how much money will i need to take to go travelling in thailand for a month?

Question

Im a university student and i am going travelling all over Thailaind for a month in july. Im not sure how much money i will require. How much does it cost per day to eat and stay in nice accomodation(we wouldn't be looking to stay anywhere too luxurious but not anywhere too grimey), so i can work out a starting budget at least. Is public transport expensive?

Answer 1

Will depend largely on what you want. In tourist places, everything depends on the season and the type of accomodation. prices double in high season. Your negotiating skills will be important. Never walk into a guesthouse or hotel looking exhausted and happy you have finally found something. You can save about 30% by being critical and taking your time. Go inside, drink a coffee, ask to see a room, show you are critical and wait. Try to see how many keys are on the key rack and look for other signs of occupancy rate. The ideal is when the staff gives the price first. Take off 40%. I have saved a lot of money this way. Start by booking one day and tomorrow we will see. Of course this will not work in a 400eur a day hotel or in a sleezy low end guesthouse. In most places you can find something decent for about 500THB or lower. If you stay somewhere long time (more than a week) negotiate but be careful about price schemes (extra for the laundry, for the cleaning etc). Do not forget to ask for a price with american breakfast included.
If you manage to order food in foodstalls you can easily eat for about 100 THB. If you want to go to a restaurant you will pay more. In tourist places, the food in cheap restaurants is sometimes bad. Thai are keen on food, so eat where the locals eat. You can go to a market, buy fruit (people with sometimes cut the melon or the mango for you) and eat a piece of fried chicken with some rice. Food can be very very spicy here.
Transport: buses are cheap and dangerous. Some are 30 years old, there is no real system of technical control. There have been reports of abducting and robbery. Never take a bus or a van outside an official bus station how friendly and charming that lady in her nice uniform may be. Trains are fun and cheap but slow, unreliable and not always safe. I feel that on trains you have more contact with genuine Thai people.
Concluding: depending on what you want to do and how much quality, comfort and luxury you want, I would say you need about 500 THB for lodging and about 200 THB for food. Less is possible, but you will have to look for it.

Answer 2

If you look at the other questions asked here in Thailand Travel you will see about every third question is about how much money you need to stay in Thailand. Opinion vary because each has his/her own style of living. Some can live in a room with a fan and bathe in cold water, eat Thai food from a stand every day.. Others want more luxury. It really depends on you and what you want.

Answer 3

To get the best idea as for how much money to take, I would recommend that you do some research on what type of hotel you are willing to stay in while you are there. Take a look at this site:
http://www.thailandhotels.net/Chiang-Mai-Location4.html

Looking at the above prices, you see that the prices range from 17-370 dollars, so depending on the type of hotel that you want, that will determine how much you'll pay. So if you stay in Chiang Mai for 5 days at 20 dollars a night, you'll spend 100 dollars on lodging. The site above also lists hotels throughout Thailand that you can check rates on.

Figure on 20 dollars a day for food and that is the high end. 800 dollars would be more than enough for food as long as you don't eat at high priced restraunts.

Once you have the loding figured out, I would add a few hundred dollars over that, just to be safe. You'd hate to get out there and then run out of money. Of course, you can always withdraw money from an ATM. It's safe to do so.

Public transportation is pretty cheap. If you take a taxi or tuk-tuk, make sure that you agree on a price prior to getting in. Taxis are supposed to use the meters, but that doesn't always happen.

Here are a few sites for you to check out:

http://www.hostels.com/en/th.html

http://www.tourismthailand.org/

http://www.travelthailand.com/

Good luck and enjoy your travels. Thailand is a beautiful country, the people are wonderful and you'll love it!!!

Answer 4

It is cheaper to travel in pairs as you pay for the room and not the beds. Tuk tuks can be expensive, as a westerner you will pay 2 times what the locals pay. I prefer the mini bus. Get a map of the town from the tourist office and the streets will have the bus numbers on them showing you what bus to catch. A tuk tuk ride costing 100 baht will be 10 baht on the minibus.Trains are cheap if you travel 3rd class, the train fare from Udon Thani to Nongkhai was 9 baht for a single. ( about 50 kilometres) The buffet restaurants are cheap and advertise the price up front, I can eat all I can for 99 baht. The beach resorts are expensive compared to the north and north east of Thailand ....... have a nice time and allow about 200 to 300 pound per week if you can.

