Planning · Cost by country

What a day costs on the ground

Before any operator adds anything, a day in Asia already has a price, and it is set by the room rate, the wage bill and the government. This page prints that price country by country, and leaves a cell empty wherever we could not verify the figure.

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USD 190 – 650the spread across twenty-one countries

USD 100Bhutan, per adult per night, before a room

8 Sept 2026the date every figure was checked

What this page is, and what it is not

There are two different questions hiding inside "how much does Asia cost", and most operators answer only the flattering one. The first question is what we charge and how a quote is put together, which has its own page at prices and the arithmetic underneath them. The second is the one below: what a day in each of these countries costs before anybody has added a margin, a service fee or an opinion.

It matters because the second number sets the first. When a traveller asks why twelve days in Japan costs more than twelve days in Laos, the answer is not that we have priced Japan ambitiously. It is that a four-star room in Kyoto is three times a four-star room in Hoi An, that the guide is paid as a professional rather than a seasonal worker, and that Japan has begun charging non-residents more than residents at the gate. None of that is ours to negotiate.

Everything here was checked against primary sources on 8 September 2026. Nothing here is a quote.

A day on the ground, country by country

The first column is our own daily band for a private journey, per person, twin share, land only, party of four. The four columns after it are what the country itself charges: a room, a meal, a car with a driver in it, and the fee the government has already decided before you arrive.

Country	Our band, USD per person per day	A mid-range hotel night	A good meal	Private car and driver, per day	The headline government fee, September 2026
Japan	480 – 650	Tokyo four-star ¥18,000 – 30,000, roughly USD 113 – 188. Kyoto ¥20,000 – 35,000 and dearer again in blossom and autumn weeks. Osaka runs 20 to 40 per cent under both for the same quality.	No per-meal figure sourced. Food across a mid-range day is put at USD 27 to 40.	Blank on purpose	¥4,000 to climb Mount Fuji on any of the four trails; ¥3,000 departure tax since 1 July 2026; Himeji Castle ¥2,500 for non-residents against ¥1,000 for residents.
Bhutan	480 – 650	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	Bundled. Bhutan is sold only through a licensed operator and the vehicle, guide and permits come inside the package.	Sustainable Development Fee USD 100 per adult per night, USD 50 for ages 6 to 11, free under 6. The halved rate is confirmed to 31 August 2027.
South Korea	340 – 460	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	None at entry. K-ETA is waived for 67 nationalities through 31 December 2026 and must be re-checked for any 2027 departure.
Taiwan	340 – 460	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	None. Visa-exempt for 90 days, with proof of onward travel.
Oman	340 – 460	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	None for the first 14 days. Ras al Jinz turtle reserve 12 OMR; 2 OMR to park at the Jebel Shams viewpoint.
Singapore	340 – 460	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	None. The SG Arrival Card is compulsory and free; any site charging for it is not the immigration authority.
Thailand	250 – 360	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	None for 30 days from 15 September 2026, down from 60. The TDAC arrival card is free. One 30-day extension inside the country costs 1,900 THB.
Indonesia	250 – 360	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	Bali, up to about ten hours, USD 35 – 100 including fuel and parking, dearer July to September.	e-VOA IDR 500,000; Bali tourist levy IDR 150,000 per person, cashless; Komodo IDR 700,000 plus a IDR 25,000 harbour fee; Bromo IDR 220,000 on a weekday and IDR 320,000 at the weekend.
Sri Lanka	250 – 360	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	Air-conditioned saloon USD 50 – 70; a van for three to six USD 70 – 90, inclusive of fuel, tolls, parking and the driver's own food and bed. A tip of USD 5 to 10 a day is customary on top.	None. The ETA has been free for 40 nationalities, ours among them, since 25 May 2026 — free, but still applied for in advance.
Jordan	250 – 360	Wadi Rum camps start at about USD 28 per person for a basic tent with shared facilities. Amman four- and five-star rates: blank on purpose.	Blank on purpose	57 – 106 JOD a day, and 92 – 113 JOD on the multi-day Petra, Wadi Rum and Aqaba circuit where the hours are longer.	Petra 50 / 55 / 60 JOD for one, two or three days if you are staying in Jordan; the Jordan Pass 70 / 75 / 80 JOD; Wadi Rum 5 JOD; Jerash 12 JOD.
Georgia	250 – 360	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	None. Visa-free, and for United States passports for up to 365 days.
Armenia	250 – 360	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose. The e-visa eligibility checker did not return a fee or a validity period for our four passports, so we print neither.
Malaysia	250 – 360	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	Kinabalu Park RM 50 for an adult and RM 25 for a child; the Mount Kinabalu summit permit RM 400 on top. The MDAC arrival card fee is blank on purpose.
Philippines	250 – 360	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	None. Visa-free for 30 days, and eTravel registration is free.
Vietnam	190 – 300	Four-star: Hanoi USD 130 – 230, Ho Chi Minh City USD 140 – 240, Da Nang USD 90 – 180, Hoi An USD 80 – 170, each swinging about 30 per cent across the year.	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	E-visa USD 25 single entry, USD 50 multiple. British, French, German, Italian and Spanish passports hold a 45-day exemption and pay nothing; American and Australian ones do not.
Cambodia	190 – 300	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	Angkor pass USD 37 / 62 / 72 for one, three or seven days, under-12s free. E-visa USD 36. The e-arrival card is free and separate.
Laos	190 – 300	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	E-visa USD 50 for our four passports, non-refundable even if refused.
India	190 – 300	Mid-range USD 60 – 120. The palace and heritage tier runs USD 180 – 400 and upwards, which is a different category rather than an upgrade.	Blank on purpose	Saloon USD 45 – 60; an Innova-class vehicle USD 65 – 90, inclusive of fuel, tolls, parking and the driver's allowance. A guide is separate.	e-Tourist visa USD 10 for April to June arrivals, USD 25 July to March, plus a 3 per cent bank charge. British passports pay a higher reciprocal fee. Taj Mahal INR 1,300, plus INR 200 for the inner chamber.
Nepal	190 – 300	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	Visa on arrival USD 30 / 50 / 125 for 15, 30 or 90 days. Annapurna permit USD 25, Sagarmatha USD 28. A licensed guide has been compulsory on the trekking routes since September 2023.
Uzbekistan	190 – 300	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	None at the border: 30 days visa-free. Monument tickets in Samarkand and Bukhara are blank on purpose — no official price sheet was retrieved.
Kyrgyzstan	190 – 300	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	Blank on purpose	None. Thirty days visa-free.

