How We Traveled to Thailand Under $1000

  When we first started planning this trip the original plan was to go only to Singapore. Our dates were set and we were going to travel from Lax to Singapore nonstop, mid-October and the total round trip airfare would be 750 dollars each. Super impressed with that price, compared to what we had been told it would cost we wanted to jump on that instantly. I had a hard time getting my dates approved at work, we were 3 months out from our travel dates, and nothing had really taken off. Watching youtube videos and doing tons of research we decided we were spending a lot of money to go to an already super expensive place and we should really look at revising our trip. For one, to make it more cost-effective and two because there were other places we wanted to see while in Southeast Asia and we knew traveling while abroad is so much cheaper.  We both wanted to see Bangkok, of course, Phuket and the Phi Phi islands. We moved our dates to the first week in November and spent a night researching all the ways to get to Southeast Asia, the shortest route, best layovers, and the cheapest cities to fly in and out of. We also wanted to make the most of the 9 days we had available, factoring in the loss of a day due to travel.

  I downloaded the sky scanner app, per lots of recommendations on travel blogs and Reddit threads. Some people said that they saw cheaper prices on Tuesday travel dates and most expensive dates were leaving or returning on a Sunday. I found that mid weekday travel and staying a minimum of 5 days proved to be the best way to find the lowest rates. Google Flights worked about the same as the Sky Scanner app, providing the cheapest routes with the ability to filter by stops, connection cities, and of course price. I found Google Flights a bit easier to navigate, I was able to quickly jump back and forth between departures and arrival, whereas in the Sky Scanner app you had to start new each time you wanted to go back to compare times. The first game plan was to fly into Singapore and then spend two days in the middle of our trip in Bangkok, a flight once in Singapore to Bangkok was pricing around 100$ which would have put our overall ticket cost at 850 dollars in total. 750 dollars from the states to Singapore and Singapore to Bangkok round trip at 100 dollars. After playing with the idea and again trying to figure out how to cut costs in an already expensive place, we decided to look up what the ticket price would be if we instead flew Lax to Bangkok instead of Singapore. 400 dollars cheaper yall! So, of course, we were sold! The only fear was the airline was not one either of us was familiar with. We did our research for two days nonstop reading review after review. Neither of us could be swayed one way or the other and the fact that we were saving 400 dollars and the travel time was no different from the ticket that was priced almost double, we decided to do it. We booked our tickets from Lax to Bangkok with China Eastern Airlines' total travel time from Lax to Bangkok with a 3-hour connection was 22h and 25m.

  If traveling to Southeast Asia from the west coast I would advise morning or early afternoon flights so that with the travel time you only lose a day vs evening flights (everyone's preference so they can sleep) you could lose a day and a half or up to two days. So our trip changed and we set out on a challenge to each spend no more than 1000$ including all airfare and places to stay while abroad. Thailand is super inexpensive so doing those two cities first was smartest, while we knew we would spend a lot more money in Singapore. We were also going two weeks before high tourist time, but right after monsoon season so pricing was reflective of that as well. My biggest advice when trying to book a trip of this magnitude is to be flexible, play around with the dates and see what works best for you. Don’t be afraid to try something new or outside the box, such as flying a low cost carrier; we all wanna travel but everyone doesn’t have 1000$ to book a plan ticket on a whim. Also if you are not near a huge international airport I have found booking your ticket to the international airport separately from the actual international flight saves a lot of money as well so that’s a bonus tip.

Our Itinerary is as follows.