I had heard that Malaysia is not a cheap country to visit, at least as compared to the rest of Southeast Asia. While I tend to disagree as it pertains to Peninsular Malaysia, where I only spent an average of USD$37 per day, I had different feelings as it pertains to a Malaysian Borneo travel budget.
Part of Borneo’s allure is the clean beaches and well-preserved national parks. Though the rain forest has largely been depleted to make way for palm oil plantations, the mountains, dive sites, and other natural tourist attractions are kept clean and beautiful due to the limited number of tourists allowed to visit each day coupled with the high cost associated with such activities.
With that in mind, please consider that the cost of visiting Malaysian Borneo will certainly vary wildly from person to person, depending on what it is that you want to do. Please also keep in mind that I only visited Sabah, Borneo’s northern state.
My overall cost per day, averaging out my activities, was $62/day, making this my most expensive Southeast Asian destination yet. Here’s the breakdown:
Accommodation:
The cheapest I encountered was in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah’s largest city, where the cost for a dorm was $8/night. The most expensive ran more like $20/night at the tip of Borneo. A stay on one of the islands off of Semporna in the south will run more like $25/night for a dorm. Borneo isn’t like Thailand or Vietnam, where you can count on walking in and finding a bed for the night, so I’d recommend booking your accommodation in advance. In some places, because of the scarcity of dorms, you are better off paying a bit more and get a private room to yourself.
Hostels in Kota Kinabalu: $7-$14 (book your hostel in Kota Kinabalu here)
Hostels in Kuching: $5-$12 (book your hostel in Kuching here)
Hostels in Sandakan: $9 (book your hostel in Sandakan here)
Transportation:
Getting to Borneo only cost me $18, thanks to the cheap flights offered by Air Asia. I cannot stress enough that when visiting Malaysia, signing up for Air Asia’s flight alerts is a very smart move. They regularly have deals like this and are a fairly well-known and reliable airline.
Download Grab, which is Southeast Asia’s version of Uber, and use it to get around town. The service is available in all major towns in Borneo, and typically cost 20%-30% cheaper than regular taxis. Buses cost about the same as in Peninsular Malaysia at around $7-$20 per one-way trip, depending on distance. As always, booking directly at the bus station kiosk resulted in significant savings. Motorbike rental came out to about $15 per day, plus the cost of fuel.
Food:
Food was about the same in Borneo as it was in Peninsular Malaysia, at around $2-$5 for a decent meal. Beer was also around the same price at $3 for a can. Sadly, the food was not as amazing as in Peninsular Malaysia, which I would attribute to the smaller number of minorities in Malaysian Borneo. I didn’t see much Indian food, but found lots of Halal and Chinese food.
Cheap vs. Expensive Places in Malaysian Borneo:
This was a tough one to write as Borneo has the potential to be cheap if all you do is eat, sleep, and move around on public buses. Therein lies my conundrum – almost nobody comes to Borneo to do just that.
This is the island where people come to climb mountains, go white water rafting, SCUBA dive, view Orangutans, and other various expensive activities.
For example, to climb Mt. Kinabalu, one of Borneo’s foremost attractions, the typical cost to book ahead is around $300-$400 to stay in the lodge, hire a guide (compulsory) and pay the park fees. Another example is SCUBA diving in Sipadan, Borneo’s most famous dive site. Sipadan commands high fees as only a fixed number of divers may dive there each day, and permits tend to get booked weeks or even months in advance. For three nights of accommodation on Mabul Island, food, dive gear, and the 9-dive Sipadan dive package, I was set back about $500. Ouch!
Other Incidentals:
A local SIM card with $2 credit and 5 gigs of data cost about $10. Celcom apparently has the widest coverage in Borneo. Local lifestyle is relatively laidback and simple, so other than the outdoor activities, I didn’t really spend a lot of money on other things. Organized tours can be pretty expensive, so I tried to avoid them.
