It’s more than possible to eat healthy while travelling/wandering on a budget.
You don’t have to always eat bread, ramen, or instant food. Even if you’re budgeting $2 for a meal, as long as you’re creative, you can find ways to survive in another country at a shoestring budget eating home made and decent meal.
It’s not that hard to eat healthier, and depending where you’re from, prices can either be cheap or expensive. For me, prices are the same and I don’t have a currency advantage at all. Sometimes I find prices to be slightly more expensive but some things can be priced the same. However, that doesn’t stop me from eating cheap but healthier food if I want to. It took me a while to realize that, as in the past to keep my cost as low as possible, I survived on bread and instant noodles.
Overtime, I found that another money saving hack is booking places with free breakfast as they usually provide simple ingredients that you can customise on your own. Generally, hostels provide egg, bread, jam, and sometimes if it’s a nice one, they’d provide oatmeal, cereals and salads. Some even provide fried rice which is filling and cheap especially when you want to just go back to the basics.
I have to say that it’s true south east asia is generally a cheaper place to be. For example, you can buy simple vegetables at the market for less than $2. That is to say, spending $6/day for 3 meals is also possible. These days, since I have the advantage from the hostel that provides me with free breakfast, I make two portions every morning and put it in a storage box.
As you can see above, I made a healthy bowl consisting of chopped toast, egg, and salad. I added a little bit of dressing or sometimes I don’t. For my other portion, it would be the same and I usually add other ingredients or just meals that I bought for extra ingredients. The thing is, I also eat only two times a day. So late breakfast, then one for dinner which consists of the breakfast box I had and added with more ingredients that I can find on that day.
It depends on the country but in Thailand, I used to make rice bowls with various meats and vegetables. Another advantage that a hostel has is that you can also store ingredients or a meal in their fridge. This is why I was able to store rice, meat, and vegetables and cook it for my meal. Eating out for me is quite a luxury and I do that once a week to try something new.
However, in Laos, the coffee I get is free. So it’s even more money saving because I don’t have to buy quality coffee and I was set until dinner time. However, I think travelling with a certain dietary restriction can also be quite a challenge. In some countries, certain meats are not too common and can be expensive. For example, there is pork in Indonesia but the varieties aren’t as many as in neighbouring countries or even EU and it's not cheap. Meanwhile in Thailand itself, beef can be quite expensive and if that’s your thing to eat beef, be ready to pay more for that. Whereas in Indonesia and Malaysia due to the large muslim population, beef is more common to find and can be cheaper. But since the budget is $2/meal, meat can be off-the list 😀. Though there are times when I found $1 grilled chicken in the local market and sometimes fish for that price. So, it’s definitely possible to eat that. At the same time, you can find a bag of rice for less than $1 in the local market as well. It also depends on what you want to add or remove in your diet, if you want to remove carb, then you can use that $1 for more vegetable and protein. Whichever you want to do, you definitely can and traveling/wandering doesn't have to be expensive. The expensive part is always all about the "comfort" level. If you have high comfort level, that certainly comes with cost but if you're not, then it's gonna be reasonable :). That's all my wandering tips from me today!
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How much do you pay for the hostel with free breakfast and that nice looking cappuccino Cem? I bet it is much cheaper in Laos rather than in Bali. hahah
!PIZZA
@ekavieka Prices fluctuates since I rarely book them full week. But the cheapest I got was 132000IDR/night and most expensive during high season a few week ago was 192000/night.
In thailand dorm costs like 109000/night but of course no coffee haha. I was checking prices in Bali I found 1 million/week in Jimbaran xD
My budget for a whole day meal when traveling is 100HKD or around 13 USD 🤣. Food truly is expensive here even fruits. There are less expensive fruits and vegetables though. But if you have no kitchen to cook, you would definitely go for take-outs and fruits are the suitable ones. Unless you want a raw veggie salad.
The 2usd here is around 16 hkd here which is only enough to buy a small hand of bananas or two pieces of low-quality apples 😅. Not even enough to buy a healthier tuna sandwich in 7/11.
Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, probably are the ones in Asia that have less expensive food. I heard even onions in the Philippines are already expensive, lol. They called it gold 😂 inflation is real. But could definitely find a healthy food worth $2.
It's just a matter of smart budgeting when traveling. There are healthy foods but less expensive anywhere for sure. Glad you have a free coffee there...
@jane1289 I just saw that a loaf of bread costs around 16HKD. Since I plan going there it's nice to know that I can spend 100HKD easily xD but I am sure there are places where I can find cheaper just because I can eat once/day as well.
Thailand can be a bit more expensive if you're in bkk but I heard south and less develop areas are cheaper. in 7/11 I ate pork cheese sandwich for $0.94 that's one meal already for me haha.
I'm not into sandwiches.. I'm not satisfied without rice haha. People here usually eat lunch during tea time as food are discounted, lol.
Certainly, sometimes you don't have to go to great lengths to eat healthy, as you say. Here in Cumana state Sucre Venezuela, we can find food of all kinds and different prices. For example, with the current crisis, many people have to invest to eat with little money. Imagine, the monthly salary is 130 bolivars and a kilo of meat costs more than that. Then you can see the magic that many Venezuelans have to do. I am glad that in your shelter you can find and store food. These toasts and the coffee look delicious. Regards.
Very smart ideas for saving money and budget eating! Plus the salad in your photo is healthy. Sadly, $2 would not cover even one meal in the USA @macchiata
@ninahaskin hahah yes! I am sure $2 is just the tip :D meal would've cost $10-15, right? . For that reason, if I want to go to the US, I'd definitely make my budget a lot higher but since it's SEA, things are definitely cheaper and that salad is also free hehe, I made it from the hostel ingredients that they provided for breakfast.
Everytime I see delicious food posts from SEA and the extremely inexpensive total I think about booking a flight, packing my carry-on suitcase, grabbing my passport and camera and going an adventure!
@ninahaskin haha that's something I'd totally recommend :D and don't pack too much.. it was my mistake too because clothing is also reasonable :)
I like the way you think!😊
After decades of over packing a large suitcase to travel in my 20s and early 30s, I learned to minimize and only take a carry-on suitcase. Saves time checking in and waiting for luggage airports, easier to haul around, and there's room for anything new I buy on vacation. Keep sharing your great tips! 🧳☕✍
!LADY
Yeah, eating healthy foods doesn't need to be expensive. Just learned that the coffee you get from Laos is free. I will take note of that once I'm already financially free and can already travel the whole world!
@iamboring I know a place where they give you free coffee all included with the hostel :D It's really nice. Honestly, I am not so-financially free but I'd wander anyway. In fact, I spent the same amount as I was back home. The only difference is definitely a a better quality of living.
Am also a fan of bread and noodles and did eat alot of it while in school. I ate alot of rice too, but they were not so rich in vegetables even though I love lettuce and cabbage, vegetables are expensive here since they are not readily available.
Later on it was a good idea that I decided to learn how to farm, with that I was able to live less expensive and cut down the price of buying some of these food stuffs like vegetables and rice.
Beef is available here too but you can only get a some few pieces with $2. We have more poultry meats now since more farmers are engaging in raising birds
I totally agree with you that its possible to eat healthy meal on a low budget while traveling.
@monica-ene What makes vegetable difficult to grow over there? is it because the temperature?
Its not difficult to grow.
Just that so many people are not into farming.
Only the older people go to farms and there is a limit to the quantity of food and vegetables they can produce
You sure travel a lot and love it.
Prices do vary across different places. But I wonder, what kilograms is the bag of rice that is less than $1? Over here, 50KG of rice is usually termed a bag, and that's about $50. I am hoping it's a much smaller size you are talking about. 😄
hhaha I forgot to specify that it's actually a plastic bag of cooked rice and sticky rice :D not rice as grains.
Wow 2meals a day. I usually get hungry quite fast when traveling as mostly walk a lot so tend to snack in between.
hehe I don't get quite hungry when I walk a lot. In fact, I get more hungrier if I do nothing xD. As long as I drink nice coffee in the morning, that's a meal for me haha
Being healrhy is expensive talaga..haha..😅
haha oo pero kailangan😂