I ordered a beer in 89 countries, from Austria to Zambia and everywhere in between.

 Can you guess which country has the cheapest beer in the world?

The criteria for the “Cheapest Beer in the World Index” is:

• It has to be a beer that I actually drank, in a bar or restaurant.  The price of a beer in a grocery store is not acceptable.
• Tipping cost is not factored in.  Taxes are.  The price in US dollars is calculated based on the market exchange rate on that day.
• It should be at least a 12 oz/330 ml beer, but if a larger beer is customary in that country, it will be listed at the actual price.
• Only the cheapest beer consumed in the country is listed, no matter how good or bad it might have been.

Drinking beers all over the the world is an arduous and thankless job,

but I do it just for you, the readers of Worldwide Wilbur.

Cheapest Beer in the World Index:

“Hopelessly High-Priced Hops”

These are the countries that might hurt your wallet

Kuwait – One Millllllion Dollars  Kuwait is actually a dry country.  There is no alcohol sold or allowed into the country.  No beer was had here.  I have to rank this as the most expensive beer, because the cost of getting caught with one would certainly be over $10.  Read more about Kuwait here.

Brunei – A pile of bureaucratic red tape.  Brunei is also a dry country.  There is no alcohol sold here, BUT it is legal for non-muslims to bring in a small amount of beer.  So, no beer was had here either.  Read more about Brunei here.

Oman – $11.69  Oman is a lovely country, full of friendly people.  Beer is hard to find, only available in expensive tourist hotels.  Your best bet is to buy a case of beer in the airport duty free on your way into the country.  In charming Muscat, the Intercontinental’s Al Ghazal pub has Carlsberg draft for 4.5 rial.

United Arab Emirates – $10.62  Any world traveler is going to pass through Dubai sooner or later.  You can get beer here in most hotel bars and restaurants, and a few other high end bars and clubs.  At the rooftop bar of the Crowne Plaza Deira a Stella draft is 39 AED.

Qatar – $9.89 In the Doha airport you can get a bottle of Tiger beer for 36 Rial.   It’s very hard to find a beer in this strict Islamic country.  Your only option is pricey five-star hotel bars and the airport.

Bahrain – $9.20 You might have guessed that due to the beer prices, the Gulf States aren’t at the top of my list of fun travel destinations.  Bahrain is the sole exception.  With 8,300 U.S. military personnel stationed here, Bahrain has wisely opted to let people have a little fun.  It’s not in contention for the cheapest beer in the world, but you can listen to a kick-ass live band and get a pint of Harp at JJ’s Irish Restaurant in Manama for 3.5 Dinar.

Finland – $8.71  After the Gulf states, the most painful beer prices are found in the Nordic countries.  I had a delicious Nightshift stout for 7.90 Euro in the Juova Hanahuone craft beer gastropub in Helsinki.  I think I could beat this price with more time to search the dive bars, but this was the best I could do on a 24hr layover.

Norway – $8.39  Norway has some crazy expensive beer prices.  $10 to $12 is the norm.  My all-time record most expensive beer was a $16.48 pint at the Vinyl bar in Bergen.   It’s generally much more expensive than Finland, but I did score a lovely Sumbel Porter at the stunning viking-decor Aegir Brewery in Flam for just 85 Kroner.  It’s so unbelievably beautiful in Norway, the sky-high prices somehow seem reasonable.

Jordan – $7.05  Jordan is a lovely place to visit, with friendly people, and sights like Petra, The Dead Sea, and the beaches of Aqaba.  They do have a tasty home-brewed beer called Carakale, another pretty bad local beer “Petra”, and locally brewed Amstel.  Sadly, taxes are high on alcohol, and the cheapest I could find was 5 Jordanian Dinar at Bawabit Madaba restaurant in Madaba town.

