We just got back (February 2026) from just over 3 weeks of travel in Southeast Asia. On this trip, we chose Vietnam, Laos, and Malaysia. Here, we’ll quickly fill you in on our itinerary, why we chose to travel this way, costs, where we went, and why.
This was a mum and son trip, we like to keep the “family” in World Travel Family. My son and I shared twin rooms most nights, but in Melaka we booked an excellent apartment with two bedrooms. We’ll tell you where we stayed and what we packed into this super-fast tour of 3 countries in Southeast Asia, roughly a week in each. I would have been very happy to complete most of this trip as a solo female traveller (not the motorbike tour), but having company is more fun.
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3 Week Itinerary for Southeast Asia
We chose Vietnam as our first destination in Southeast Asia because Vietnam is one of our favourite countries in the world. It has great food, and it’s relatively easy to fly to for us, from Queensland, Australia.
This time, we opted for the south of Vietnam, flying into Saigon (Ho Chi Minh). This was because we hadn’t been for a while. Last year, we visited Hanoi and the northern part of Vietnam.
You could do either north or south and then move on to Laos, but we chose to re-visit Saigon and check out Da Lat for the first time, to escape the heat. We opted to take a motorbike tour from Da Lat to Saigon. February is winter in Vietnam, but still, Saigon was uncomfortably hot.
If I had the choice, I would opt for Hanoi and northern Vietnam over the south; there’s more to see and do.
We were travelling just before Lunar New Year (Tet in Vietnam) and we knew that this was a very beautiful time to visit these countries. Laos was pleasantly cool in February, Malaysia was as hot as ever.
From Saigon, we flew cheaply to Vientiane, Laos, travelling by the new high-speed train to Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng, before returning to Vientiane Airport by bus. The bus is much easier than the train for this trip.
From Vientiane, we flew to Kuala Lumpur and took the bus directly to Melaka. From there, we returned to KL to wait for our return flights home to Cairns via Bali. You could easily add a few days in Bali to this trip, either in Kuta, near the airport, or head to Ubud.
You don’t have to pay the “Bali Tax” now if you connect in Denpasar (DPS, Indonesia) and have a boarding pass ready. Until recently, you had to. So we skipped Bali this time, if we had needed to pay that, it may have been worth staying a night or two.
That’s a lot of flights in 3 weeks, 6, and a lot of travel days, but we found that spending 2 nights in each destination was ideal. We only had one night in Vang Vieng, and 3 nights in both Melaka and Kuala Lumpur, which was too long.
Budget For 3 Weeks in Southeast Asia
We never set ourselves a fixed travel budget because we know this is counterproductive. We save money on things that are unimportant, and splurge on the things we want to enjoy.
We have always considered ourselves budget travellers, and we’re very good at finding a cheap deal, particularly on flights. Some of the hotels we used on this trip cost as little as $25 AU ( $ ?? US), others were over $100 Au per night. We’ll break down those costs for you here.
In Southeast Asia, $100 Au is a large amount to spend on a typical hotel, and you should get a lot for your money if you’re smart and dodge the scams. More to come on this, because we were almost victims of a scam on this trip.
Independent Travel Vs Organised Tour
We always book our own travel arrangements. We never use a travel agent today, and haven’t since 2001. Independent travel gives you freedom, choices, and you don’t pay extra in agent’s commissions. We can find the best deals, a travel agent won’t do that for you, and they generally have limited knowledge of the destination.
We know most of these places inside out and have no fear of booking everything ourselves, often at very short notice.
When we’re planning a trip like this, we start with outbound flights. Where can we go, cheaply, on which days? For this trip, we didn’t have return flights booked (to Australia) until we were about to leave Laos. This trip was open-ended, to an extent.
Our motorbike tour from Da Lat to Saigon was booked in advance, availability for that would have been limited. Most other tours and activities, we booked just a day or two in advance. Most of our tours and buses we booked just the day before. Our bus to Melaka wasn’t booked at all, we just headed to the bus station at Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA). We knew it would be easy.
We booked this trip, flights, and some hotels, about 10 days before departure, which was plenty of time to prepare. The last time we went to Vietnam, we booked flights the day before.
Cost of Flights For This Itinerary in SEAsia
The flights we took are as follows. Cairns is our closest internation airport and flights from Cairns to anywhere are incredibly limited. This means to get in and out of the country, to anywhere except Bali, usually takes 4 flights. It’s annoying, and is one of the reasons I’d rather live in the UK or Asia.
We researched these flights on multiple platforms and booked them in a variety of places to find the cheapest deals on the same flights.
Cairns – Brisbane booked direct with Virgin Australia. We chose to avoid Bali departing Australia, because the “Bali Tax”, without a boarding pass for Viet Jet, would cost us an extra $100. In retrospect, I wish we’d gone via Bali, because flying south to Brisbane and then north, is hellish, uncomfortable, less environmentally friendly, and long.
Brisbane – Saigon booked on Booking.com Flights, Viet Jet, cost $469 Au for 2 adults. $234 Au each, $164 US.
