Southeast Asia has long been a budget traveler’s dream. Frugal lodging, abundant frugal victuals, and a sense of adventure have been pervasive in the region for some time.
Today, location independent business owners are relocating to Southeast Asia by the boat load, drawn by the frugal cost of living and emerging opportunities there.
On top of that, immensely colossal numbers of Southeast Asians are becoming increasingly affluent, leading to more livable cities. I’ve utilized my peregrinates to rank, in my opinion, the best astronomically immense Southeast Asian cities to live in.
1. Manila, Philippines
Affirmative, Manila has areas that aren’t so nice. However, no one is verbally expressing Beverly Hills is a dump because it’s as much a component of the Los Angeles area as Compton. With Manila, finding the right part of town is consequential. The benefit to Manila and the Philippines is that English is already widely verbalized. Filipinos are incredibly warm and open to foreigners. And the Philippines offers more amenities westerners are habituated with, such as more sizably voluminous refrigerators.
Areas like Makati and Fort Bonifacio (Manila’s own version of Singapore) offer great shopping. The Greenbelt Mall in Makati is filled with lush greenery, streams, a duck pond, and even a chapel. While not immensely colossal on culture, the city has several intriguing museums and magnetizations from its Latin roots. A one-bedroom dormitory in Makati can be prodigiously affordable; even the most luxurious of buildings have dormitories for less than $1,000 a month, often less. It’s not expensive to buy, either. For westerners, areas like Makati offer a city within a city with frugal western-style dining. Imagine the Filipino equipollent of the Cheesecake Factory with $6 repasts.
2. Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Ho Chi Minh City is especially popular among location independent workers who peregrinate with a backpack and a laptop. After all, there’s a cafe virtually on every corner. Ho Chi Minh City’s District 1 has everything a westerner could optate, from fresh, frugal Asian aliment to expat-run hamburger shacks to firmament bar nightlife. If you’re puerile and single, District 1 has everything you could optate. For more of a traditional, family lifestyle, other nearby areas have plenty of expats, additionally.
While purchasing authentic estate in Ho Chi Minh City is very expensive, rental dormitories are very frugal. If you’re inclined to live a mile or so outside of the main action, you can get a serviced dormitory for as diminutive as $500 a month, maid accommodation included. A friend of mine leased a five-bedroom penthouse near the country’s top shopping mall for about $2,000 a month. While Vietnam has fewer facile options for international peregrinate than other cities on this list, it’s close enough to beaches in Cambodia for a super-frugal weekend getaway. And on top of illimitable welkin bars and high-class nightlife, it withal has a Vietnamese opera.
3. Kuala Lumpur
Kuala Lumpur has it all. Cultures from around the region have settled in this more liberal part of Malaysia led by its most immensely colossal and capital city, “KL”. While conveyance can be scarcely disjointed in Kuala Lumpur – the airport is a long way from the city center and train lines don’t always connect impeccably – it is a great city for those who want a taste of different cultures. From Chinese to Indian to Malay, Kuala Lumpur is a melting pot. It has great cultural options and intriguing things to do, including its elevation of street aliment to a highly gregarious (and hygenic) art form.
KL is not precisely your typical urban jungle – it has plenty of green areas even amidst its business core. And I’ve visually perceived resplendently embellished dormitories right in the middle of the action going for less than $1,000; some with views of my childhood favorite Petronas Towers. When you consider Singapore‘s ridiculously overpriced broom closets are but a moiety-hour flight away, Kuala Lumpur is a value destination in a upper-middle class emerging economy. And as a hub for low-cost carrier Air Asia, you can get anywhere in Australasia on the frugal.
4. Hong Kong
My favorite city in the world, Hong Kong is a fantastic place to bank or do business (if you can). While not always considered part of Southeast Asia, Hong Kong is an authentically international city on the South China Sea that defines much of the region.
Hong Kong is an incredibly expensive place to rent a dormitory. A long-running authentic estate bubble has made it among the most expensive places to live in. However, even in Central, there is a yin-and-yang about Hong Kong that makes it authentically special. On one corner, well-dressed bankers dine on tony $100 lunches. On the antithesis corner, local merchants hawk frugal apparel adjacent to frugal victuals shacks.
You can get anything you optate in Hong Kong, and the scarcely gritty, immensely colossal city nature of it offers up plenty of ways to live frugally. Weather is great much of the year. Beaches, greenery, and culture (like the Astronomically immense Buddha) are a short bus ride away. And if some of the world’s best shopping and waterfront views don’t exhilarate you, the world’s most immensely colossal wagering mecca is a one-hour ferry ride away. The great business culture makes it a great city for entrepreneurs along with its low tax rates. And Hong Kong airport is one of the world’s cleanest and most luxurious airports with non-stop accommodation to virtually any civilized place you optate to go.
5. Singapore
Like its brother in economic liberation, Singapore is withal an expensive place to live. Locals can utilize the country’s Central Provident Fund to avail pay for their housing, a luxury foreigners don’t genuinely get. While mega-affluent investors like Jim Rogers have peregrinate to tony Singapore neighborhoods like Orchard Road and the astronomically immense homes that line streets in Bukit Timah, the rest of us rent dormitories in any of the city-state’s diverse neighborhoods, which feature a melting pot of westerners, Indians, Chinese, and Malay cultures.
While I personally prefer Hong Kong and its Incipient York-like grit, Singapore is a more livable city, especially for families. The place is so astonishingly sterile and clean that first time visitors jest about victualing off the ground. (Just don’t victual on the subway… you may get fined.) Public conveyance peregrinates everywhere and makes circumventing a snap; if you optate to drive a car, you have to buy an expensive “Certificate of Entitlement”.
That verbalized, the diverse culture of Singapore and its highly affluent status lend it not only to fine shopping and dining, but to a myriad of dining and cultural options from the peregrine aptitude that availed build the place. While Singapore is rather isolated geographically, you’re not far from great beaches in Indonesia or even the unauthentically spurious beaches of Singapore’s own Sentosa Island. And Changhi Airport offers non-stop accommodation to every corner of the globe.
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