How to make the most of your time in Asia

Asia is a wonderful continent, full of diversity and colors, that would take a lifetime to completely explore.

But with a little planning and a few weeks of holidays, you can see quite a lot and not break the bank.

Define your itinerary

One thing I have found during extended trips, is that often, after having seen a few temples, seeing a dozen more temples does not add a lot of wonder to the trip.

My best traveling memories are seeing the highlights, such as the Taj Mahal in India or taking a train ride through the tea plantations in Sri Lanka, rather than yet another beach or temple.

So make a list of what you absolutely want to see, and give yourself plenty of free time around to go from a city to another, and have the flexibility to stop here and there to smell the roses.

Some destinations are very easy to go back to, like Singapour or Bangkok. Plenty of cheap flights connect those big cities to the rest of the world. On the other end, places like Nepal or some remote Indonesian islands will be harder to go back to later. So you might consider building an itinerary that also makes side stops to visit a place you won’t get a chance to go back to that soon.

If you are into nature, plan for a couple of treks or nature expeditions, and then you will by default have a few days in town before and after your expedition.

Give yourself a day or two to arrive and get used to altitude, heat, or any other unusual conditions.

Each person has their own preferences, but if you only like the beach for example, pick two or three and move slowly between them. Rushing to see a dozen different beaches will mean you’ll spend more time packing and in transit than enjoying cocktails in the shade.

Two nights in one place means really just one full day on site. Try to move every 3-4 nights as a minimum.

Define your budget

Traveling around Asia is much cheaper than traveling in Europe or the United Stated. But something that tends to happen is, when you are used to traveling on the cheap, suddenly, spending $60 on a beautiful hotel seems like throwing money out the window, since you can stay in a hostel for $5.

Cheap travel has its virtues, but when flights fly from New Delhi to Mumbai for just $50, spending 18 hours in the train instead is making yourself miserable and reducing valuable time for visits and experiences.

So define a budget that makes sense for the kind of travel you plan on doing. I like to budget about 30% for travel from one place to the next, 30% for accommodation, 20% for food and 20% for visits and other incidentals like souvenirs.

In most countries, it works pretty well. In Asia, food is often super cheap if you eat in the streets, markets, and other small food courts. That means you would have extra money to treat yourself to a nice meal once in a while, or get a better hotel.

Traveling on a budget is about maximizing your experiences with the money you have, not eating bananas alone on a bench and coming home with plenty of cash left.