Laos has the lowest daily budgets on our whole route. On Don Det in the 4000 Islands you get by on €15 a day, and even in Luang Prabang, the most expensive stop in the country, you stay under €20. A bed costs four to six euros, a meal two, a beer one, and that holds true right across the country.
Even so, Laos is not automatically the cheapest country of your trip, and that comes down to two things: the distances and the loops. The country is big and thinly populated, so you spend a lot of time on buses, and the two things people come here for, the Thakhek Loop and the Bolaven Loop, are multi-day motorbike trips you need to budget for separately.
For the country as a whole, count on about €25 a day. That is well above every single figure below, and that is right: it also covers the buses, trains and boats between stops, plus the activities you came for.
Daily budget per stop
This is what you spend per day in each place, without the transport to get there and without tours:
- Don Det: €15, the cheapest stop on our whole route
- Nong Khiaw: €16
- Pakse: €17
- Thakhek: €17
- Huay Xai: €18
- Vang Vieng: €18
- Vientiane: €18
- Luang Prabang: €20, the most expensive stop in the country
The gap between the cheapest and the most expensive place is five euros, the smallest spread of all five countries. So where you are in Laos makes very little difference to your wallet.
Our verdict: in Laos you do not have to pick your stops on price, because they all sit close together
What a bed costs
A dorm bed costs €4 on Don Det, €5 in Huay Xai, Nong Khiaw, Pakse, Thakhek, Vang Vieng and Vientiane, and €6 in Luang Prabang. That is the cheapest place to sleep in the region.
On the loops you sleep in simple guesthouses and homestays along the way, and those cost about the same. You do not book them ahead: you ride until you get there, and there is a room.
What food and drink cost
This is where Laos is surprisingly even: a meal costs about €2 everywhere, from Don Det to Luang Prabang, and a beer €1 everywhere. That makes budgeting easy, because there is no expensive stop to plan around.
What costs you is the places where there is nothing to buy. On the Thakhek Loop some villages are two hours’ riding apart without a single stall, so you take water and snacks with you from town. What you eat in Laos is in our guide to food in Laos.
Our verdict: two euros for a meal and one for a beer, wherever you are, so just work with those numbers
What local transport costs
In the towns it is a tuk-tuk ride of about €2, in Vientiane, Luang Prabang and Huay Xai. In Nong Khiaw you take a little boat across the river for the same money, and on Don Det you rent a bicycle, because there are no cars.
For the loops you rent a scooter: about €6 a day in Vang Vieng and about €8 in Thakhek and Pakse. The Thakhek Loop takes three or four days and the Bolaven Loop two or three, so counting four days for Thakhek that is €16 to €32 in rental plus petrol. The rental shops store your big bag for free while you are away.
Between places a bus ride costs about €8, and the fast train from Vientiane to Luang Prabang about €13. How it all connects is in our guide to getting around Laos.
Where the money really goes
Three things decide what Laos costs you, and none of them is your daily budget.
The slow boat from Huay Xai to Luang Prabang is two days on the river with a night in Pakbeng, and one of the most beautiful journeys in Southeast Asia. The two motorbike loops cost you four and three days respectively of rental, petrol and beds along the way. And the Gibbon Experience near Huay Xai is a multi-day zipline trip with nights in treehouses, which makes it the biggest one-off cost of a lot of trips through Laos.
On top of that, carry more cash than you think you need everywhere. On the Thakhek Loop there are almost no ATMs, and in the small places nearly everything runs on cash.
Our verdict: budget the loops and the slow boat separately, because those are the days you come to Laos for
How much do two weeks in Laos cost?
At about €25 a day you end up at around €350 for two weeks, including the transport between stops, your beds, your food and a normal amount of activities. In absolute terms that makes Laos the cheapest country on your route, simply because you stay there for less time than in Thailand or Vietnam.
Riding one of the loops does not blow that budget: our Thakhek and Pakse pages put a day on the loop at around €17, with the bike, the petrol and your beds included. Doing the Gibbon Experience? Set money aside for that separately. What those two weeks look like is in our Laos itinerary.
How to keep it cheap without ruining your trip
Take the bus instead of the fast train if you have the time: it is cheaper, though it costs you hours. Travelling with someone? Ride the loop two-up on one scooter. And take out cash in the bigger towns, not the small ones, because out there the ATM is often empty or expensive.
Beyond that, Laos is a country where cutting back gets you very little, because the floor is already low. What you spend here, you spend on the things you will remember. More on withdrawing cash and the fee per withdrawal is on our travel cards page.
Is Laos cheaper than Thailand and Vietnam?
Per day on the ground, yes. A €4 bed on Don Det and a €2 meal anywhere in the country are the lowest prices on our whole route, and on the islands the gap with Thailand runs up to ten euros a day.
For the trip as a whole it is less clear-cut. The distances in Laos are big, there is less transport to choose from, and the things you come for take several days each: the slow boat, the loops, the Gibbon Experience. Do all of them and you spend as much in two weeks in Laos as in three weeks in Thailand.
And that is exactly the point: you do not come here to live cheaply, you come for those few days on a river or on a scooter. Budget for those separately and the rest of the country costs you next to nothing.
