Budgeting Guide: How Much I Spent for 2 Weeks Traveling in Southeast Asia (Vietnam + Singapore + Thailand)

Final Out-of-Pocket Cost: $2,160 USD

Sticker Price of This Trip: $12,291 USD

Money Saved: $10,131 USD (this is why I love the points game)

Introduction

Traveling is fun, but feels even more fun when it’s subsidized by credit card points. And bonus points if you can snag a business class seat for less than economy.

For my first >1 week vacation since graduating college, I decided to take a two week trip across Southeast Asia, burning down (part) of the stack of credit card points I had accumulated over the past two years to be able to fly business class roundtrip.

I introduce my trip in this post, and here some of my favorite experiences from the trip below:

Air France A350 Business Class Review (EWR-CDG)

Vietnam Airlines A350 Business Class Review (CDG-HAN)

Hyatt Regency Da Nang Resort Review

Thailand Phang Nga Bay Bioluminescent Plankton Tour

Finnair A350 Business Class Review (AirLounge) HKT – HEL

Finnair A330 Business Class Review (AirLounge) HEL – JFK

In this post, I’ll walk through:

Total Cost Breakdown & Value from Points

My general theory on credit card points is:

1. They subsidize travel I would’ve done anyways (practical travel)
2. They allow for experiences (international first / business class) I would’ve never paid for with cash (aspiration travel)

In this trip, I did a bit of both.

Here’s the full breakdown on what I spent, split by flights, hotels, then all other spend (food, tours, etc):

All in, I spent $2,160 for the entire trip, including flights and accommodation. The retail value of all the travel I did was over $12k – so my effective savings was $10k. This is insane, and why credit card points can be such a lifestyle amplifier if used correctly. I’d argue they are one of the highest-leverage financial tools for obtaining cool experiences, period. To be fair, most of the “savings” come from the flights given how expensive international business class cash fares are, but these are super valuable because:

1. I was able to get real sleep on the flights, so I could hit the ground running and not spend my precious days off trying to recover from deep vein thrombosis after flying in coach for 24 hours
2. The vacation starts at the airport, not the destination. The flights themselves are something to look forward to (although they always are for me, because I love planes)

My exact itinerary for the trip was:

Day 1 / 2: Fly from NYC to Hanoi via Paris

Day 3: Explore Hanoi (while cooked with Jetlag)

Day 4: Halong Bay Day Tour from Hanoi

Day 5: Go from Hanoi to Da Nang

Day 6: Rot on Beach at the Hyatt Da Nang

Day 7: Head over to Voco ma Belle Da Nang, Hoi An Night Tour

Day 8: One day to explore Da Nang City (Da Nang is meh)

Day 9: Fly from Da Nang to Singapore, stay at Holiday Inn Express Clarke Quay

Day 10: Explore Singapore, lots of Hawker Center food, and lots of sweating in the humidity

Day 11: Fly from Singapore to Phuket, explore Pa Tong Beach at night (not for the faint of heart)

Day 12: Morning in Phuket, then afternoon / night Bioluminescent Plankton Tour in Phang Nga Bay

Day 13 / 14: Fly from Phuket to Helsinki, One Night Layover in Helsinki, explore a bit of Helsinki, then Helsinki to NYC in Finnair business class

So for a 2 week trip total covering 3 countries and 4 cities, I spent $2,160, all-in including travel and hotels. To be fair, Southeast Asia is a generally cheaper destination (although Singapore can be very expensive, but more on that later).

One of the best parts of life, at least for me, is having cool travel experiences, so to be able to do this for cheap and for longer just by leveraging credit cards is why knowing how to navigate the credit cards points landscape can be so valuable.

Vietnam Budgeting Guide

Vietnam is one of the cheapest travel destinations on this planet (at least that you can be reasonably safe in. You can probably find better bang for your buck in Somalia or the Congo, but you probably need to invest in a Kevlar vest if going there). For anyone looking to stretch their dollars for awhile, Vietnam is probably your best bet on this planet right now for having access to good food (as long as you’re careful), nice beaches and nature, and very nice people & good service culture.

Here’s what to expect in terms of cost:

One thing to note is that in Vietnam, for many places to eat, cash may be your only option. This is rapidly changing as Vietnam continues to rapidly develop, but I’d make sure if visiting that you have an international ATM – friendly debit card. I use Charles Schwab’s Investor Checking Account (sign up for one HERE), which I love because there’s zero ATM fees internationally for any ATM, and there are no monthly account service fees. They’ll just pay you a rebate at the end of the month for any fees that were charged to you to make you whole, which can be pretty significant for international ATMs:

Here’s an overview of what key things will cost:

Food: Food is very, very cheap. You can get a full meal for $5 USD, and even less at very-local street vendors. I think the key thing you need to look out for is food and beverage quality. My rule of thumb was to never eat at a place that wasn’t at least half full or had somewhat of a line. Food standards and rules can be dodgy in Vietnam, and you definitely don’t want to end up having to waste a week hugging a toilet. Just check google reviews before visiting a place (my general threshold is 4.5 stars or above) and make sure they have decent turnover. I ate all sorts of food following these rules and had zero issues in Vietnam.