Ireland  – $6.81 Ireland is the home of one of the greatest beers of the world; Guinness.  The brewery at St. James Gate has been churning out the good stuff since 1759.  The Temple Bar area of Dublin is the most expensive place in the country to order a pint.  And that is where I got this one for 6 Euro.  If you make it to Dublin, don’t miss a tour of the Guinness Brewery.  With a pre-booked ticket, you’ll skip the long lines, get to see how it’s brewed, learn to pour the perfect pint, and drink one at the end.  And one piece of important advice, never order an Irish Car Bomb or a Black and Tan in an Irish pub in Ireland.  The first drink should be self-explanatory, click to read more about the second.

Morocco – $6.42  Morocco is wonderfully cheap for hotels and great food, but not so much for beer.  It is a more conservative society than most people realize, and beer is heavily taxed and hard to find.  I spent 10 days in the country and almost never found a place serving beer.  I finally broke down and paid 60 dirham for a bottle of the Philippines finest – San Miguel, at a rooftop bar just outside the medina of Marrakech.

Iceland – $6.02  I spent a day hopping the many excellent bars of lovely Reykjavik, and can confirm that beer in Iceland is VERY expensive.  A normal price for a beer out on the town is at least $10.  All the bars have happy hour specials, so if you go out early, you can get a Gull lager for 750 kroner at The Dubliner.  Gull is bland at best, but the Kaldi Dark Lager pictured above is quite good.  If I had more time in town, I would have liked to have done the Reykjavik Beer Tasting and Tapas Tour  Read about how to save money in Iceland here.

Djibouti – $5.60  If you read my Djibouti Travel Guide, you’ll know exactly what I think of this dump.  I paid 1000 francs for a nice Ethiopian beer that would have cost just $1.11 a couple hundred miles away in Addis Ababa.

Liechtenstein – $5.43  Why go to Liechtenstein?  You got me.  Tax evasion?  Non-extradition treaties?  It’s probably not for the beer.  It’s basically a tiny subset of Switzerland with Swiss prices to match.  I had a beer for 5 swiss Francs in BarDuz.

Russia – $5.24 I haven’t really been to Russia either, but I transited in Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport, where you can get a bottle of Carlsberg for 295 rubles.  I’m sure a back street bar in a no-name town is a lot cheaper.  The next time I’m in Moscow, I’m going to do the Pub Crawl by Soviet van. 

Monaco – $5.04  This one shouldn’t be too surprising.  Monaco is the richest country per capita in the world.  In the land of Bentleys and Ferraris one should expect to pay 4.20 Euro for a draft beer in a harborside restaurant.

Maldives – $4.88 I’m not sure if the price was due to being captive audience on a resort island, or due to the Maldives strict Islamic law than bans alcohol everywhere in the country except the resort islands?  Anyway, when you are on a tiny dot in the middle of the Indian Ocean, you are going to sip a Carlsberg whatever the cost.

Lebanon – $4.64 Ok, so Lebanon recently ended a war with Israel, and the country is effectively run by Hezbollah, an Islamic militia labeled a terrorist organization by the US, but blah blah blah, I’m telling you this place is FUN!  Beirut has great bars.  I enjoyed an Almaza for 7000 pounds at bar Ferdinand.

Luxembourg – $4.44  I only spent one day in Luxembourg, so I probably could have found a cheaper beer.  The rude waiter in the pizza place served me some Bofferding for 3.70 Euro.

Switzerland – $4.43   You’ll be wowed by the stunning Swiss Alps, and even more wowed by the bill in every restaurant and bar!   I love Switzerland, I just can’t afford to stay.  You can get a 300ml glass of local beer for 4 Swiss Francs at the Avocado Bar in lovely Zermatt.

Sweden – $4.41  At the Central Bar in Stockholm, you can get a Falcon draft for 49 Swedish Krona.  Falcon is pretty bad, it seems to be the loss leader in every bar in Stockholm, considerably cheaper than any other beer.   This Swedish beer is half the price of a beer in any other Scandinavian/Nordic country so I can’t complain.