Why so much of that table is empty

Twenty-one countries, four cost columns, and most of the cells say the same three words. That is not laziness and it is not a placeholder we forgot to fill. It is the whole point of the page.

Our research pass on 8 September 2026 could not confirm, from a source we would stand behind, a clean published day rate for a private car and driver in Vietnam, Cambodia or Thailand. It could not confirm a current four- or five-star nightly average for Bali, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Amman, Muscat, Samarkand or Tbilisi — only booking-site price floors, which are not averages and are not honest to present as though they were. It could not retrieve an official ticket price for the Registan, or a confirmed foreign-visitor fee for Sigiriya, or the Armenian e-visa fee for our four passports. So none of those appear.

Any of them could have been filled in half a minute with a plausible-looking number. A reader who checks one number checks all of them, and one invented entrance fee does more damage than twenty missing ones. If you would rather see a figure than a gap, ask us, and you will get the live rate from the supplier with the supplier named — which is what happens inside a quote anyway.

Why Japan and Bhutan cost two to three times Vietnam and Nepal

The gap between the top and bottom of that table is roughly two and a half to one, and it does not close. It is built out of three things, and only one of them is the hotel.

Labour

A national guide in Japan is a licensed professional in a high-wage economy, paid by the day for the whole party rather than by the head, and so is the driver. In Nepal and Vietnam the same two people cost a fraction of that, and both are paid properly by local standards. The wage bill is the largest structural difference between a tier A country and a tier D one, and the exact day rates sit on the prices page where they belong.

Hotel supply

Japan's problem is demand against a fixed stock of good rooms in three cities. Kyoto commands a premium over Tokyo and Osaka in blossom and autumn weeks for no reason other than that everyone wants the same fortnight, and Osaka sits 20 to 40 per cent below both for equivalent quality. Bhutan's problem is the opposite: the country is small, the operator network is licensed, and there simply are not many rooms. Vietnam has the reverse of both — a deep four-star stock at USD 80 to 240 a night depending on the city, which is why the money goes so much further there. Read the Japan country page alongside this if you are choosing between the two.

The government

Bhutan charges a Sustainable Development Fee of USD 100 per adult per night, confirmed through 31 August 2027. On the eight-night Bhutan journey that is USD 800 a head before a single room, meal or kilometre has been paid for, and it is charged on trekking nights too. Half the fee's headline rate has been suspended since September 2023; the day that suspension lapses, every Bhutan quote in the world moves by USD 100 a night and no operator will be able to do anything about it.

Japan has begun in a smaller way. The departure tax tripled to ¥3,000 on 1 July 2026, Himeji Castle has charged non-residents ¥2,500 against ¥1,000 for residents since 1 March 2026, and Kyoto is phasing in a two-tier bus fare. The Tourism Agency is drafting guidance to let more sites do the same. Assume this line grows.

The fees nobody can negotiate, including us

These are set by governments, published, and identical for a private client, a coach group and a backpacker. No operator gets a trade rate on any of them. If a quote appears to have absorbed one, it has been moved into another line, not removed.

Angkor: USD 37, 62 or 72 for one, three or seven days, sold at the same price everywhere with no advance-purchase discount, children under 12 free on production of a passport. Three days is the one most people should buy, for reasons set out on the Angkor and Siem Reap page.
Mount Fuji: ¥4,000 on all four official trails, with compulsory online pre-registration and a hard cap of 4,000 climbers a day on the Yoshida trail — 3,000 booked ahead and 1,000 released on the day.
The Bali tourist levy: IDR 150,000 per person, once per visit, cashless only. It is paid through the official provincial system before you arrive or at a checkpoint on the island; there is no cash counter.
Petra: 50, 55 or 60 JOD for one, two or three days if you are staying overnight in Jordan, and 90 JOD for a day-tripper who is not. Petra by Night is a separate ticket that the Jordan Pass does not cover.
Komodo: a capped, timed entry. Since April 2026 only 1,000 visitors a day are admitted to the South Padar area, split across three booked sessions — 05:00 to 08:00, 08:00 to 11:00 and 15:00 to 18:00 — on top of the IDR 700,000 park ticket. The constraint is the slot, not the money, and it is why the Padar morning is fixed in an itinerary rather than floating.

