After not having a clue how much our monthly expenses are for living in Austria, we were even less capable of telling how bis our living costs would be while living on Koh Lanta. And that‘s exactly the reason why we tried to list everything we spent money on during our 2 months trip through Asia. So beneath you will find a detailed description what the main expenses have been and what you can calculate for living as a digital nomad on Koh Lanta.
You should also know that we weren‘t really eager to have the least possible costs, but we definitely tried to make reasonable expenses — so the costs beneath should be really average costs for an average life style.
Living Costs — Getting around Koh Lanta
There are different ways how you can explore Koh Lanta, but asking around will give you the most common answer which is: ”of course by motorbike.”
Getting around Koh Lanta by motorbike
I know that the most recommended way for getting around Koh Lanta is renting a motorbike. But honestly, while being the first couple of weeks or probably even days on this beautiful island we saw at least 5 badly injured people. They all got in accidents because of riding a motorbike. And badly injured means that you shouldn‘t go near the ocean or be on the beach because of the salt and the sand. And this defeats the purpose of being on an island — at least for me 🙂
What you should know before renting a motorbike is that renting it longterm gets you a better price for about ฿ 180 per day instead of ฿ ~260 per day. That would result in approximately ฿ 10.800 for 60 days. Lets say we would get a discount and could calculate with ฿ 10.000 for these 60 days.
I‘m not really sure if adding the costs that you would have to pay to get put together after a motorbike accident would be really fair. But let‘s just keep that in mind, shall we 🙂
So in addition of having to rent the bike you would also need to refuel it. The price for a liter of gasoline is a price that everyone on Koh Lanta seems to agree on, although the writing of the word seems to be something the people on Lanta still have to discuss. The price for 1 liter of gasoline is ฿ 40.
Getting around Koh Lanta by car
On the other hand renting a car would be approximately ฿ 1.000 per day, so not really comparable with renting a bike, at least when you take only the price into account. Still sitting in a car would give at least me a better and more secure feeling, than cruising around Koh Lanta on a Scooter.
Getting around Koh Lanta by foot and Tuk-Tuks
The third option would be exploring Koh Lanta by foot and by Tuk-Tuks. The price for a Tuk-Tuk ride depends on different things:
day time vs. night time: you will definitely make the experience that the rate will be more expensive as soon as it gets dark
the amount of beaches you are trespassing: although there is no fix rate for Tuk-Tuk rides, we noticed a somehow convenient ฿ 100 per beach (the price is for two people)
the attitude of the driver and yourself
your negotiation skills 😉
Summarised you can say that there are three different transportation possibilities while staying on Koh Lanta:
rent a motorbike — the most convenient way for most people
rent a car
go by foot & use Tuk-Tuks
So because we decided on option 3 — going by foot and using Tuk-Tuks we spent in total ฿ 2.545,00 on Tuk-Tuks which compared to a fixed amount of ฿ 10.000 for renting one bike for two people for 60 days is a lot cheaper. And even if we would have had to rent a motorbike for 1 or even 10 days to take part in different activities as going to Old Town or to the National Park it would have been still cheaper to rent it only for those special occasions.
Is going by TukTuk sufficient?
No it‘s not. We did all the short trips by taking a TukTuk and that‘s fine …
BUT, of course you would have to rent a car or a taxi driver to go around Koh Lanta. Trips to Old Town and for example to Koh Lantas beautiful National Park are both only manageable by car or motorbike.
So lets say you would have rent a car for two days to explore the island it would have cost you ฿ 2.000. Which makes a total amount of ฿ 4.545 for on-island transportation for 60 days. Which still is cheaper than renting a motorbike for 60 days!
Costs for 2 months transportation on Koh Lanta: ฿ 2.545,00 for two
Transportation costs
฿ 2.545,00
Living Costs — Food
First of all I have to mention that Gerwin and I are not gluttons. I mean I love to eat and I especially love to try out new things and eat a lot. But still … most of the time we are good with breakfast and lunch and maybe a small snack in between. If we want to go for dinner in the evening we mostly skip lunch or share one smaller portion between the two of us.