Answer 5

a decent room will vary but 1000bht (15 quid'ish) will see you ok.Restaurant food about £10, street food(acceptable)about 1/4 that.Beer/cocktail around £1.20 from a bar,50p from a supermarket etc etc.In my opinion,I would pay a bit more for my room and save money taking my own beer to the beach ,if my budget was a little bit tight.Including everything except travel you should have a high old time on £50/day as long as you don't throw it around too much ie Danish Centre Inn Kata Phuket 800 bht double room high season,perfectly ok or go Evason Phuket for 20,000 per night.Public transport is ridiculously cheap if you stay off airplanes,even then it's only about the same as easyjet.Last time I went on Koh Samui ferry it cost 470bht (a tenner) for my pick-up truck and 5 passengers .If you're american sorry for using £'s just double up for dollars and again if you are american you 'd be better telling people out there you are canadian,you may get abused by fellow tourists and stitched up by traders Happy travels

Answer 6

You could probably get away with 60,000 baht or about £800, rooms can be cheap in the range of 1,000 baht or less, food can be a little expensive but a meal of fried rice and chicken or pork or beef is maximum 100 baht in a local bar, on the street it is even less expensive.
If you want western food that is more expensive still, a good Sunday-type roast dinner will set you back about 400 baht or £5.
Transport around the country is fairly cheap from Bangkok to Phuket or Chiang Mai by VIP bus about 800 baht. By train to Chiang Mai (overnight 1st class sleeper) 1,200 baht, flight by a low cost airline 2,000 baht or so..
Bottled beer in a bar is around 100 baht tops.
If you are really careful you could get away with less than 60,000 baht for the month and even manage £100 per week. This does not allow you a very 'full' night life though.

Answer 7

Well for a 3 week holiday I usually take about £2000 This is alot but then I usually party alot. I would say you would need at least £1000 to do you for a month so long as you don't party too much. Can get a room for about £15 a night and could eat for £15 a day very well. I would budget at the very least £30 a day though as I say you won't be partying much at this

Answer 8

You can stay somewhere decent for around £3-5/night. Food is really cheap, you can have a good meal for about £1. Travel is not expensive - a second class sleeper train across half the country costs around £8-10 and boats between islands and travelling short distances only costs £2-4. You can easily get by on £100 per week for accommodation, food, travel and inexpensive activities.

Answer 9

Depending on where in Thailand you plan to travel. I can offer you some average figures for you to compute your expenses per day.

Accommodation - main city like Bangkok or Chiangmai, average room is 900-1200 baht in hotel, 350-500 baht in backpacker hostel.

Other cities, you need to pay 600-900 baht hotel or 250-400 baht hostel.

Meal - local meal cost about 50baht in main city, 30baht elsewhere.

But if you are looking at western meals, expect to pay between 120-200baht.

Bus travel cost only 10-20baht internal city travel. Inter-province depends on distance and varies from 50-400baht depending on service and aircon or not.

So if you use the higher figures and convert to your currency to bring over, you can definitely survive quiye nicely.

Answer 10

contact [e-mail], he works for K&J International Business Center Travel, and he's GREAT! Let him know what you want to do, where you want to go, and he'll offer all kinds of suggestions on the best way to make use of your 30 days in Thailand. With most of his plans transportation, lodging, and meals come as part of the package (dirt cheap packages I might add). I took a 3 day, two night jungle trekking tour that included bamboo rafting and elephent trekking all for about 50$.

As for how much to bring, it depends on what you plan to do. If you are planning to party it up, drink and eat a ton, and enjoy "working women" bring more, if you intend to scrape by and do less, then bring less.

All in all, be prepared to be overcharged in most places as a tourist, it takes a while to get the hang of how much to pay. I'm living here, been here about three weeks and I'm only beginning to learn how to live as cheap as possible.

Basically, if you see many people that don't look Thai on the street you're standing, don't buy anything there go the next street over and you'll save a bundle. They fleece you for about double at least of what they charge Thai's, but it's still dirt cheap.

But, talk to simon. He'll take care of you, and set you up seeing all of Thailand for the best possible price, much cheaper than you could ever arrange on your own.

I'm sorry my answers aren't more specific, but depending on exactly what you plan to do, prices vary so much. Do you plan to just stay in BKK and party? Do you plan to go to an island and scuba dive? Do you plan to trek around jungles? Visit all the big temples? As for a dollar amount, I'd plan on 4,000 USD, and that's way too much. 2,000 is probably going to get you by comfortably...but, do you want to be counting pennies and worried about having enough to make it, or do you want to have a good time. It's a vacation, bring plenty, and be glad for everything you have left over.

You may also want to buy a few souveniers, really nice stuff down here and mail it back, and that adds up as well.