Did I do Malaysian Borneo in the cheapest way possible? Of course not! There were some things that I did in the cheaply – like climbing Mt. Kinabalu in one day (no longer an option), which saved me hundreds, and some things I spent a load of money on. Had I not chosen to dive in Sipadan, I would have been able to get my costs closer to the 30s per day – my usual goal. That said, it was worth every penny and I enjoyed myself immensely.
Sometimes, breaking the budget is necessary for a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Steph (@ 20 Years Hence) says
Completely agree with your assessment of costs in Malaysian Borneo vs peninsular Malaysia, as we felt exactly the same way. Sabah & Sarawak are both beautiful provinces but the cost for activities in order to enjoy them is really very high—we weren’t ever interested in doing Kinabalu, but we did dive in Sipadan and also did a multi-day river safari out of Sandakan (largely because actual rainforest treks were way out of our budget). It seemed like Sarawak had some mildly cheaper options in terms of activities, but it does seem that for any of the big things, you’ll likely have to pay $500 minimum. We also found that getting around Sabah was such a lengthy process, though we were lucky to get some pretty cheap flights there as well as in Sarawak which helped cut our travel time down quite a bit without totally busting our budget. It would have certainly been cheaper to just bus it, but we had limited time and didn’t want to waste an entire day getting from point to point.
Kristin says
It is super expensive. It was fun renting motorbikes and getting around that way. Air asia is also nice and cheap if you can get tickets when they release cheap flight alerts. I also found a way to climb Mt. Kinabalu for much cheaper. Overall, though, it cost me more than anywhere else!
Rika | Cubicle Throwdown says
I’ll always break the budget for a once in a lifetime experience!! Glad you got to dive Sipadan…I have heard such great things about it.
Kristin says
It was worth the cost. I want to go back and do it again, it was so amazing!
Michelle | Lights Camera Travel says
I desperately want to dive Sipadan! Really is quite a lot compared to other parts of Southeast Asia but as you said, worth every penny!
jho VD [mountains&beyond] says
we thought of doing a 1day climb also but we were told that we cannot secure ahead a slot as this are usually given 1 week before your preferred climb date. The park allows a 1day hike if all the slots were not filled and a max of 4 persons are allowed per day for a day hike…
our story here 🙂
http://philippine-mountains-and-beyond.blogspot.com/2013/05/mt-kinabalu-climb-day-1.html
Victoria Ellen Lee says
The photos look lush. I’ve heard so many good things about Borneo and a lot about how much it costs. Good to see the actual cost laid out so thanks for an informative read. It sounds like it’s really worth stretching the budget for a few days to visit!
Stanis says
Pleasure to read… I am visiting Borneo next summer… Could you recommend any dive resorts/hotels?
Best regards
Stanis
Kristin says
SCUBA Junkie on Mabul was great for Sipadan.
Emma says
Please be aware now that it is not regarded safe to visit these islands as there is a high terrorism threat, we had to change our plans and are diving in the perhentian Islands nowhere published this so we came very close to booking with scuba junkie highs I thought sounded great but the British foreign office now recommends against ALL travel to this area.
Kristin says
Hi Emma, there had been a recent attack when I was there too, but they didn’t target tourists and it honestly didn’t affect me at all. It happens all the time there and it’s really not a big deal. Same thing when I went to Mindanao in the Philippines. If you saw the island of Mabul I think you’d see how silly any terrorists would be to bother targeting it. It’s tiny and very out of the way.
Mohamad Badawi says
Hey, awesome blog and informative information. I just want to ask you few questions as I’m thinking about visiting Sabah especially KK area. First of all; let me tell you my story, I’m a university student in Selangor I have a 3-week vacation at the end of February. My friends pushed me to travel with them to Langkawi, I never been there but I wasn’t really excited because I know Langkawi is a very touristy place and I don’t like that, yet I know it will be awesome so yeah I agreed. However; I always wanted to climb Mt. Kinabalu and I’m thinking after coming from my trip in Langkawi to travel to Sabah just KK area to make the expenses the least for like 5 days.
I’d like to climb Mount Kinabalu in one day and I don’t what other things I shall go for in Kota Kinabalu, I know there are number of Islands there, but is it worth to go after spending 5 days in langkawi?