Breakfast
During our stay on Koh Lanta for breakfast we would most of the time, especially during the week, have our typical Müsli with Soy Milk. We would eat it at home before leaving for KoHub, so that‘s definitely a point where we were able to save up some money. Not that having breakfast on Koh Lanta would be expensive — it was just convenient for us.
Side note: Btw. getting sugar-free Soy Milk in Thailand, especially on Koh Lanta is impossible. At least I didn‘t find it anywhere. So we had to stick to the best worst-case — which was buying Soy Milk containing 3.5% of sugar.
Sugar free soy milk
Couldn‘t find one 🙁
During our last two weeks we sometimes went for breakfast after finding a really nice Fruit Tree Coffee Shop — thanks Ivan 😉 It’s about 750 m away = 9 min walk and opens at 07:30 am. Although for Koh Lanta the menu is really pétite, the breakfast is one of the best breakfasts I had during the whole two months.
Still let’s just calculate the soy milk we needed for our breakfasts: ~ 1,5 l / week * 9 = 13,5 l ==> 13,5 * ฿ 35 = ฿472,5
Costs for breakfast on Koh Lanta: ฿ 250,00 / person
Breakfast
฿ 250,00
Lunch
So for lunch most of the week we would eat at KoHub. The food there is good. The portions absolutely ok — I mean you would still fit some dessert afterwards — but really ok. And the price is Koh Lanta average.
My favourite KoHub lunch dishes were definitely Pad Thai (chicken & veggie), the Massaman Curry and the Papaya & Green Beans salad with additional fried chicken. I don’t know how they do this fried chicken but it is soooo delicious. Gerwin‘s I can say without asking him was Green Curry — I kind of don‘t recall him eating anything else 😉
The average cost per day for lunch at KoHub was about ฿240,00 for both of us.
Calculation: 240 * (60-18) = ฿ 10.080,00 where I take 18 days as weekend days
Costs for 2 months lunch on Koh Lanta: ฿ 5.500,00 / person
Lunch costs
฿ 5.500,00
Dinner
So going out for dinner during the week or on weekends was a little bit more expensive than grabbing lunch at KoHub.
Sometimes we went for dinner during the week — it seems that sweating your ass of during the whole day, makes you really hungry 😉
While we didn‘t go for dinner each and every day, we mostly spent more money on food during weekends than during the week. Probably because that was the time we went for nice dinners and tried out new stuff.
I would calculate for a weekend food spending around ฿ 600 per person. So calculating 9 weekends that would be a total cost of ฿ 5400 per person.
Costs for 2 months dinner on Koh Lanta: ฿ 5.400,00 / person
Dinner costs
฿ 5.400,00
Total Food Costs
The comulated costs for food during our 60 day stay on Koh Lanta would look as following:
฿ 250,00 for breakfast ฿ 5.500,00 for lunch ฿ 5.400,00 for dinner —————————– ฿ 11.150,00 for food / person
Because of all the good stuff you eat inbetween I would round up the costs to ฿ 11.500,00 / person for 60 days on Koh Lanta.
Costs for 2 months food on Koh Lanta: ฿ 11.500,00 / person
Food costs
฿ 11.500,00
Living Costs — Activities
We had a lot in mind before coming to Koh Lanta, or at least I did, and we did manage to do at least part of the things I‘ve planned for us. Here are some things that were really amazing and a lot of fun.
Koh Rok
Koh Rok was a day trip with a pick-up from the beach by Speedboat at 8:30 am. First of all we went for snorkeling, than to Koh Rok for I think about 2 hours beach time & picture time and than once again snorkeling. On the beach we even had a small lunch containing of Curry, chicken and some vegetables. We‘ve been on the trip with Joe, Claudia, Kevin and David & Lilly, which means that we ended up having a lot of cool footage 😉 thanks to David and Kevin.
So the whole day trip including snorkeling equipment and the lunch on Koh Rok was ฿ 1.000,00 per person.
