Cheapest Destinations Blog is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Transportation Options for Backpacking Around Southeast Asia

Backpacking around Southeast Asia was one of the most cost-effective ways to extend your travel time back when I first hit the road in the 1990s. Here we are a quarter way through a new century and it still is. It helps that so many great value destinations are clustered together. Getting from A to B is a lot easier than it used to be though and new options are popping up all the time. 

backpacking around Southeast Asia

On an overnight train in Vietnam in 2012

If you had time traveled from the present day to my first trip around the world in the 90s and told me that there would be a high-speed train running across Laos, I probably would have thought you were high. I also wouldn’t have believed that Thailand could support at least six  seven domestic airlines traversing the small country. Both are true now though.

The other aspect that has changed a lot is that access to this information keeps getting easier and easier. Instead of having to consult five or six different websites to figure out how to get from one city to another in Asia as I did in 2012, you can just put the two places in 12Go and let them figure it out. Train, bus, ferry, air—it’s all laid out for you to choose from. 

Overall, you’ve got a lot of choices for how to get from place to place and from one country to another. The digital nomads living in these countries know the options well since it’s really hard to live in this region without doing multiple border runs throughout the year. If you’re interested in that, Indonesia is the worst, Vietnam and Cambodia are a bit better, and Thailand is finally making it easy for non-retirees with their visa that allows six months at a time for five years, including for self-employed people. 

Train Connections in Southeast Asia

train travel in Laos

(c) James Clark

As mentioned above, Laos has a high-speed train traversing the country now. Apparently it’s quite nice. While my ride on top of a bus from Luang Prabang to Vang Vieng was certainly interesting in my younger days, holding on for dear life, I certainly would have paid more to get there in a more comfortable manner. 

The slow boat along the Mekong I took in my backpacking days was culturally interesting and scenic, but it took two days to get between the Laos entry point and our destination and it took my butt a while to recover from the hard benches. This train goes 160 kilometers per hour and can now take you into China (the country that paid for it). 

Click on that photo to read more about it on James Clark’s Future Southeast Asia site. He’s an old-school blogger like me who has been reporting on the region for ages. (You can see a guest post from him here on the cost of living in Ho Chi Minh City.) To give you an idea, the train between Vientiane to Luang Prabang can take as little as two hours and costs US$26 to $33. See the options here

Even back in the pre-internet days though, you could travel from Thailand all the way to Singapore. We actually did part of that stretch, plus we traveled on a slow overnight train from Bangkok to Chiang Mai. Now there are more lines and more connections, plus some of the trains have gotten upgraded. Plans for a true high-speed train between these countries has remained a dream, however, and might never happen, even though Kuala Lumpur to Singapore is stupidly one of the busiest air routes in the world. (Only 30 minutes flying time.)

You can actually ride from Bangkok to the border with Cambodia now and you can actually get from Thailand’s capital to the one in Laos. The Khamsavath – Nong Khai railway reaches Vientiane over the Thai-Laos Friendship Bridge. 

The Thai and Malaysian railways can be good for shorter trips too, like Penang to Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok to Ayutthaya. You can travel the length of Vietnam if you have plenty of time. We rode the stretch from Danang to Hanoi in 2012 with my daughter, stopping off in Hue, and the scenery was great. For her it was a highlight of the trip since we had bunk beds. 

Indonesia opened its first high-speed train line last year, but it’s on a business route in Java, not one that many foreign visitors will use. Hopefully it will get extended to somewhere like Yogyakarta eventually. You can get there by train now from Jakarta, but it’s slow going. 

Hundreds of Cheap Flights in Southeast Asia

Nok Air Southeast Asia flights

If you’re in a hurry and are traveling light, you can get to almost any city in Southeast Asia on a budget airline. This method used to be out of reach for those backpacking around Southeast Asia, but now a flight can be as cheap as a bus, especially on competitive routes.

It’s hard to keep track of which airlines cover which routes because there are so many of them competing: you often have multiple ones to choose from. Thailand alone has six or seven Thai domestic airlines in the sky there at any given time. Indonesia and Vietnam some of their own. 