Ho Chi Minh, Saigon – Vientiane booked on Kiwi.com, VietJet, $199.80 Au for 2 adults. $99.90 Au each, $68 US.
Vientiane – Kuala Lumpur booked with Air Asia direct.
Kuala Lumpur – Bali direct with Air Asia.
Bali – Cairns – Booked direct with JetStar. $744 Au, $372 ($260 US) each, which is very expensive!
Visa Costs For This Trip
We did not need a visa for Vietnam and Malaysia. We needed a visa on arrival for Laos, that cost $45, US cash, each.
Hotel Costs For This Itinerary
We booked all of our hotels for this trip to Southeast Asia on Booking.com. This is unusual for us; we often use Agoda as they are Asia-based and can have better deals. Today, I can’t be bothered to compare hotel prices on multiple platforms. A dollar or two here and there is worth less to me than my time. Maybe this is an indicator of my reduced anxiety today. Back in the day, when we were travelling on a very tight budget to allow us to travel for years, I would have checked several hotel booking platforms to find the cheapest deal.
In Laos, we noticed that some travellers were finding accommodation the old-school way, by getting off the bus and going door-knocking to negotiate prices. This is unnecessary today. We stopped doing this back in 2013 when we started travelling full-time with our kids.
My biggest piece of advice for young backpackers today is to save your sanity and time by booking all accommodation online, even if it’s only hours before you arrive.
What do we look for in a hotel? Twin beds were essential on this trip, then we select hotels with good reviews (over 8 or 9 out of 10) before looking at location and cost. We always prefer rooms with a kettle for coffee and a fridge for water. Sometimes we look for hotels with washing machines. The hotter the climate, the more laundry you will need to do, and we were travelling with carry-on luggage only. This is the best way to travel, it’s so much easier. We don’t look at star ratings at all, and we’ll book hotels, guest houses, homestays, or hostels if they suit our needs. We don’t use Airbnb, ever.
VIETNAM Saigon, District One 2 nights. Lantern Hotel (free laundry service) Approximately $42 US, $60 Au per night.
VIETNAM Da Lat 2 nights. RedHouse DaLat Hotel (/Hostel) Approx $14 US, $21 Au per night. CHEAPEST
VIETNAM Motorbike Tour 2 nights. This included hotels, admissions, guides and most food.
VIETNAM Saigon District One 2 nights. The Signature Hotel Saigon (Highly recommended!) Approximately $54 US, $84 Au/night
LAOS Vientiane 2 nights. Vanida Hotel Approx $39 US, $56 Au per night, included breakfast.
LAOS Luang Prabang 2 nights. Siridel Luang Prabang Approx $31 US, $45 Au per night.
LAOS Vang Vieng 1 night. Maylay Guest House $26 US, $38 Au per night,
LAOS Vientiane Airport Hotel 1 night RS1 Hotel $32 US, $46 Au per night. Included breakfast and airport transfer.
MALAYSIA Melaka Apartment 3 nights The Apple Residence. A large family apartment, $60 US, $86 Au per night, but watch out for added charges and taxes in Malaysia, approc $30 Au extra here.
MALAYSIA Kuala Lumpur Hotel 3 nights Impianna KLCC Hotel, as for everywhere in Malaysia, check for hidden charges, $99 US, $143 Au/night here, plus approx $79 Au in hidden charges for a 3-night stay, total. This one included a very good buffet breakfast. We had booked a cheaper hotel but we cancelled when we saw the room. This hotel was the only one available nearby at the last minute, we wouldn’t normally spend this much on a place to sleep. MOST EXPENSIVE.
Hotel prices change daily, of course. We found that weekends in Melaka were much more expensive than weekdays, because of the night markets. In our opinion, the night markets here aren’t worth visiting, but Melaka is great, maybe go mid-week and pay less.
Insurance
We booked our travel insurance with Budget Direct. As we didn’t have fixed return dates before we left, we just added a few days to the insurance policy term to give us a buffer zone. For myself and my “dependant” insurance cost $274 Au, this was a bit more expensive than usual because we needed motorbike insurance.
SIM Card for Southeast Asia
As we were travelling in several different countries in SE Asia, we bought an E-Sim that covered most of the Southeast Asia region. It worked out very well. We used about 10GB of data each ($50 Au each) in 3 weeks of travel. We buy e-SIMs through SIM Corner, always. Buy more data than you think you need, our hotel wifi often wasn’t great and you need a connection for all bookings.
Food
I can’t tell you what you will spend on food in Southeast Asia, and I can’t give you a total for what we spent. Sometimes we splurged, sometimes we skipped meals or grabbed some street food for a dollar or two.
You can make food cost as much or as little as you like. A very basic budget would be about $5 US per day. Some of our more fancy meals were well over $100 US for 2, with drinks.
Again, we live in a remote place with few dining options, when we find a nice restaurant or interesting local cuisine as we travel, we take advantage of that. For an idea of food costs and what you get for your money, we wrote about this budget restaurant in Laos.
