Disappearing budget destinations: Go to Laos while you still can

I've been traveling on the cheap for over 20 years. This is an "OK boomer!" moment but honestly, the budget travel destinations are drying up and barely exist anymore. The days of doing a "gap year" are probably a lot more expensive than they once were and perhaps not even possible by most people's budget-standards.

It seems to me that as little as 10 years ago that I would regularly encounter people, mostly younger people in their early 20's, that had been traveling for months and up to a year. These days I almost never meet these people but will admit that part of the reason why this is the case could very well be that I am older now and maybe they don't want to hang out with me.

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But I think a big part of it now is also that the world has become considerably more expensive and there just aren't very many places that are backpacker-friendly anymore. If you look at South East Asia, for example: This used to be where backpackers could get their training wheels but these days, most of those countries have become relatively expensive and not welcoming to backpackers as they are seen as people who spend too little money while visiting.

Recently, a friend of mine has contacted me requesting that I meet up with him in the place that I met him and which happens to be one of the only remaining backpacker-friendly countries in the world. This country is Laos and I want to point out really quick that you do not pronounce the "S" on the end of that country's name and it annoys me when I hear people talk about Louse because that is not its name.

Moving on.

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One of the main reasons to visit Laos is that even though getting there can prove costly because they have no major airports, that is where the high costs end. Virtually everything in this country is dead cheap due to a combination of very low population and relative poverty. I am not celebrating poverty of course, but this does seem to be a driving factor in how much a place is going to cost you to visit.

The country also has a massive amount of completely unspoiled nature but don't get the wrong idea here, it's not that Laotians are super-environmental in their thinking, it is because there are too few of them to cause any sort of widespread damage to nature.

I always say that the country is unspoiled, but not because of a lack of trying!

Less than 1/10 of 1 percent of the world's population lives here and the number of total people that are citizens of Laos is less than 8 million people. The country is not small either. It is roughly the same size as Utah and is also nearly as large as all the countries around it other than China of course.

It is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world and when you get out into nature, you can see what sort of impact this has on your ability to enjoy it. It is too far and has so little infrastructure for the wealthy to be interested in coming there, so this means if you are willing to put up with a lack of luxury as far as travel is concerned, you are going to be welcomed by some pretty amazing places that cost very little money to visit.

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Waterfalls and huge jungles are so common here that they almost seem to get a bit boring after a while so just be prepared for this to be a majority of what you are doing: Hiking and sightseeing some of the only unspoiled nature that remains in the world. You get to do this without staring over the shoulders of thousands of other people all vying for a selfie as well.

This isn't to say that this sort of thing is going to be for everyone though, this country is decades behind much of the rest of the world in terms of technology so if you are one of those people that needs to have ultra-fast 5g everywhere that you go, you should be prepared to get frustrated.

Consider it an opportunity to be briefly forced to know what it was like for literally everyone in the world 25 years ago I suppose.

While they do have their purpose, the 2 major cities in Laos, Vientiane - which tips the scales at just over half a million people and Savannakhet (under 100,000 ppl) are not great places to stay for very long but are also extremely cheap to visit.

For me, these concrete jungles just seemed very hot but never felt terribly crowded, which is a good thing.

Something that may surprise people who are visiting this country for the first time is that stores, generally speaking, are not interested in receiving their own country's money when you are buying things. They want USD and they will provide change in Laotian Kip. They are quite fussy about the state of the bills that you provide them are in, so be sure to protect your bills lest they be turned down.

The last two times I was visiting there you had to pay for your visa on arrival (as is the official system - this is not a bribe) and they would only accept USD for this transaction, which I found amusing.

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The best reason to visit Laos is the nature though as most of the country is undeveloped and there is plenty to see... just plan on it taking a while to get from one place to another since minivans are basically the only sort of travel. Is there plastic garbage all over the place? Of course, this is still SE Asia, but it isn't nearly as bad as nearby Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia whose official policy on waste management seems to be "just put that anywhere."

I think that once you get outside of the cities (and even while you are in them for the most part) it is very possible to get by rather well on $30 a day, even less if you don't drink alcohol. If you do drink beer though, you are in for a treat. One of the best cheap beers in the world in my opinion hails from Laos, and it is so cheap that a lot of places simply give it away.

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If you do decide to hit up this country keep this one piece of advice in mind: Do not set a rigid itinerary because it is almost certainly going to fall apart immediately. Nothing happens quickly in Laos as they have a very laid back attitude. You will too once you get there and at least for me, this is a nice break from the go go go! attitude of most of the modern world right now.

At the moment round trip-airfare from the other side of the world is around $1000, and honesty, that isn't bad at all.