If you’re a traveler headed to Vietnam, you’re in for a treat. This is not a country of natural superlatives unless you’re really into the food, but when it comes to value for your budget, it’s a dream.

These days Vietnam is on par with Thailand in some respects, cheaper in others. Overall, none of the prices are too outrageous so this one comes in squarely as one of the cheapest places to travel in the world. This is not some sad and downtrodden country anymore where a lot of people are struggling to get by though. It’s a thriving economy where motorbikes seem to sprout from the ground each time it rains. When you say “Everybody and his brother has one,” it’s really true. Nevertheless, you’ll find plenty of screaming bargains here and the budget hotels in Vietnam are some of the best for the price you’ll find anywhere in the world.

Our $57 Hanoi room, with full breakfast for three

Hotel and Hostel Prices in Vietnam

Ask people who have traveled for years where the best lodging values are and they’ll likely say Vietnam. Yes, there are plenty of countries with cheaper places to flop for the night, but what you get for your money here is impressive. Things a budget backpacker doesn’t usually get—like towels and a maid who will change the sheets—are common even at the bottom level. Note that the prices below nearly always include internet access and often a good breakfast.

Hostel bed: $6 – $10 (there aren’t many of these, especially outside big cities)
Cheap shared bath double room: $10 – $18
Basic double with private bath, A/C: $14 – $25
Mid-range 3* or 4* equivalent: $20 – $60
Best hotels in town: $75 – $200
Triples are often just a few dollars more than a double and lots of places have family-friendly rooms or suites.

Food & Drink Prices in Vietnam

Bia hoi! No that’s not a battle rallying cry. It’s the name of the cheap draft beer sold by the plastic pitcher on the street. Sometimes it comes out to as little as 30 cents a liter if you get the local price. But the bottled stuff is a bargain too.

There are supposedly 500 traditional Vietnamese dishes, generally variations of rice or noodles with vegetables, seafood, or meat, and a wide variety of soups. You usually use chopsticks and a spoon, often sitting on a small stool on a sidewalk. Vegetarian food is plentiful and cheaper, though it will usually have fish sauce used as a seasoning.

US 35 cents for a liter of beer

Ice cream cone: 30 – 75¢
Street stall dishes: 40¢ – $1.50
Cheap restaurant meals: 75¢ – $4
Nice restaurant meals in tourist places: $1 to $6, set menus with several courses $5 – $12.
You’d have to hit an international hotel or a restaurant catering to foreign business travelers to spend much more than $30 for two.

Sodas and coffee: 30 – 50¢
Fruit juice/shake: 40 – 80¢
Mineral water: 50¢ – $1 per liter-and-a-half
Two-liter pitcher of draft beer: 60¢ – $1
Large bottled beer in a restaurant: 50¢ – $1.25.
Name brand liquor cocktails: $2 (happy hour) – $5 (nice club)

Transportation Prices

Getting around in Vietnam can be a big chunk of your budget since this is such a long and skinny country. Go slowly and you’ll spend a lot less than someone trying to cover it top to bottom in two weeks.

Long bus trip (Hanoi to Hue): $8 – $15
Sleeper train same distance: $18 – $65
3-hour train trip (Danang to Hue): $3 – $5
Hop on/off bus Saigon to Hanoi or opposite: $50
Flight Saigon to Hanoi or opposite: $100 on Jetstar
Flight Saigon to Danang: $55 – $75
City taxi rides: 50¢ – $4
Airport taxi rides: $5 – $20
City bus rides: 15¢

Other Vietnam Traveler Prices

3-day tour of Halong Bay or Sapa: $60 – $90
Day tour of group sightseeing, A/C van: $8 – $10
Admission charges: 15¢ to $1.50 most, occasionally $4 (rare, like Hue royal tombs)
Cultural performances: $1.50 – $5
Manicure or pedicure: $1
Hour of internet access: $1 or less
SIM card for your mobile phone: $5

Until Burma reaches a point of real reform and starts getting the promised foreign investment coming in, Cambodia will hold the crown as the best travel value in Southeast Asia. What you get for your money is unbelievable sometimes, yet you don’t have to go way off the beaten path to find the bargains.

In Cambodia you can travel in a manner that feels way above your budget. If you spend $30 on a room it’ll come with air-con, maid service, a great breakfast, TV, fridge, and maybe even a pool. If you spend $5 on a meal it’ll be in a pretty nice restaurant and probably include a beer or two. If you have to break down and take a tuk-tuk or taxi across town, that’ll set you back two or three dollars. So naturally, if you’re used to doing everything on a shoestring and want to keep that going, you can really make your budget last by hanging out here for a month.

Without the vast distances you have to navigate in Indonesia or even Vietnam, you can get to most anywhere you need to go the same day.