Two things follow. Where a fee is capped by session rather than by price, paying more buys nothing at all and booking earlier buys everything. And where a fee is nightly, as in Bhutan, shortening the trip is the only lever that exists.

Where the money actually goes on a private journey

Take one ordinary day in a tier C country. The room is the largest line and the one that moves most between cities and months. The car and the driver are the second, and they are fixed: the vehicle costs the same whether two people sit in it or six. The guide is the third, and is also fixed by the day. Then the gate fees, which are whatever the government says. Then, on days when a sector has to be flown, the flight, which is the only line on the list that can double between a Tuesday in June and the week of Lunar New Year.

Two of those five lines do not divide by the number of travellers, which is the entire reason a party of two pays materially more per head than a party of five for an identical itinerary. That arithmetic, and what it does to a quote, is set out on the prices page rather than repeated here.

What is worth saying on this page is where the money does not go. It does not go into an entrance fee that someone has marked up, because those are printed above and you can check them. It does not go into a shopping stop, because we do not run them and take no commission from anyone your driver stops at.

Ask for the ground cost of your own route

Tell us the countries and the month and we will show you what the days cost before we add anything, with the suppliers named.

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Where paying 20 per cent more buys something different

Most of the time an extra fifth on the budget buys a slightly better version of the same day. In three places on this site it buys a different day altogether.

Japan

The gap between a ¥20,000 Kyoto room and a ¥60,000 one is not really thread count; it is the address and therefore the hour you can be at Fushimi Inari or in the eastern temple district before the day fills. Osaka at 20 to 40 per cent less for equivalent quality is the honest alternative, and it costs you the early mornings. Whether that trade is worth it is the single biggest decision in a Japan budget.

India

The step from USD 60 to 120 a night to USD 180 to 400 is not an upgrade in the ordinary sense. At the top of that second band you are buying a converted palace in Rajasthan — a building that is itself part of what you came to see. Nowhere else on this site does the hotel become the sight.

Indonesia

A Bali car and driver runs USD 35 to 100 for a full day, and that near-threefold spread is the difference between a vehicle you endure on the two-and-three-quarter hour run from Ubud to the east coast and one you do not think about. Out east, the money buys a boat with a licence for the quieter water on the archipelago voyage, which is the only thing that changes what a Komodo morning feels like once the session slot is fixed.

And where it buys nothing

In Bhutan, spending more does not move the Sustainable Development Fee, the licensed-operator requirement or the number of aircraft that land at Paro. In Cambodia the Angkor pass is the Angkor pass. In both countries the floor is the product, and the useful lever is when you go and how long you stay rather than how much you spend a night. The month-by-month page is where that decision gets made.

What this page deliberately leaves out

International flights, travel insurance, visa fees paid by you rather than by us, personal spending and tipping all sit outside every figure above, as they sit outside every price on this site. Visa costs are set out country by country on the visas and entry page, where the deadlines and the free arrival cards are covered properly.

Also left out: any figure carrying a date later than 8 September 2026. Entry fees, levies and exemptions in this region change several times a year, and three of the fees printed above did not exist in their present form two years ago. Every number here is re-checked when your dates are fixed and again before you fly.

Common questions

Questions travellers ask most

Why are so many cells in your table blank?

Because we could not verify them from a source we would defend. Private car and driver day rates for Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand, four- and five-star hotel averages for eight cities, the Registan and Sigiriya ticket prices and the Armenian e-visa fee were all unconfirmed in our 8 September 2026 research pass.

We would rather show you the gap than fill it with a plausible number. Ask us and you will get the live supplier rate for your own dates instead.

Is this what you charge?

No. The first column is our daily band for a private journey; the rest of the table is what the country charges before any operator is involved. What we charge, how a quote is assembled and what moves it are on the prices page.

Can you get me a cheaper Angkor pass or Bhutan fee?

No, and neither can anyone else. The Angkor pass is USD 37, 62 or 72 at every point of sale with no advance-purchase discount, and Bhutan's Sustainable Development Fee is USD 100 per adult per night by law, confirmed to 31 August 2027.

What can be changed is how many days of each you buy, which is an itinerary decision rather than a price negotiation.

Which country gives the most for a mid-range budget?

On these figures, Vietnam and India. A four-star night in Hoi An runs USD 80 to 170 and mid-range India USD 60 to 120, against USD 113 to 188 for the equivalent in Tokyo, and the private car and guide that are standard on every journey we run cost far less in both.

That is a statement about what a dollar buys, not about which country is better. Japan at USD 480 to 650 a day is not overpriced; it is a different economy.