The region that taught a generation how to travel cheaply and is still the easiest place on earth to do it. Warm, connected, and far more varied than the circuit suggests.
What it is
Eleven countries between India and China, split between a mainland — Thailand, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Malaysia — and an enormous maritime half: Indonesia alone is 17,000 islands across three time zones, and the Philippines is another 7,000.
It is the most travelled region on earth for a reason. It is warm year-round, food is excellent and costs a couple of dollars, transport is frequent and cheap, most nationalities get a visa on arrival or need nothing at all, and there is an infrastructure of guesthouses and buses built over forty years specifically for people doing exactly what you are doing.
That last point is worth sitting with. Southeast Asia is easy in a way that can make it feel unreal — you can cross it without ever being more than an hour from someone who speaks English and takes card payments. Whether that is a feature or a problem depends on what you came for, and it is entirely possible to travel here for months and see almost nothing.
The seasons, which are the whole planning problem
There is no single dry season. Broadly:
Mainland — Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam’s south — is dry and cool from November to February, hot and dry in March to May, and wet from June to October. November to February is the obvious window and prices reflect it.
Vietnam is three climates in one country and never all good at once. The north is cold and damp in January; the centre floods in October and November; the south is straightforward.
Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia sit on the equator and are warm and humid all year. Indonesia’s dry season is roughly May to September, which is the opposite of the mainland.
Bali in August and Thailand in December are the two peaks. Both are excellent and both are full.
Shoulder seasons — April to May, September to October — are hot or wet but half the price and a third of the people.
The classic circuit, and what it misses
The overland route most people do runs Bangkok → northern Thailand → Laos → Vietnam → Cambodia → back to Bangkok, or some rotation of it. It works, the connections are easy, and there is a reason it became standard.
What it skips: Malaysian Borneo and Indonesian Kalimantan, where the rainforest and the orangutans are. Sumatra, which is enormous and barely visited. The Philippines, which is a flight rather than a bus and is left out for exactly that reason. Myanmar, where the political situation has made travel ethically fraught and practically difficult since 2021 — check current advice rather than assuming.
Northeast Thailand, northern Laos away from the river, and central Vietnam’s mountains are all a day off the circuit and see a fraction of the traffic.
Money
Cheap, but less cheap than the reputation. A guesthouse room runs from very little in Laos and Cambodia to considerably more in Singapore, which is a wealthy city and priced like one. Street food is a few dollars anywhere. Long-distance buses are cheap; internal flights on the regional low-cost carriers are often barely more and save a day.
Cash still matters. Cambodia runs largely on US dollars. Vietnam and Indonesia have high-denomination currencies where the zeroes catch people out.
Getting around
Buses and trains connect the mainland well, and the overland border crossings are routine. The Thailand–Laos, Laos–Vietnam and Cambodia–Thailand crossings all work, with the usual small frictions.
Low-cost airlines — AirAsia, VietJet, Lion Air, Cebu Pacific — make the maritime half possible. Baggage is charged separately and the schedules move.
Motorbikes are how a great many people get around locally. They are also how a great many people are seriously injured. Check whether your insurance actually covers you, because most policies require a licence valid for the machine, and most travellers do not have one.
The uncomfortable part
Some of what is sold here should not be bought. Elephant riding, tiger selfies, and most “sanctuaries” that let you touch the animals are welfare problems with a marketing budget. Orphanage visits in Cambodia support an industry that separates children from living parents. The rule that works: if the attraction requires the animal or the child to be available on demand, it is not what it claims.
Where to start
If it is a first trip: Thailand, three weeks, north and one coast. If it is a second: Vietnam end to end, or Indonesia beyond Bali. If you have three months: the mainland circuit, slowly, with two weeks somewhere off it.
More Regions
The Andes
The longest mountain range on earth, running the length of a continent, with the altitude that shapes every decision you make about travelling in it.
East Africa
The Serengeti and the Mara, Kilimanjaro, the Rift Valley lakes and the Swahili coast — and the safari industry that sits on top of all of it.
The Mediterranean
Twenty-two countries around one sea, with three thousand years of everybody conquering everybody else layered into the same towns. The easiest great region to travel and the hardest to see freshly.