Israel – $4.22  Beer (and everything) is very expensive in fantastic Tel Aviv.  Usually in the $7 to $8 dollar range in any bar.  I lucked out at the tiny Theodorus Ethiopian Restaurant and had a Gold Star Lager for just 15 Shekels.   Better to grab one from a corner store and take it across the street to the beach.

San Marino – $4.18   Where the heck is San Marino?  It’s a tiny mountain country completely surrounded by Italy.  It makes a living off tax evaders, weapons sales, and busloads of daytrip tourists.  I had a 330ml bottle of local Titanbrau for 3.80 Euro at the little cafe at the top of the mountain.

Canada – $4.03 I had a bottle of Molson for 4.95 Canadian Dollars + 13% tax at the Chipotle in downtown Ottawa.  After 10 days driving across Canada, this seems as cheap as it gets.

United Kingdom – $4.02  The UK has a long tradition of great beer, even if they do drink some of it at room temperature.  I had a lager at the Cardiff City Arms for three pounds sterling.

Palau – $4.00 The Pristine Paradise of Palau has one excellent national beer, Red Rooster.  It comes in several flavors, and the Red Rooster Stout went down very smoothly at the Bottom Time bar after a full day of SCUBA diving with sharks.

Egypt – $3.87  In many Muslim majority countries, beer can be hard to find.  Egypt is an exception.  It has a sizeable christian population, and they brew their own national beer, Stella (not to be confused with the globally imported Stella Artois)   It’s actually really good.  You still have to look for the few licensed liquor stores or a hotel bar to buy it.  At the Cairo Hilton a can of Stella is 105 Egyptian pounds.

Vatican City – $3.85   You can get a beer in the capitol of Catholicism?  You sure can.  You can’t take it into the Sistine Chapel, but I had a can of Peroni for 3.50 Euro at the lunch cart in St Peter’s Square.

Cheapest Beer in the World Index:

“Moderately Mediocre Malts” 

Some decent bargain beers can be found here:

France – $3.09 We spent two weeks crossing France from north to south, so 2.5 Euro is a pretty fair indicator of “as cheap as it gets”.  France makes terrible beer.  I’ve tried to block out of my mind the brand names of the awful swill I tried.  (Kronenbourg 1664)  It’s my own fault for not switching to wine like any intelligent person would.  Next time I’m going to get some professional advice on France’s better beers on the Paris Pub Crawl.

Malta – $3.09 Cisk, the national beer of Malta, isn’t going to win any awards, but Malta is such a cool place that I didn’t notice.  2.5 Euro was the cheapest suds on this fascinating Mediterranean island.  Paceville is where the party is at.  You should get a proper introduction to the nightlife on the Paceville Pub Crawl.

Belarus – $3.06 Belarusian beer was surprisingly expensive compared to its bargain basement neighbor Ukraine.  I had hoped it could contend for the cheapest beer in the world.  After five days here, I never paid less than 6 Rubles for excellent brown ale.   Fun fact: Belarusians almost never smile, but it doesn’t necessarily mean they want to kill you.  Next time I go, I’m doing the Minsk City Pub Crawl.  Read more about Minsk here.

Micronesia – $3.00  Shed a tear for tiny Micronesia.  They have no national beer.  Or currency.  On Pohnpei, you’ll pay three US dollars for a Steinlager at the Mangrove Bay bar.  But the views are tropical, and the beer is cold.

Marshall Islands – $3.00  Another group of even smaller specks of land in the Pacific, the Marshall Islanders also consume US dollars and beer.  On Kwajalein, you can sip a Bud Lite at the Ocean View Club for 3 bucks, while watching missiles splash into the lagoon.  Read about how to get to off-limits Kwajalein here.

Antigua & Barbuda – $2.95  In super-pricey English Harbour on Antigua, the best I could find was a Carib for 8ECD at the That’s Life bar.

Lesotho – $2.87  Lesotho is a tiny, bleak, windswept country, completely surrounded by South Africa.  If you hire a 4×4, you can drive up the Sani Pass and have a Maluti for 40 Rand at Sani Mountain Lodge, the highest pub in Africa at 9500 feet.

