5 More Countries Under $30/Day: Our Ranking Of The Cheapest Destinations To Travel To (Part 5)

Many still believe in the most persistent myth in the world of travel: that traveling is necessarily expensive. That simply isn’t true. What is expensive is when you want travel to be as convenient as possible… or when you choose expensive destinations.

Here is the next part of our ranking of the cheapest countries to travel to, the 3rd part in the under $30/day category (and 5th part overall).

This article series will help you choose one of the destinations on our flight deals page where you can also save money on the ground… and not just save money on your plane ticket.

I copied the detailed explanations about how the rankings work and what you need to know about the cost per day after the 5 new cheap countries (or click here), since you probably already read it in our previous articles. You’ll also find the complete ranking to date at the end of the article (or click here).

5 Other Countries Under $30/Day

After sharing quite a few countries in Southeast Asia and South America, here is a bunch of less popular countries in an area of the world that is fascinating (to us at least) : Central Asia.

The list of countries where you can travel for under $30 a day is quite long, so we’re splitting it up into many parts. Don’t miss the next 5, we’ll be moving on to Africa.

Georgia

Let’s start with Georgia. The country, not the US state (although the city of Savannah in the US looks beautiful, traveling there is definitely not $30 a day)

Georgia is Flytrippers’ co-founder Kevin’s new bucket-list country, just because during our last trip to Europe there was a lengthy (and inspiring) story about the country in the Wizz Air in-flight magazine. Yeah, that’s a bit random.

He’ll be glad to learn that Georgia is very affordable, as you all are I’m sure. It’s definitely not the most tourist-y place, but it seems like it has a lot to offer. The coastal part in the West looks stunning.

How To Go To Georgia For Cheap

Flight deals to Georgia are pretty rare, as is the case for most of this part of the world. But since the country has Ultra Low-Cost Carriers connecting it with Europe, you can save a lot of money by combining two tickets (since flights in the area are so cheap).

By buying a cheap roundtrip to London and then combining that with a separate London-Tbilisi or a London-Kutaisi roundtrip, you might save hundreds of dollars.

Armenia

Let’s stay nearby with this next very budget-friendly country. For less than $30 a day, you can explore a surprising and beautiful country, Armenia.

Fun fact (I love fun facts): Armenia has a population of less than 3 million (less than the Toronto or Montreal metropolitan areas) but they have their own unique alphabet that they are the only ones to use. Fascinating.

Okay so what might actually be of interest to you is the fact that Armenia’s capital city Yerevan is full of history. Armenia is the world’s oldest Christian nation by the way. If you like the outdoors, you’ll appreciate the many charming landscapes in this little country.

How To Go To Armenia For Cheap

Unlike its neighbor Georgia, Armenia isn’t served by any ULCCs, so it’s tougher to get there cheap. The total cost of a Canada-London and a London-Yerevan itinerary could still be cheaper if bought separately though.

If not, you could consider a unique experience: flying to Georgia and then taking a sleeper-train ride from Tbilisi, Georgia to Yerevan. It’s really affordable too. We rode from Sofia, Bulgaria to Istanbul, Turkey and loved our sleeper-train experience.

Azerbaijan

Before you ask “Azerbai-what“, let me remind you that the least “popular” countries are often the most beautiful. And Azerbaijan really does look nice!

You might have noticed, we love the more obscure countries. We actually made our way to the middle of the island of Borneo in SE Asia this spring, just to visit a country called Brunei that you might never have heard of.

Anyway, like the two previous countries, Azerbaijan is also located in the Caucasus region (this is the last one, I promise) and even if it isn’t the most visited country, that doesn’t mean that it isn’t worth a visit.

Not only does the country have an interesting blend of cultures and a long history thanks to its geographic location, it is also a mountainous country perfect for nature lovers (there’s even a desert). And Baku, the capital and largest city, is a fast-growing and surprising modern metropolis along the Caspian Sea.

How To Go To Azerbaijan For Cheap

Like Georgia, Azerbaijan is now served by ULCCs (in Baku), so the multi-ticket tip could work here too. It’s not the cheapest place to fly to, even from within Europe, but you might find a good deal. If not, there’s an affordable train from Tbilisi too.

Uzbekistan

The world has a lot of countries whose names end in -stan, so here is the first one to be featured in our ranking: Uzbekistan. Located in Central Asia, this is another country that makes up for what it lacks in tourists with a lot of surprises.

If you want to go outside of your comfort zone and go where most tourists don’t go, this is definitely a good place for you. Perfect for those who’ve been to many countries already and feel like they want something more unique.

How To Go To Uzbekistan For Cheap

This is a hard one. This whole area is very hard to get to at a low price, flights are pretty expensive. There are long train rides from Moscow or Almaty, that’s pretty much the only viable alternative.

Mongolia

Okay, we’re getting far from Central Asia, but we have to have 5 countries per article so here we are. Mongolia neighbors China to the North, but it’s still not that far East from Central Asia.

The famous Gobi Desert is one of Mongolia’s main attractions and this is a country that is very sparsely populated. The least-densely populated in the world in fact.

