information mean for you and how much should you budget for your own trips to thailand good question now this obviously is going to depend on a few factors but the main factor being what type of backpacker you are so firstly we have the budget backpacker you want to spend the absolute minimum while still getting to explore the country you will stay in the cheapest most basic accommodation you will stick to the cheaper activities you will always eat local food won't drink much alcohol or at the very least you will stick to the cheapest beers and you will always choose the most cost efficient transport method to get yourself around for you my beautiful budget backpackers i recommend budgeting 500 pounds per month it is totally possible to backpack thailand on this budget but it really is the minimum and it will be easier to achieve the slower that you travel on the other end of the spectrum we have the flash package you like to stay in the nicest hostels in town you may stay in a private room every now and again you don't hold back on activities you will mostly eat in higher end or western style restaurants and cafes you won't hold back on the bevis when you want them and you will normally opt for the most convenient transport method even if it's not the cheapest for you my beautiful flashback is i would recommend budgeting 1 200 pounds per month this should be an incredibly comfortable backpacker budget in thailand and again even more comfortable if you are traveling slowly but this is of course a spectrum you've seen the two extremes uh but the average backpacker will probably find themselves somewhere in the middle of these two styles they like a mix of the local cuisine and western style restaurants they like a bevy but won't go overboard with expensive drinks they appreciate a nice hostel but are happy to go with a cheaper one from time to time they want to do the majority of activities and we'll do all of the popular things on offer for you my beautiful average backpackers i recommend budgeting 850 pounds per month that is smack bang in the middle of our thailand backpacker budget spectrum and of course it will be more easily achieved the slower you travel so whether i fit onto this spectrum if i were to take away my scuba diving costs in 74 days i would have spent 2 63 pounds which is about 35 pounds per day times that by 30 and it gives us an average monthly total of 1050 pounds so i backpacking bananas and somewhere in the middle between an average backpacker and a flashpacker which i would say is certainly accurate for me and my style of truffle i don't hold back on activities i like to stay in the nicest hostels however i'm not afraid of the super cheap ones from time to time i would mostly eat an international cuisine but also would quite often opt for local food or street food as well i find that the older i get the bigger my budget gets not just because i feel like i'm more financially stable to afford it but also i just appreciate comfort a little bit more so anyway i really hope you enjoyed this video and it has helped you plan out your own budget for backpacking thailand and to be honest no matter what your budget is in thailand i'm sure you will have a fantastic time because it's just an amazing country i love it so much it's a hundred percent one of my favorite if you enjoyed this video or found it useful i would love it if you gave it a thumbs up because it really helps to support my channel and subscribe if you haven't already more backpacking budget videos like this and i will see you guys in the next one bye bye

Channel: Backpacking Bananas

Views: 106,313

Keywords: gap year ideas, gap year travel, travel tips, travel guide, budget travel, backpacking solo, solo female travel, uk travel vlogger, how much I spent in thailand, how much it costs to travel thailand, thailand budget breakdown, thailand backpacker budget, how much is thailand, thailand travel budget, how much I spent in 1 month in Thailand, the big backpacker budget breakdown, how much to budget for 1 month in thailand, thailand backpacking expenses, thailand travel expenses

Id: dn9Fuq0161Y

Length: 14min 37sec (877 seconds)

Published: Sun May 29 2022