Here are some sample prices for Cambodia, from my mid-range family trip this past summer, from my notes, and from articles and blog posts I bookmarked before and after. Almost everything is priced in U.S. dollars here—even in the supermarkets—so you rarely use local currency.

Hotel & Hostel Prices in Cambodia

This country has gone from being critically underserved on lodging to being in the midst of a building boom, so there’s plenty to choose from in every price range. You have to negotiate on the spot to get a private room without paying the two-person rate: couples or friends traveling together get a better deal. A triple or family suite is generally just 1/3 more than a double at cheapie places, even less at nicer ones. Some hostels have free laundry, almost all have free Wi-Fi.

Hostel bed: $4 -$7, usually including Wi-Fi, sometimes breakfast
Cheap double room, fan-cooled, shared bath: $5 – $12
Cheap double room, air-con, private bath: $8 – $18
Mid-range room with hotel amenities, maid service, breakfast: $16 – $50
Deluxe room with elevator, bellhops, pool: $40 – $200

(There are very few hotels where guests pay more than $200 per night for a standard room. When I searched Siem Reap hotels on Trivago for two weeks from now I only found 8.)

Food & Drink in Cambodia

This is where you really get the full benefit of local pricing. As long as you eat what’s grown in the region and don’t need a daily fix of imported items, this is a place where you can eat out three meals a day and spend less than $5 if you go where the locals go. Step up to a nicer restaurant with waiters and you can still get a meal for a few bucks. Often our family of three would completely chow down on multiple courses in Siem Reap and I’d have a few beers, my daughter would get a fruit shake. The bill would come and it would be $11 or $12.

Street or market stall meal: 50 cents to $1.50
Basic restaurant main dish: $1 – $3
Nicest non-hotel restaurant in town, meal for two: $35 – $60 with a bottle of wine
Draft/bottle beer: 50 cents/75 cents – $1.50/$2
Soda or coffee: 50 cents – $1.50
Fruit shake: 50 cents – $1.50
Cocktail: $1 – $4

Transportation Prices

Siem Reap to Phnom Penh by boat: $35
Same route by bus: $6 – $13 (working A/C and Wi-Fi).
Bus from Phnom Penh to the beaches: $4 – $6
Taxi from Phnom Penh to the beaches: $50 – $60 (up to 4 people)
Bus to Saigon, Vietnam: $6 – $14
Bus to Thai border from Siem Reap: $9
Taxi to/from Thai border to Siem Reap: $30 – $48 (up to 4 people)
Flight to Vietnam: $100 – $300
Tuk-tuk ride: $1 – $2 local, $10 – $16 for the day
Taxi: $1 – $4 local, $15 – $50 for the day depending on distance, negotiations. (If there’s a meter, $1 per 2kms)
Motorcycle taxi – $6 – $9 around Ankor Wat for the day.
Motorbike rental (not allowed in Siem Reap): $6 – $25 per day, weekly rates are cheaper.
Bike rentals: $1 – $3 per day

Other Traveler Prices:

Angkor Wat region admission: $20 one day, $40 three days, $60 one week
One-hour massage: $5 – $8
One-hour four-hand massage: $10 – $15
Manicure/pedicure: $3 – $5
Laundry service: $1 – $2 per kilo
Local tours: $15 – $35 per person
Mobile phone Sim card: starts at $5
(Illegal) MP3 albums/movies: $1/$2

If you want to move to Cambodia to live for a while, you can’t buy property without partnering up with a local, but you can get a 99-year lease, which works for most people. International Living says you can rent a 2BR beach house in Sihanoukville for as little as $150 a month and get by there on $525 a month total in living expenses.

Related post with pics: What $50 a night gets you for a hotel in Southeast Asia

I’ve started work on updating The World’s Cheapest Destinations, with the 4th edition coming out in December. Meanwhile, here are a few updates in terms of which countries are cheaper, about the same, or more expensive since the 3rd edition came out in 2009. This is for those traveling with U.S. dollars. If your currency is up or down in a big way against the dollar, keep that in mind. For Canadians or Australians, for example, everywhere is cheaper than it was three or four years ago.

(Slightly) Cheaper Destinations

Unfortunately, this is a rather short list. There may be a recession in the developed world, but most of the cheap (as in developing) countries are going gangbusters in terms of growth. Vietnam’s leaders are freaking out, for example, because their GDP growth may be only 6% this year. If we had half that number in the U.S. then Obama would get re-elected in a landslide. Add more traveling Chinese, Russians, Indians, Brazilians, Turks, Middle Easterners, and others to the mix and the demand for international travel is growing around the world.