I have one more question, could I limit my budget in Kota Kinabalu (Excluding the climb) to 100 Malaysian Ringgits per day? (maybe 650 Ringgit for the whole five days with the climb?)
Kristin says
In KK I think you could do 100 ringgit per day, but you wouldn’t be able to do many activities. I think I spent 5 days in Langkawi. It’s nice to get a car and drive it around the island. Have fun!
Theodora Ang says
Get the malaysian rates it’s wayyyyy cheaper. I haven’t climb Mt.K just yet but for a Bruneian to climb it can cost me close to RM1.5K ..as for a malaysian can be as low as RM600.. If you know somebody in KK.. you’ll probably be spending less than that!
Kristin says
Well, first you probably need to not be a foreigner.
Lina says
Borneo was our most expensive destination in SE Asia as well!
We ended up doing the Kinabalu climb in one day, which was painful but AMAZING:
And we saved some money by organizing most of the wildlife viewing on our own
But Sipadan pretty much blows the budget no matter how you cut it!
Jason says
I was just curious where did you stay or package did you buy to get that 3 night Sipadan diving package for 500$?
Kristin says
SCUBA Junkie
Meck says
Thanks for the info about scuba junkie. It’s hard to find cheap price for Sipadan package. Totally agreed with you the price there is much more expensive than west malaysia. Btw we just started a travel blog, hope can drop by and give feed back 🙂
Marah Howles says
Wow! I love scuba diving. For sure the island is great. Seeing the clear water and the amazing view underwater makes me want to go there and get on my scuba gears. Nice post.
Kristin says
I love it too! Borneo is an excellent place for it
Mee says
When i saw this post,i feel sad as i am born and raised in Borneo who working in Penisular Malaysia. It is sad that every single activities even food is more expensive because of government taken most of the income of Borneo to build their most beautiful cities in penisular. The scene may not be the most beautiful to some traveler, but i am still miss all part of it.
Kristin says
It is more expensive, but I still really enjoyed my time there and thought it was beautiful. The activities like diving and climbing Kinabalu were amazing as well and I still remember them fondly!
Arianwen says
This post was really useful! I have a couple of weeks to kill before I need to be back in Manila and I’m trying to find somewhere close by. It’s a shame things do appear to be quite pricey here, but with some of your tips I’ll save a lot!
Kristin says
It’s definitely more than the other places I’ve visited in Southeast Asia but it’s definitely still a budget destination
Monica says
We (a couple trying to live on US$50 per day total) have been in Kota Kinabalu for a few weeks and have found most of your review to be accurate. Keep in mind, we have not yet gone to Sandakan to experience the expensive wildlife/jungle trekking, but we have gotten a pretty good idea of KK costs!
A couple of things we’ve noticed:
-Beer is way cheaper at Chinese groceries or restaurants (e.g 18myr for a large Tiger, or one place we found three for 15myr cans).
-Food can be excellent and interesting if you know where to go. The fresh seafood is remarkable and we had an amazing fresh steamed fish at Restoran Fortuna. We also tried Kadazandusun cuisine at D’Place Kinabalu which was an amazing experience.
-There’s lots of hiking outside climbing Kinabalu! Check out the rest of the Crocker Ranges, the Salt Trail, or many other trails around KK that are free.
-If you’re into snorkeling, the speedboat to TARP off KK is something Iike 30myr round trip from Jesselton Point. Its not Sipadan, but still… see some fishes, save your cash.
We have more info about our KK experience on our website (and will have Sandakan info to come). I am loving Sabah!
Kristin says
Thank you so much for the updates and for the tips!
Only thing is I would say Sipadan is super worth the splurge! That was almost 4 years ago for me and it’s still one of the highlights of all of my travels.
Richard stead says
Traveled down the rejang river from Kuching in Sarawak to Sibu and then to kapit and finally Belaga. Great river trip .Very inexpensive. We then traveled overland to kota kinabalu. Great travel experience.