With about 30% of its population being nomadic or semi-nomadic, Mongolia is pretty unique. It is also a landlocked country with only two neighbors, but two important ones: China and Russia (although in the West, Mongolia and Kazakhstan are only 37 kilometers apart, they don’t share a border).

How To Go To Mongolia For Cheap

Deals to Ulaanbaatar are pretty rare and prices are very steep. One alternative is through Beijing, a city that is often quite cheap to fly to. You’d then have a very long bus ride to Mongolia (and I mean, reallyyyyy long). But other than that, it isn’t an easy country to get to on a budget.

Details About The Rankings

When you really want to discover the world and visit new places, you can. If you’re ready to make choices that are certainly less “practical” (but allow you to travel at low prices), it’s possible to visit dozens of countries for under C$35 a day.

It’s really not that hard to travel like a backpacker or a budget-traveler, and it’s just as fun to travel this way (some would say even more fun). It allows you to see more places in the world than you ever thought possible… it allows you to simply travel more. Traveling doesn’t cost that much when you make the right choices.

How Budget Traveling Works

What are these choices? Sleeping in hostels (they’re great by the way but if you’re travelling with a companion, you can sometimes even find private rooms and still stay within the aforementioned budget), walking or taking public transit, eating in local restaurants / eating street food / cooking your own food, choosing free activities…

But most importantly, you must choose the right destination.

Because of course, if you’re going to Scandinavia or Western Europe, no matter what you do, yes traveling will be expensive (there are tips to lower the cost… but it’s still expensive).

But if you choose an affordable destination, you’ll quickly realize that the cost of living is infinitely lower than at home and you’ll be able to travel without breaking the bank. A good rule of thumb is that the more developed a country is, the more expensive it will be.

ALSO READ: Which Summer Weeks to Choose If You Want to Travel and Save Money

A Warning About The Budget

If you put a bit of effort into it, travel to these countries can easily cost you just this small amount daily. But these are obviously approximate figures… each traveler is different and it’s easy to go over budget if you’re not careful and splurge a bit too often, it adds up really quickly.

That said, it’s also possible to travel for even less than this budget if you want to stretch your savings as I do, since I want to travel more and I don’t spend much at all on activities and food. Others manage to lower these prices even further by lowering their quality standards for hostels.

There are plenty of variables, but know that this daily budget is very realistic and attainable: it is really a fair evaluation. It is a reference point, the budget for the average backpacker… and a great way for you to get an idea of the cheapest destinations and how much money you need if you want to take up budget traveling.

What Is Included In The Daily Budget

As mentioned, the purpose of this ranking is to show you the cost once you’re at the destination (including local transportation).

It does not take into account the initial plane ticket to get there because first of all, in case you didn’t know, plane ticket prices vary enormously.

Everyone leaves for a different amount of time, at a different time of the year and from a different airport, so we can’t guess over how many days you can spread out the plane ticket cost or how much it would cost from your airport or take into account if you are buying tickets at a higher price than you should, for lack of flexibility. So like all daily travel budgets you’ll ever find, they include everything but the cost to actually get there.

But that will be another series of articles after this series of articles about the cost of living. We’re eventually going to combine this ranking with the flight prices to make an Ultimate Guide of Cheap Travel Destinations, with the total prices to be expected for typical trips, which will include all costs, if you’re flexible on flights, of course. Finding a cheap flight requires a minimum of flexibility, more on that too very soon.

So our recommendation is to be open to several destinations for your next trip, it will increase your chances of finding a cheap flight for your dates and therefore increase your chances to be able to go to a country where traveling is cheap.

Regional Variations

One last note. Obviously, within the same country, there are usually regional variations. Some regions are cheaper than others, but usually the cost per day indicated is for the most popular or more expensive regions. So that also means there is another way to travel even cheaper by learning about which regions could be even more affordable within the country.

Keep in mind that even in the same city, just as it is the case here in Canada, some neighborhoods are more expensive than others. Choosing wisely is another way to help you save money, maybe a couple of dollars a day.

About The Ranking

We already wrote an article on how to choose the cheapest countries, it was extremely popular so we are back with an exhaustive series and a more detailed ranking of countries. It was inspired by the map mentioned in the previous article and various rankings found online.

We also included our own added-value: how to find cheap plane tickets for each destination. More details in future blog posts (we have 4 new articles out every week by the way, on top of our daily flight deals from 9 Canadian cities).

In case you want to see the entire Top 25 up to now, here is a reminder of our ranking of the cheapest travel destinations.

Under $25 per day

Part 1

• Vietnam
• Laos
• Cambodia
• India
• Nepal

Part 2

• Nicaragua
• Bolivia
• Ghana
• Malawi
• Ethiopia

Under $30 per day

Part 3

• Thailand
• Indonesia
• Malaysia
• Myanmar (Burma)
• Bangladesh

Part 4

• Peru
• Colombia
• Ecuador
• Paraguay
• Sri Lanka

Bottom Line

Here are 5 more countries under $30/day. Don’t miss the next parts of the ranking every week!

Have you ever visited these countries? If not, which countries did you find to be the most affordable?

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