Austria – $2.84   Austria has a distinguished history of beer brewing, much like its neighbors to the north, Germany and Czech Republic.  I found a bargain deal at Delights of India in Vienna;  a big 500ml can of Steigl for 2.5 Euro.

Thailand – $2.55  By Southeast Asia standards, Thailand has very expensive beer.  Especially in Bangkok.  The best deal you can find is a Chang at Cheap Charlie’s Bar for 80 Baht.  You can get a taste of the crazy nightlife on the Bangkok Bar Crawl.

Belgium – $2.53  Belgium is known as one of the greatest beer countries in the world.  It regularly competes with Germany and Czech Republic for the best beer.  Jupiler Pils is certainly not one of those beers, but you can get a bottle for 2.30 Euro at a side alley bar in lovely Bruges.  Next time you find yourself in Brussels, I highly recommend the Belgian Beer Tasting Experience.

Tunisia – $2.53 After ten days in teetotaler Morocco, Tunisia was a breath of fresh air.  And by air, I mean beer.  Tunisia is an Islamic country, but much more liberal than any other I’ve visited.  You can get a Celtia anywhere, and for as cheap as 6.10 Dinar.

Greece – $2.50 Greece’s national beer Mythos is truly awful.  Fix Hellas is better.  Alpha as well.  At least it is all easy to find, and as cheap as 2 Euro.

Cyprus – $2.50 Cyprus is culturally the same as Greece, except with less Parthenon, and more Russian money-laundering.  Thankfully instead of Mythos, they have a decent national beer of KEO for 2 Euro.

Mauritius – $2.46  Mauritius is a gorgeous tropical wonderland island way off the coast of Africa, populated by Indians and European expats.  I don’t know what all that should mean for beer, but I could get a cold Phoenix for 85 rupees.

Benin – $2.40  The well-kept embassy neighborhood of Cotonou has a few restaurants where you can get a Castel for 1500 CFA.  I’m sure I could find cheaper than this, but in my short stay, this was the best price I saw.

Bulgaria – $2.36  Beautiful Bulgaria offers some of the best value for your travels in Europe.  Ski resorts, Black sea beaches, great food, it’s well worth a trip.  If you make it to the capitol of Sofia, be sure to try the Sofia Pub Crawl.  I found a Staropramen draft for just 4.10 Lev at the Dobro restaurant.

Sri Lanka – $2.27 Sri Lanka is beautiful, but most definitely NOT a drinking culture.  In the culturally rich city of Kandy, only 2 or 3 places even serve alcohol.  It was occasionally a struggle to find a beer, but you can usually find a Lion Lager for 350 rupees.

Kenya – $2.26  Oh Kenya, how i miss you.  And your big bottles of Tusker baridi (cold).  Nairobi is the nightlife capital of East Africa.  Only Kampala can rival the fun to be had.  And you can find a Tusker anywhere.  I paid 230 shillings at a swanky bar the last time I was in town on a layover.  You can find them as low as 150 shillings in the pitch-dark back-alley bars where the bartender sits behind a metal cage and slides your beer through an opening!  Just watch your back.  Nairobi is far from safe after the sun goes down!  Let someone else do the planning with the Nairobi By Night tour.

Spain – $2.25  Spanish beer is much the same as the beer found in it’s many Latin American colonial offshoots; pale lager, little taste.  One weird thing in Spain is you can buy beers in tiny 6.7 ounce / 200ml bottles.  It can be fun to knock down a whole six-pack of little baby beers (known as cana), but actually only imbibe the equivalent of two and a half man-size German beers.  At La Cabanita Park near Maspalomas, you can get a regular size 330ml bottle of Tropical for two euro.

Armenia – $2.25  I really enjoyed the tangy taste of Kilikia, the most popular beer in Armenia.  Yerevan is a lovely cosmopolitan city, full of Kardashian look-alikes.  You can get a bottle of Kilikia for just 900 Drams at Face Pub.

