Budget for July in Borneo Malaysia

Oh my goodness – were we able to do some cool things during the month of July! We are so thankful for this opportunity to spend so much time in Borneo, Malaysia. Some days it’s just like, pinch me, is this for real?! But actually don’t, or even sit too close for that matter because it is just so hot and usually my entire body is dripping sweat. Like so much it runs down my legs and makes my socks wet. It’s a small price to pay to hang out and see all these unique, amazing, wonderful, often found only right here wildlife. For the month of July we spent 26 out of the 31 days of July in national parks. We’ve seen proboscis monkeys, viper snakes, silver leaf monkeys which are only to name a few of the animals that are found in Borneo.

Proboscis Monkey walking in Malaysia

Overall traveling around Malaysia, Borneo has been so great, affordable and easier than I thought prior to coming here. Some ways we have helped to save on the budget this month are:

Budget flight Borneo Malaysia

Booking flights ahead of time and saving a bunch with promo rates. This has also been a significant time savings: 15+ hour bus ride or 1 hour flight for roughly the same price? Hmm…I’ll take the flight! (At least in some of these instances, sometimes it’s nice to have long bus rides too, it all depends on what you are trying to get out of the experience.)

Camping at Bako National Park Malaysia

Camping. What!? Ok, so we did only do this one night, but for that one night we paid ~$1.23 USD pp. Yes- now we can justify carrying the tent around!

Marco Polo's Budget in Malaysia

Finding a room with breakfast. This is not the end all, but having even coffee/tea and toast is still better than nothing. We found Marco Polo’s Homestay in Kuching for $12-15 USD per night, booked through Agoda and we just loved it there!!! We didn’t want to leave. It had everything you want as a traveler: nice place, nice people, clean, safe, good wifi and a decent breakfast plus other services. Just a really enjoyable place to stay and we highly recommend Marco Polo’s Homestay.

Borneo Malaysia National Park

Booking our own park excursions. Malaysia is so great for independent travelers. Buses go almost everywhere, and compared to a lot of other Southeast Asia countries (like Indonesia) Malaysia is relatively hassle free. You can pay crazy high rates to take guided tours to national parks (and in some instances, paying for a guide can be well worth the money and we do that too sometimes) but you can just book your own accommodations in the parks and go on your own to a lot of parks here. Hostel rooms are usually $15RM per bed, or you can rent the room for $40RM per night, about $9.87 USD. The photo above was from Similajau National Park.

Budget phone in Malaysia

Buy a local SIM card. For $25 RM, or about $6.17 USD, we got a local SIM card with credit. Such a convenience!!! Then we can call ahead to places to try and gather any tips before we go or to try and book accommodation. In Mulu, where there is barely any internet, we were able to make our advance booking to stay at D’Cave Homestay. This was next to Mulu National Park and we thought it was the best value accommodation there and loved meeting Robert, Dina and their son. (More posts coming in the future about Mulu! 🙂 )

So for the month of July we spent….drum roll please…oh wait, we don’t have drums, but we do have Chris taking note of this sign that warns of macaques attack…

Chris with monkey attack sign

We spent: $1606.59

Which breaks down to $51.82 per day for both of us or $25.91 per day, per person.

You can click HERE if you would like to see the full excel spread sheet.

And that was July. If you want to compare June’s budget, click here. We still plan to be in Borneo, Malaysia a couple weeks more and then heading over to main land Malaysia, maybe with a quick stop into Singapore, or maybe not. We’ll see later.

Vagabondway in Malaysia Budget

Hope you all had a wonderful month of July and we’ll see you out there!

Announcement! We’re starting a new series on the site called My Story. What kind of traveler are you? How long have you been traveling? Do you maximize your vacations? Have you been able to take time off work? We want to hear from you and share your story! Please email: tiffany@vagabondway.net for more details. 🙂 

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9 Responses to “Budget for July in Borneo Malaysia

  • Beautiful photos! Great shot of the monkey. That’s very generous of you to allow us to see your cost and breakdown for the month. Thank you.

    • tiffany
      8 years ago

      Thanks! We were so lucky with the monkey shots!!! We feel like we are doing some pretty awesome things for a reasonable budget. Hopefully others can see it’s possible to have budget travel to amazing places too! 🙂

  • Nice post! What an interesting looking monkey; so clear and focused. Wow, July sounds like it was packed with exploring the land and animals. Keep up on drinking lots of water! oxox

    • tiffany
      8 years ago

      Thanks Donna!!! The proboscis monkeys look so interesting! Even seeing them in real life, I would just keep staring and staring, like, how is your face put together like that? During our time in Bako National Park it rained on us, but it was actually a good thing because then these guys got a lot more active because the weather cooled off. We want to do an entire proboscis monkey post! 🙂

  • Hey guys, nice going and love the info. Wish it was me but know or hope many will
    benefit from your “finds” But some times you just can’t put a price on a “memory”
    mare

    • tiffany
      7 years ago

      Thanks Mare! No you can’t put a price on memories and we are sure getting a lot of them. Thanks for coming along! 🙂

  • That’s an admirable budget for what looked like a comfortable and adventurous month! Good for you. Borneo has just made my list of places to visit. Thanks! 😉
    By the way…that’s the funniest looking monkey I’ve ever seen! That nose! Haaaahahahahaha!

    • tiffany
      7 years ago

      Hey Nora! Thanks so much. Borneo was overall so much easier than I thought and had some pretty good wifi. Kuching would be a place I could hang out at for while. Nice day or mini-trips from there too. I have heard the Indonesia part of Borneo to be more expensive. I seem to not have included the excel sheet, but you can also check out August budget too. It was more expensive in the Sabad region. We also did much more expensive activities there too, specifically diving at Sipidan which was ~$700 usd for the two of us. Anyway, I could go on and on about Borneo…so if you ever have any questions just ask!!! 🙂 https://vagabondway.net/august-budget/

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