Costs of Buses and Trains on This Southeast Asia Trip
We took a lot of buses and trains on this trip, the cost of train and bus travel is broken down for you in this post.
In Vietnam, we took a bus to Da Lat. It cost 46 Euros, $54 US for 2 people on a luxury sleeper bus. We booked through 12GoAsia, as we always do.
In Malaysia, we got the bus from KLIA to Melaka and then from Melaka back to KL. We booked the latter through 12GoAsia because we wanted to be certain of a departure time. This journey cost just 5.33 Euros, $6 US, which was much cheaper than buying a ticket direct at the bus station when we were heading south to Melaka.
We also took various short trips using Grab, taxis and tuk-tuks. A Grab car is often cheaper than a bus if you aren’t travelling solo as is usually cheaper than a taxi. Remember that there is no Grab in Laos.
Tours, Admissions and Activitity Costs
Paying admission costs to religious sites annoys me, paying a lot more than the locals also annoys me. Malaysia charges tourists extra, and Laos have started charging for most places. Every Wat in Laos seems to be a “museum” now and carries a 30 or 40 K Kip admission. It’s a small amount, but it adds up.
Food tours were expensive in Laos,(over $100 Au) so we didn’t book one, it just wasn’t worth it. Our food tour in Vietnam was much cheaper at $49 Au each. We know Malaysian food pretty well, and we often don’t like it, so we wouldn’t book any culinary activities there.
In Malaysia and Vietnam, most religious places of interest were free.
We did pay to enter the Saigon War Remnants Museum and Independence Palace in HCM. Both were cheap.
In Laos, we booked a tour to Pak Ou Caves that included a Mekong River cruise. It was cheap, $49 Au, and included lunch, drinks, and a beer on the cruise. That’s not much to pay for a very full half day excursion. Tip: Book the afternoon cruise for sunset on The Mekong.
In Malaysia, the only place we paid to enter was the aquarium, which we regretted. It was close to our hotel, and my son wanted to go, he was 8 the last time he visited. I wouldn’t recommend it today. Our guide to Kuala Lumpur’s attractions with kids is here.
We visited the Prison Museum in Malacca, it was free, and very gruesome.
Clothes & Packing, Shopping As We Travel
We do something a little unusual when we travel, and this is mostly because we live in Far North Queensland with very limited access to shops. We pack our old clothes, discard them, and buy new as we travel. This saves laundry costs, allows us to travel even lighter, and allows us to come home with a nice new wardrome.
So, for instance, my running shoes were worn out, After I completed the motorbike tour, where they saw heavy wear and a lot of dirt, I headed to the HOKA shop in Saigon and bought new ones.
My son packed an old pair of jeans that he wears to work, we replaced those in Kuala Lumpur. Holey socks and underwear came with us, but went in the bin rather than being carried as dirty laundry.
That’s just how we roll. You may find that this system of buy one, discard one, works for you, too.
What we packed, our male and female packing lists for this trip, a quick list
Mum
1 pair of baggy jeans that I wore on every plane, bus, and train as they were bulky to pack. Baggy jeans are a lot cooler than anything tight.
1 pair of baggy cotton combat pants
1 pair of running tights that I sometimes wear in hotel rooms or in bed. I didn’t run on this trip, I usually use hotel gyms, but I barely did.
3 vest tops to layer (2 would have been plenty)
3 baggy long-sleeved shirts for the sun/modesty. (2 would have been enough)
2 bras
Various socks and underwear
1 light fleece that I didn’t wear at all.
1 light rain jacket, Berghaus, again, I didn’t need it.
1 light sweatshirt/long sleeve T-shirt that I wore a lot.
1 pair of running shoes
1 pair of Berkenstocks – discarded and not replaced, they’re terrible travel shoes.
Toothbrush
Ayurvedic oil for face and skin care.
Razor
Comb (from the first hotel room, I didn’t pack one).
Phone
Laptop
Son
2 pairs of jeans
1 pair of swim shorts that could double as going outside shorts in countries where shorts are OK for men.
1 long sleeve T/shirt/sweatshirt, not worn.
6 T-shirts, he only wore 4 of them.
1 linen long-sleeve shirt.
Various socks and underwear.
1 pair flip flops
1 pair of boots ( Blundstones, worn constantly)
Phone
Toothbrush, shared toothpaste
Antiperspirant
Savlon
Iodine (that we didn’t use)
Sea salt
Mushroom supplement liquid.
Electrolytes
Power bank, adaptors and leads
Razors from hotel rooms, he grew a beard on this trip and gave it a tidy up from time to time.
On paper, it may seem that our female packing list is much longer than the male. In fact, we weighed what we were packing before departure, my clothing was lighter than my son’s. We had a maximum of 7Kg of luggage, and that included my laptop. Toiletries, medications and other miscellaneous items were mostly shared, but I’ve put them on the male list because there was more space. We were significantly beneath this 7 kg weight allowance.
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