How to Eat Cheap & Save Money Traveling Southeast Asia
I’ve been traveling Southeast Asia for the last 12 months and before that I’ve traveled the UK and Europe for about 10 years. My goal is to help you plan and prep for your next trip and I want you to be able to make it the best trip that you’ve ever been on. To help you make your trips better, I’ve made a minieries in which I talk about different tips that I’ve found along my travels. I’ve traveled everything from backpacking for a weekend all the way up to luxury travels and everything in between. currently doing 12 months around Southeast Asia with a backpack. Hi, I’m Liam and today we’re going to talk about saving money on food and daily expenses. So, number one is eat like a local. Street food is king. This is something I learned immediately about getting to Southeast Asia. If you can avoid the tourist spots and eat the street food, you will literally live like a king. food stores, local markets. That is where the locals eat. They don’t eat at restaurants or they don’t even generally seem to cook either. Everything is just made in the street and away they go. I actually landed in Thailand and got a pad thai for about £250 in a street food vendor and it’s some of the best food I’ve ever eaten in my whole life. Especially when I’m talking about Southeast Asia, the street food is cheap, tasty, fresh, and often better than anything you could cook yourself or in a restaurant. Now, if you really must visit the restaurants, I would say a pro tip, cuz I’ve done it myself, is go on lunchtime. Lunchtime specials are a godsend. They are always massively discounted compared to what you pay on a normal regular day. Number two is to use apps to save money and make life easier. Now, if you don’t know, in Southeast Asia, Grab is huge. When I was back in the UK, it’s similar to Uber. And what it does is essentially it delivers food, it’s also ride sharing app. It’s very much like Uber, but it’s extremely cheap. Now, when people think, oh, getting food delivered, they generally think, oh, it’s going to be more expensive. Cuz if you’re in the UK or US, I know it’s more expensive to get your food delivered. However, with Grab, you’ll go down, you’ll order all your stuff, you go down the app, you click at the bottom, and there’s a section called promos. We found many times that the food is cheaper by ordering than if we were to do it ourselves, like cook it ourselves or by going to get it at the restaurant. So, a good example of this is McDonald’s. McDonald’s is about half the price on the app once you use all your promotions compared to going and getting it yourself in the restaurant. The apps we like the best is Grab, Go Jack, and Google Maps. And if you’re in Europe, it would be very similar apps. The first thing I would suggest you do is get an e SIM or a local SIM. I personally prefer to go and get a physical local SIM. The deals are normally much cheaper, especially if you’re staying for 30 days or even 14 days or more. And if you can’t do that, then you’ve got s and air allow on your phone. Download both of these apps and that’ll give you instant connect connectivity. currency apps like uh expense trackers like split wise and also the conversion app because in every country the conversion is different and it’s good to know what it means to you in the UK cuz I might not pay the same here as I would but I still don’t want to get mugged off or ripped off or whatever. Number three is take advantage of free or cheap activities. Walking tours are the absolute gold dust here. You can join a walking tour or just find a route online. Go around the route yourself. Now, this might sound like it’s not for you, but when you join a walk and tour or when you do the walk and tour route, you’ll see all the tourist attractions generally in one go and saves you having to jump all over the city and do different bits and bobs. You’ll do it all in one go and you’ll have a great day out. There’s also museums, parks, cultural events. Every city we go to has some sort of event on every single day. And that’s the same in your own home country. If you really look for them, they’re everywhere. A really good example of this is just a couple days ago we went outside of central Bangkok. And the reason for that is we went to see a Squid Game 3 setup where the uh dolls are spinning the rope and you can go in between and you can jump in it and see what it’s like to be in Squid Games in real life. It was really cool, really interesting, and something completely different from anywhere we’ve been. These experiences will connect you with other people without it costing you a fortune. And you’ll also connect with locals who you can then ask for more things to do. Number four is to use cash wisely and avoid ATM fees. ATM fees in foreign countries can rack up fast. So they start at like5 to 8, but if you’re withdrawing £50 here and £100 there, that’s 10 and 20% of the money you’re taking out is getting charged in a fee. It’s a lot of money overall, like when it adds up. So, just be careful of the ATM fees and try not to let them get crazy high. What I would suggest is taking out a larger amount of cash and then spending the cash as you go. If you got a budget or a planner or a tracker app, you’ll be able to do this no problem at all. If you’re going to any of the local markets or the bazaars or anything like that, you’ll need cash anyway. If you want to use a street vendor, you’ll need cash. lately in Bangkok, Vietnam, maybe Cambodia as well, there’s a QR code that you can scan. And there’s actually an app that I’ve just found out about for people who are foreign who want to use a QR code. But before this app, there was no way at all you could do this. If you’re interested in the app, it’s called Moretta Pay, and I’ll link it down in the description below. But the important takeaway here is always have cash. Cash is king in Asia. And number five, our last tip is budget your daily spending. Set a sensible daily spending budget for food, transport, and small expenses. And those small expenses can add up really fast. So for me, I’m a snacky person. I love chocolate and I love sweet drinks. If I have a Coca-Cola every day, twice a day, and two chocolate bars, they add up really quickly, especially when you’re traveling. Additionally, if we don’t travel for a week or two weeks, then all those transportation costs add up and then we can use them to get a ferry or to get a speed a speedier train that we would have got normally because we’ve got the extra money in the bank. There’s a couple different ways you can do this. I like just using the notes app on your phone, but there’s also a tracking app called Notebook that Jessica uses. Many different ways. Just find which one fits for you. Okay, so now you know how to save money on food and daily expenses. And that’s without missing out on the good stuff. I have loads and loads of tips like this. So, let me know in the comments below. Do you like the longer videos or the shorter videos? Would you prefer me to break them into two, three, or four sections? And also, if you didn’t like the video, don’t mind disliking the video. Let me know in the comments as well. I’d like to know what you do and don’t like, and then I can make sure I help more people. Additionally, if you got any value from this video, please share it with anyone that you think might also get value because the more people we help, the better. I want you to be able to plan your most amazing trip and everybody else to do the same. Thanks so much for watching. Stay tuned. See you soon.
Travel Southeast Asia on a budget with these cheap food tips and money-saving hacks. Discover how to eat cheap, find the best street food, and save on daily expenses while traveling in Southeast Asia. I’ll show you how to enjoy authentic local food, use the best apps to track spending, avoid tourist traps, and make your travel money go further. Whether you’re backpacking Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, or Indonesia, these practical tips will help you experience more for less. Drop your favorite food spots or questions in the comments, and subscribe for more travel advice!