Eastern Europe – a mixed bag, but a slight fall in the euro often translates to a big fall in currencies that haven’t converted, as in the Czech Republic and Hungary. Now’s a good time to go.
India – with the dollar at around 50 rupees, budget travelers are getting a lot for their money here. At the middle and high end though, forget it.
Indonesia – Outside of Bali, where a crush of tourists has led to increased prices across the board, a more favorable exchange rate is keeping prices in check.
Mexico – For the moment, this “honorable mention” country is actually a tad cheaper than it was in 2009 because of exchange rate changes. You need to leave the resort areas though and go inland.

Quito, Ecuador

About the same

Someone getting off a plane now won’t notice a big difference from someone who did so three years ago in these places.
Ecuador, Panama, Belize – the first is one of the world’s cheapest, the latter two not. But all use the U.S. dollar, so no real changes.
Bolivia, Nicaragua and Honduras – the predicted surge in tourists never seems to happen, so things keep chugging along as before, with incremental changes.
Guatemala – Crime issues, a weak tourism board, and strong ties to the U.S. economy have meant no upticks here. Prices are stable.
Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam – You’ll find increased prices in pockets here and there where tourists congregate, but overall it’s not dramatic and they’re still a terrific value.
Jordan – Things keep getting better for Jordan, but it’s the best house in a bad neighborhood. So apart from the ridiculously high price to enter Petra, it remains a good deal.

Chivay, Colca Canyon, Peru

More expensive

These destinations will hit your wallet much harder than before. This is usually due to a stronger local currency, an improving local economy, an increase in tourists, or all of the above.

Turkey – I’m taking this country out of the next edition. It’s now one of the world’s most popular tourist spots and is priced accordingly. Now a huge cruise ship destination too, which never helps.
Thailand – This is the one I get the most angry e-mails about. Sorry kids, but the baht was in the high 30′s when I researched the last edition. Now it’s at 30. The country has weathered multiple crises that would have sunk almost anyone else and is more popular than ever. Growth has been frenetic and the locals have more money to spend.
Argentina – It’s not that their currency is doing well or that their economy would be cranking it it weren’t held together by central government duct tape and magic tricks, but inflation is very bad, so the prices keep rising, especially for anything imported. Beef and local wine are still a great deal…
Peru – Take a resource-based economy witnessing record-high commodity prices and combine that with a bucket list bucket of moneyed tourists and you get…rising prices all around. It’s still a deal off the main corridor, but “doing Machu Picchu” is going to bust the budget no matter how you work it out.
Morocco – Though still probably the best value in Africa for those on a $100 or $200 a day vacation budget, prices have gone up as they have aligned with the euro. With Spain in the crapper though economically and the rest of Europe ailing, the situation here could improve as time goes on.

Also on the “who knows” front is Egypt, which is still a big question mark. Africa’s other great value could implode or it could return to tourism as normal. We shall see.

All-inclusive for 3, at $108 per night

Magazines and websites constantly run stories about finding great travel deals and vacation bargains. Usually they highlight some nifty new website, the latest apps, or some Twitter stream that you have to catch at 3:30 pm each Thursday. Really though, it’s not complicated. Here’s the one-sentence answer on how to save the most:

Pick the right place, at the right time, and pay less than what most others are paying.

Pick the right place

Destinations are not priced equally. Internationally, a trip to Japan can literally cost you five times more on the ground than what a trip to Indonesia will cost you. Denmark will be exponentially higher than a vacation in Bulgaria. Two weeks in Chile or Brazil will cost you three times as much as two weeks in Nicaragua or central Ecuador.

Quito lunch

If you start with an expensive destination, all other cost-cutting attempts become much harder and less effective.

Even within countries though, major capitals and popular tourist resort areas occupy the top end of the scale. Compare New York City to Austin, Cabo San Lucas to Guanajuato, or Prague to any town in the Moravia region of the Czech Republic. Sure, we’d all like to spend a week in Paris, but if you’re looking to lower expenses, head to the villages instead.

At the right time

Nearly every destination has a high season and a low season. The optimal time is in between—the proverbial “shoulder season.” This is when the weather is still good and everything is still open, but the tourist hordes and peak prices have gone home.

In some places this is easy to figure out, like Europe in the spring or late autumn, the Caribbean or Mexico after the spring break crowds and snowbirds have left. In others it’s not as obvious, but a quick glance at a guidebook or destination website will usually clue you in.

The tough one for parents is always our summer, when school is out. But even then, it’s not high season in the southern hemisphere, in African safari country, and much of Southeast Asia. It’s not high season for cities in the U.S. You can find rock-bottom deals in places where it’s sweltering outside: think Las Vegas, Scottsdale, and Florida outside Orlando. Avoid the obvious and you’ll be rewarded.

Pay less than what most others are paying

If you open up a common online travel agency site, book your hotel, and add on a few local tours, you’re probably paying top dollar. You can almost always do better.