Then there are airlines going between all the countries as well. AirAsia of Malaysia is the biggest, but there are also a lot of flights from Scoot (budget arm of Singapore Air), Cebu Pacific, IndiGO of India, Lion Air of Indonesia, and many more. Some of the smaller airlines are mostly domestic, but then they’re have one or two routes to a neighboring country, so you have to poke around. 

Just be advised that you might pay more for luggage than you do for your flight ticket. Last I saw, Lion Air charges you an amount per kilo starting at 1 for checked bags, not “up to 15 kilos” or whatever. We found it easier in Thailand to just suck it up and pay for a bundle that included everything as the airlines we were on threw in a meal if you did that and it was decent. 

Ferries That Cross the Seas

Southeast Asia ferry

If you’ll be in a nation of islands, you’ll most likely end up on a ferry sooner or later. This is not as mandatory for long haul overnight trips as it used to be for budget travelers as airfares have come down, but it’s still the easiest way to get around in some parts of the Philippines and Indonesia. It doesn’t make sense to fly from Bali to Lombok, for instance, so everyone gets on a boat. 

Plus you’ll need a ferry to get to beachy Thai islands like Ko Tao or Ko Lanta. The one we road to the latter was a fairly small boat with seating around the edge and luggage in the middle. Often though you’ll be on a larger ship with a seating configuration like the one pictured above. 

In some cases you can go from one country to another on a ferry, such as between Malaysia and Indonesia. It’s about two hours to go from Port Dickson on Malaysia’s mainland over to Dumai in Sumatra to start your journey through this lesser-visited but fascinating part of Indonesia. It’s about the same to go from more interesting Malacca. It’ll cost you between $22 and $40. 

If you’re on some quest to travel overland without flying, you can get a seat on a cargo ship that also carries passengers and widen your scope, like moving between the Philippines and Indonesia (or Malaysian Borneo). Singapore and Malaysia have regular passenger ferries to the northernmost islands of Indonesia that are south of Singapore, then from there you can catch other ferries to Java. 

Buses for Backpacking Around Southeast Asia

Bus in Southeast Asia Thailand

We rode a lot of buses when we were backpacking around Southeast Asia the very first time and we rode more of them every time we returned, in every country I have visited. These have an advantage since they don’t require much infrastructure investment and they can go anywhere there’s a road. So even the smallest towns will usually have connections to larger cities. 

In Southeast Asia, these bus rides in remote areas can be…interesting. Sometimes they are falling-apart ones with no legroom that are stifling hot because the locals have a superstition about getting sick from the breeze. If they cross a mountain there might be people throwing up and you might have a chicken or worse in the next row. (On one bus we took in Laos way back when, an old lady was selling cooked rats on a stick.) They leave when the bus fills up and then some or the driver feels like taking off, not on a real schedule. 

Sometimes the bus is really a van and if you ever wondered how many people could fit into one of those, you’ll find out as the company keeps squeezing in three times the safe capacity, never mind comfort. Your luggage will be on the roof because there’s no room left inside. 

Between sizable cities though, you often have multiple choices in class and comfort and the best will be quite nice, air-conditioned to the point of keeping your drink cold though so bring another layer. The upper-class ones generally have decent legroom, luggage storage underneath, and reclining seats. Prices are all over the place according to the time in transit and the newness of the bus, but can be as little as $4 for a two-hour trip.

You can check any route in Thailand here to get an idea. 

These days there are ride share apps for shorter distances too, which can sometimes save you lots of time and hassle. You won’t find Lyft though and will seldom see Uber. It’s more likely you’ll need Bolt, Didi, or some homegrown alternative that’s only used locally. Last time I was in the Philippines I had to download one called Grab.

Once you’ve got your route figured out, search hotel prices in Southeast Asia here for where you’re headed. 

Want to get some budget help for planning your trip in these countries? Pick up a copy of The World’s Cheapest Destinations book on Kindle or paperback, now in its 5th edition. 

Backpacking Southeast Asia getting around

Buzzy

Wednesday 22nd of January 2025

A great overview. Getting from northern Thailand to tantalizingly close Luang Prabang is still a nightmare, though. According to my contact in Bangkok, Grab is the preferred way to get from the airport to the city.

Tim Leffel

Saturday 25th of January 2025

Yeah that part has never been easy. The good news is, you can now fly direct from Bangkok to Luang Prabang for about a hundred bucks. Then after that you can get on the new high-speed rail line.