A year ago, Robert Alejandro and Jetro Rafael shared their experience of traveling through Southeast Asia on a shoestring budget<\/a>: 9 countries (including China, Macau and Hong Kong), 3 months, for only Php 50,000. I was amazed at this figure they presented, because I was able to easy spend roughly the same amount in just one country for 14 days back in 2006. Right at that moment, I decided to give Southeast Asia another go, and really try to stick within my budget this time.<\/p>\n

Though my trip was only through five countries for one month, I aimed for the same amount, knowing that I do have a habit of overspending. Well, as I finished adding up the travel expenses from my June backpacking trip through Southeast Asia, I realize that traveling on a shoestring is not for me. Well, I still travel on a budget, but I do believe in indulging once in a while.<\/p>\n

So how much did I spend for one month in Southeast Asia?
\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/colgroup>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Southeast Asia 2009<\/span><\/b><\/td>\n	<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
May 30 \u2013 July 6<\/td>\n	<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n	<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n	Cost<\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n	in Philippine Peso<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n	<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Per city\/country<\/b><\/td>\n	<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Cambodia<\/td>\n	PHP 10,664.16<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Bangkok, Thailand<\/td>\n	PHP 7,449.00<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Luang Prabang, Laos<\/td>\n	PHP 12,526.00<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Vientiane, Laos<\/td>\n	PHP 4,184.47<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Bangkok, Thailand<\/td>\n	PHP 8,573.18<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Malaysia<\/td>\n	PHP 13,300.31<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Singapore<\/td>\n	PHP 14,313.23<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n	<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Other expenses<\/b><\/td>\n	<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Airport transfers (Manila)<\/td>\n	PHP 570.00<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Travel tax (Manila)<\/td>\n	PHP 1,620.00<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Airport tax (Manila)<\/td>\n	PHP 750.00<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Travel insurance<\/td>\n	PHP 3,790.00<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Roaming charges<\/td>\n	PHP 1,500.00<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\n	<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Total<\/span><\/b><\/td>\n	PHP 79,240.35<\/span><\/b><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n Download:<\/strong> \nSEA 2009.xls (89k)<\/a> – Spreadsheet includes the detailed travel budget for each city\/country<\/em><\/p>\n I am consoling myself with the fact that compared to how much I spent in 2006<\/a> (including the shopping, which wasn’t included in the budget that I posted online), this was actually pretty decent. It’s not cheap; I’m sure many are able to do this same trip for half the cost, but hey, that’s them and this is me. And this time, my budget includes my shopping \ud83d\ude09 (well, not the doll shopping part 2 in Bangkok and the things I bought in Singapore). This is actually below my estimated sum, actually. So I guess I still did pretty well?<\/p>\n At the end of the day, it’s the trip that matters, not the costs (many would argue with this statement, I know). Do I regret spending this much? Hell no.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A year ago, Robert Alejandro and Jetro Rafael shared their experience of traveling through Southeast Asia on a shoestring budget: 9 countries (including China, Macau and Hong Kong), 3 months, for only Php 50,000. I was amazed at this figure they presented, because I was able to easy spend roughly the same amount in just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[1158,893],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/justwandering.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1015"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/justwandering.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/justwandering.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justwandering.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justwandering.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1015"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/justwandering.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5834,"href":"https:\/\/justwandering.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1015\/revisions\/5834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/justwandering.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justwandering.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/justwandering.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}