Hotel chains spend millions of marketing dollars to make you believe their 20 percent off deal or $100 spa credit thrown in is some terrific bargain. If you go shopping around on the likes of Expedia and Travelocity, it’ll look that way too. Contracts with those online agencies ensure that nobody is showing a price much lower than anyone else’s.

There’s a whole other booking system though that’s hidden–it’s even called “opaque booking.” You know this system by the brand names participating in it: Hotwire with its hidden hotel names, Priceline with its bidding on properties you can’t identify. Then there are the membership flash sale sites where you have to get the e-mails from the likes of Jetsetter, Vacationist, SniqueAway, and TripAlertz. Plus there are a few semi-hidden ones operating in between the light and dark, like LuxuryLink and SkyAuction.

You can iron out most of the uncertainty on Hotwire and Priceline by using online message boards that will clue you in, but if the idea makes you uncomfortable or you don’t want to commit your money up front, there are other strategies to take. The best one is to avoid the international chains entirely and book an independent hotel. You can find these in guidebooks, on websites dedicated to the destination, or on value-focused sites like EuroCheapo for Europe and Travelfish.org for Southeast Asia.

My sub-$50 hotel in San Cristobal de Las Casas

Sure, if you’ve got hotel loyalty points banked up you want to spend, by all means go with the corporate hotel or resort using that hard-won currency. But in many cases you’ll pay far less and get more personal service by staying at an independent hotel that is less visible but really wants your business. If you’re staying for more than a night or two, you’ll also have a better chance here of negotiating for a better rate or an upgraded room. Just ask a long-term traveling backpacker—they’re doing this every week.

This “pay less than most others” strategy applies to dining and attractions as well. Avoid tourist restaurants, sniff out the specials, and ask real locals (not a concierge) where they like to go. Find the local coupon books and consider using something like the Entertainment Book or signing up for Groupon or Living social in the place where you’re headed.

There’s one expense I haven’t mentioned in all this and it’s a sizable one: airfare. In today’s mostly transparent climate for flights, finding a real airfare deal is not easy no matter where you’re going. Use miles to pay for long-haul flights when you can and watch for specials. Many sites will let you search all flights from your own airport to spot the bargains or will send you a weekly rundown on sales. If you’re not dead-set on a certain place, you’ll find many more opportunities to save. In other words, return to #1 because that’s a different angle on “Pick the right place.”

For more timeless advice on getting more for your travel budget, pick up the book Make Your Travel Dollars Worth a Fortune, available in paperback and for the Kindle. 

Despite the millions airlines poured into lobbying against it, as of yesterday the U.S. Department of Transportation has mandated that all flights operating in the U.S. must display the entire airfare up front in the booking process. If an airline advertises a sale price, it must be the real total price, not “before taxes and fees.” Since it has become routine for flights to Europe to have as much or more in fuel “surcharges” as the price of the ticket, the D.O.T. could no longer ignore the flood of consumer complaints.

Read this excellent story from Consumer Traveler to get the details. It’s written by Charlie Leocha, whose Consumer Alliance group should get the bulk of the thanks for making this happen.

Besides the honest airfare disclosure, the companies also have to make it easy for you to figure out how much you’ll have to pay to check bags, depending on your flight. All that info now has to be on one easy-to-find page and at the start of the booking screens.

Most airlines and online travel agencies acted in a civil manner this week, sending e-mails to their customers explaining not to be alarmed by higher advertised costs, that they’re just seeing it all up front now instead of having surcharges added when booking. The airline that everyone loves to hate—Spirit Airlines—took a quite different tack though. I got an e-mail from them that looked like this:

In a bout of double-speak that would make George Orwell and Lenin both proud, the company claimed that this law was all a big conspiracy to somehow hide taxes from you so the government could keep raising them. I can’t imagine even the most delusional Tea Party faithful falling for that one since any airline can break out taxes as clearly as they’d like anywhere on their website. But instead of a link to any page explaining the new law, there was just a link to go complain to your congressperson. How bizarre!

As SmarterTravel said in an article about the company’s actions, “Spirit’s overblown reaction to the government’s passenger protection rules—first legal action and now a very public advertising campaign—underscores the carrier’s reliance on a steady stream of passenger surcharges.” Here’s a fuller explanation of what they were claiming and how far removed it was from actual facts.

There are plenty of others out there who look at the airfare as just a way to get you in the door and start doubling or tripling that amount with extra fees and this law won’t help you on foreign domestic flights. So if you’re flying on Spirit’s kindred souls, like RyanAir or Aerobus, you’ll still need to take every advertised fare for what it is: a bait-and-switch gimmick. Here though, the consumers won one over the big corporate campaign contributors.