Asia Trip Summary

I've been at home for about a week and half. It took me that long to recover from my jet lag. I want to summarize my trip with this post, including trip expenses and some things I wish I had known before the trip so that I would be better prepared next time.

Here's my expense summary by country:

Country	Days	Total Cost	Daily Cost
USA	19	$2,436.58	$128.24
Japan	51	$3,184.43	$62.44
South Korea	14	$697.99	$49.86
Taiwan	68	$2,831.31	$41.64
Vietnam	17	$884.80	$52.05
Philippines	55	$2,635.26	$47.91
Singapore	11	$869.29	$79.03
Malaysia	33	$1,137.81	$34.48
Thailand	25	$1,010.31	$40.41
Cambodia	13	$522.36	$40.18
TOTAL	306	$16,210.14	$57.62

This doesn't include the return home airfare. The total days should be 307 if including the day on the airplane from Asia back to the US. The total cost is $16995.92 if including the return flight ticket.

Here is another breakdown of my expenses by housing, transportation from city to city, and "food + others" cost. I included admission fees, SIM card cost, visa fees, and miscellanies in the "food + others" category.

	Housing	Intercity Transport	Food + Others	TOTAL/DAILY
TOTAL	$5,610.23	$3,303.24	$8,131.62	$17,045.09
DAILY	$18.33	$10.79	$26.57	$55.70

After ten months of traveling, I spent a total of about $17,000, or $1700 per month. That's not bad. The most expensive countries outside of US are Japan and Singapore. The cheapest are Malaysia, Thailand, and Cambodia.

Here are some tips I wish I had known before my trip:

• Don't wear thick wool socks in Asia since it's hot there with only dry and wet seasons. There is no four seasons in Southeast Asia.
• Bring a handkerchief since most hawker centers don't have napkins. Even some restaurants don't offer napkins.
• Don't bring my William Painter sunglasses since it's made of titanium and gets flagged by airport security. A plastic pair of sunglasses will do.
• Book hostels or hotels for two nights first then extend with them directly to save on booking cost. Most hostels and hotels have cheaper booking fees if booked with them directly. Also use Booking.com rather than Hostelworld.com to save money on hostels and see more hostel listings.

Well, this concludes my Asia backpacking trip. I hope you have enjoyed reading my blog posts. Right now, I want to learn more JavaScript. I also bought a used ThinkPad T14s (Gen 1) and installed Linux Mint on it. I want to learn more Linux so I can get off my dependency from Apple and Microsoft. I feel the need to take some me-time before finding a new job.