Day trip to Koh Rok: ฿ 1.000,00 / person
Koh Rok
฿ 1.000,00
Time for Lime – Cooking Class
The Time for Lime cooking class is definitely something you should plan while staying on Koh Lanta. It is a lot of fun, you learn stuff and you even support the Lanta Animal Welfare Charity.
There are classes in the afternoon around 4 pm-8 pm and if these are totally booked, they also do classes from 11 am-3 pm. We paid for the class that contained of 3 self-cooked dishes ฿ 1.500 per person and got an apron as gift.
3-4 h cooking class at Time for Lime: ฿ 1.500,00 / person
Time for Lime – Cooking Class
฿ 1.500,00
Emerald Caves & Koh Ngai
The day trip to the Emerald Caves has been really nice. A lot of the people we went with complained about the Emerald Caves being nothing special. I mean, I have to admit that for a 15 min look around it is kind of expensive, but at least the swimming through the cave where it is pitch black is really cool. And with a snorkeling stop at Koh Ngai it was absolutely worth the money.
Day trip to Emerald Cave: ฿ 1.200,00 / person
Emerald Caves
฿ 1.200,00
Animal Welfare Charity
If you love animals and also want to take a dog for a walk visit the Lanta Animal Welfare Charity. They do short tours each full hour and show you around. And from 9am-11am and between 3pm-5pm you can take one of the dogs for a walk. They even provide you with a bag full of doggy stuff: doggy bags, water bowl + water and a route plan that shows you where you can take the dog for a walk.
No costs except you want to donate something.
Animal Welfare Center
฿ 0,00
The Table
A once in a lifetime experience, which connects foreign people at a dinner table, where the amazing cooks for you, whatever she wants.
The Table: ฿ 1.300,00 / person
The Table
฿ 1.300,00
Dreamy Spa
One thing that I regret not spending more money on was going for a massage. During our first week we found a really nice spa about 3 min away from the Escape-Cabins. They offered a ฿ 6.000 voucher for ฿ 5.000, which we immediately bought. We managed to do:
5 times Thai massage
2 times manicure & pedicure
3 Aroma Therapy massage
1 Hawaiian massage
1 Hand and Foot massage
Massages: ฿ 2.500,00 / person
Dreamy Spa
฿ 2.500,00
Although we could have done a lot more cool stuff, we were absolutely satisfied with all the great adventures that we had on Koh Lanta.
The total amount of activity costs would be: ฿ 7.500,00 / person
Total Activity Costs
฿ 7.500,00
Living Costs — Going out
Well, this part definitely depends on where you are going and what you are doing. There are several options on what you can do in the evening:
Cookery school
Dinner, depending on what you have and where you go
Paintball
is transportation involved or not
Party
etc.
But I think the most expensive dinner we had eating out was the one at Time for Lime for ฿ 1.300,00 for two people with drinks. And that’s still only € 35.
Most expensive dinner
฿ 1.300,00
The total amount of activity costs would be: ฿ 5.000,00 / person
Total Going Out Costs — esitmated
฿ 5.000,00
Total Living Costs on Koh Lanta for 60 days
So although we weren’t really trying to spent as less money as possible we still tried to safe money eating breakfast at home. So beneath you can find the total costs for food, activities and transportation on Koh Lanta for 60 days.
฿ for 2 people
฿ / person
€ / person
Transportation:
฿ 2.545,00
฿ 1.272,50
€ 32,62
Food:
฿ 23.000,00
฿ 11.500,00
€ 294,78
Activities:
฿ 15.000,00
฿ 7.500,00
€ 192,25
Going Out:
฿ 10.000,00
฿ 5.000,00
€ 128,17
Total:
฿ 49.545,00
฿ 24.772,50
€ 647,82
PS: if we are talking living costs on Koh Lanta I definitely have to mention that this view is priceless:
Katarzyna Potocka
Hello,
Can you advise on how you were able to (legally) stay on Koh Lanta for 2 month. I struggle to see how it is possible without a Thai Work Visa.
Thanks in advance,
Atom