Southeast Asia from Bangkok
Bangkok is the base, and most regional trips start and end here. These are the countries I know best — entry rules first, because that's the part that changes and catches people out.
Country guides
Pick a country. Each guide states the date its rules were last checked.
Compare the four cities
Bangkok included as the baseline. All prices in Thai baht, scraped 26 October 2026.
| Item | Bangkok | Hanoi | Kuala Lumpur | Phnom Penh |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Meal at an inexpensive restaurant | 100 | 69 | 165 | 152 |
| Domestic beer, 0.5L | 60 | 31 | 117 | 33 |
| Cappuccino | 94 | 64 | 104 | 97 |
| Taxi start | 35 | 26 | 41 | 37 |
| Monthly public transport | 1,178 | 366 | 413 | 338 |
| 1-bed apartment, city centre | 22,465 | 13,475 | 20,866 | 22,114 |
Two things stand out. Hanoi is the cheapest of the four on almost every line — a meal, a beer and a taxi all cost roughly a third less than Bangkok. And Phnom Penh is the opposite of what people assume: the cheapest beer on the list, but the most expensive rent, because the housing market there is priced in dollars for an expat market rather than for the local economy.
Kuala Lumpur sits in the middle and is the one that surprises people: eating out costs more than Bangkok, but transport and rent are cheaper. Source: Numbeo, scraped 26 October 2026.
How these guides are written
Entry rules are the reason a page like this exists. They change without much warning — the Thai exemption dropped from 60 days to 30 in September 2026 — and most travel content never goes back to fix itself. Each country page states the date its rules were checked and links to the official portal, so you can tell whether what you're reading has expired.
Flight times and seasons are stable and I've written them as such. Visa fees, permitted stay lengths and entry conditions are not, and where I couldn't confirm one against an official source, the page says so rather than guessing.
I haven't written about Thailand's neighbours I haven't spent time in. Indonesia, the Philippines and Laos are missing deliberately, not forgotten.