Accommodation: Again, very cheap in Vietnam. Solo rooms in hostels may run you $20USD, budget hotels $50USD, and you can get luxury hotel stays for $100USD+ per night. In Hanoi, I stayed at the Emerald Waters Valley (which was ~ok~, review HERE) and in Da Nang stayed at some nicer places like the Hyatt Regency Da Nang and Voco Ma Belle Da Nang.

Activities: Again, very cheap. A daytrip to Halong bay (including boat, transport, and a light meal) cost me $60USD.

Given how popular Vietnam is becoming as a tourist destination, you can easily dial up or down how “luxe” you want any tours or activities to be based on price and offerings. It’s a super competitive, consumer-friendly market here.

Singapore Budgeting Guide

I love Singapore. It gets knocked for being too sterile, but take the NYC (or London or insert western city here) subway at 2am and then the Singaporean MRT at 2am and tell me which you prefer. What I love about Singapore is it has range. What I mean by that is if you want to stay at Marina Bay Sands and drop $1,000 per night at a hotel and eat at some of the best Michelin-starred restaurants on the planet, you can. However, you can also stay at budget accommodations and get some of the best food of your life at Hawker Centers for $5 per (filling) meal. Also, your safety is pretty much always guaranteed here and you can drink the tap water and eat food without having to worry about getting your stomach destroyed the next day (you have to be vigilant about this in Vietnam and Thailand).

Food: Hawker center meals will set you back $5USD – $10USD per meal. Honestly, I just ate at Hawker centers for most of my time in Singapore. But you can also find very nice restaurants or international chains here (i.e Shake Shack) if you’re missing home.

Accommodation: Singapore is definitely the most expensive place to find budget accommodation in Southeast Asia, but it’s not impossible. Single rooms in hostels will run you $80USD+ per night, and midrange hotels $100-200USD, and luxury hotels usually start around $200USD+ per night. I opted for midrange and used my Capital One Venture X credit to stay at the Holiday Inn Express Clark Quay, which was perfect for my two days in Singapore.

Activities: I just walked around Singapore doing my own thing when visiting, so activities were pretty much free. For example, Gardens By the Bay was stunning. I did pay $15 to go to the top of the treetops, though:

Thailand Budgeting Guide

And last but not least, Thailand. Now, this is specifically for Phuket, which was actually surprisingly expensive. I probably spent just as much money in Thailand as I did in Singapore, which shocked me. However, it’s important to note Thailand is massive and there’s plenty of other of cities and regions that are much cheaper. Also, I went in late February, which is absolute peak tourist season for those from the northern hemisphere looking to escape the cold.

Food: I can only speak to Phuket, but sit down meals here were surprisingly expensive – at least for Southeast Asia standards. Meals were $15-$20 USD at restaurants, although I was staying in PaTong, which is a hellhole and was a complete mistake and not the place you want to go for a ~restful~ beach stay. Also it was heavily catered to tourists with western palettes. Surprisingly, this was the one place that I also did get ~mild~ stomach issues from. Not full-blown food poisoning, but definitely felt weird, even at a busy restaurant.

Accommodation: Generally Thailand is quite cheap, but February is peak time and hotel rates can be insane. Decent hotels off-peak usually cost ~$50USD for a room, and of course the sky’s the limit at nice luxury hotels but they generally start at $100USD per night. I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express in Patong, which was actually decent but also crazily-priced when I stayed ($150 per night). Off peak, this same hotel runs for $50USD (!!), which shows how much seasonality plays into how much you’ll spend here. The weather was great though, so I get it:

Activities: There’s huge variance here depending on what you want to do. Jet ski rentals will set you back $20-$30USD per hour, a Phi Phi islands daytrip could cost $100 so there’s a lot of variance. Given I only had 1 day in Phuket, I wanted to make sure I was doing it right so I splurged for a nice tour ($145) of Phang Nga Bay to see the islands near Phuket and Bioluminescent Plankton at night. This was a really, really cool experience that was definitely worth it, but not cheap.

Conclusion

Travel is great, but even better when banks pay for most of your trip via points. Southeast Asia is a budget traveler’s dream, and is probably still one of the best places on Earth where you can travel very well for not a lot of money (and even in expensive places like Singapore). The only tricky part is getting there – but that’s where the points come into play, and your vacation can start at the airport instead of the destination.