Croatia – $2.21  Croatia has your run of the mill light lagers found everywhere on earth, as well as some good imports from Czechia and other Balkan nations.  I paid 16Kuna for this 0.3l draft of excellent Karlovacko Crno at Submarine restaurant in Zagreb.

Germany – $2.17 Ah, Germany.  You’ll never have trouble finding a beer in Germany.  You can even have one at a kids soccer game, during a business lunch, walking down the street, anywhere.  The beers are excellent, and nearly always reasonably priced.  The standard price for a quality 500ml draft at a Biergarten is 4-something euro.  At lower end street-side bars you may find beers in the 3 euro range.  After two years living in Germany, my all-time record for the cheapest beer is in the dive bars a block off the Reeperbahn in Hamburg.  Specifically, at the “Trink Ba” formerly known as “Bar 99 cent”, where you can get a locally brewed Astra for just 2 Euro!  Get the inside scoop on the best of German beer on the Berlin Beer Tasting Tour

The Gambia – $2.07  The Gambia is a little slice of riverside and ocean paradise on the edge of West Africa.  They speak English, they like beer, and it’s good fun.  At Solomelo’s Restaurant i had a Goldfinch for 150 Dalasi.

Kazakhstan – $2.01 In lovely Almaty I got a pint of Harat’s Lager at the Guinness Pub for just 895 Tenge.  Almaty has excellent nightlife, and a mix of Central Asian and Russian people having fun in the green city’s parks surrounded by snow-capped mountains.

Moldova – $2.01  Moldova is kinda the end-of-the-line on the Eastern European train.  Not many get that far, but if you do, you’ll be glad you came.  In Chisinau, a green city full of parks, you can get a bottle of Chisinau beer for 35 Leu.

Belize – $2.00  Come on down to Caye Caulker.  We’ve got a bicycle and cold bottle of Belikin waiting for you at the ferry dock.  At happy hour you can get one for just 4 Belizean dollars.

USA – $2.00 In Binghamton, New York you’ll find a tiny neighborhood bar called Abel’s Pub.  They have Yuengling on draft for just two bucks!  That’s tax included, cash only.  I challenge my readers to find a a cheaper every-day bargain in the USA!  Come for PorchFest next summer!

Cheapest Beer in the World Index:

“Lovely Low-cost Lagers”

Stretch your drinking dollar in these countries!

Mexico – $1.97    You can get a cold Carta Blanca on draft at Lucid bar in Sayulita for just 40 pesos.  I’m sure you can find cheaper than this in a non-touristy town in the interior of the country, but this is a pretty good price for a classy bar just a few feet from the Pacific Ocean.

Guatemala – $1.95   You can get an El Zapote Blonde Ale for just 15 Quetzales in La Taberna del Pana in bustling noisy Panajachel.

Saint Vincent & The Grenadines – $1.95  We loved the laid-back and chill atmosphere of Bequia island, just an hours ferry from the main island of St. Vincent.  If you hang out at lovely Princess Margaret Beach, you’ll find a friendly Rasta man with a beer shack selling Hairoun beer for just 5ECD!

Slovenia – $1.83  Slovenia might be the most underrated destination in Europe.  It sits at the foot of the Alps, wedged between Italy and Austria, with stunning alpine lakes, castles, 19th century Austro-Hungarian architecture, and excellent beer!  You can get a cold Union Tamno Pivo (dark lager beer) on draft at the Levstik Pub in Ljubljana for just 1.80 Euro.  This is quite possibly my favorite beer EVER!   To find your favorite Slovenian craft beer, try the Beer Tasting Tour in Ljubljana.  Read more about Slovenia here.

Georgia – $1.82  Georgia is a beautiful country, and riverside Tbilisi was my favorite city in the Caucasus.  It’s got great food, friendly people, and cheap beer.  I paid 5 Lari for an Ossetian draft beer at Alani restaurant in Tbilisi.

Romania – $1.74  Romania has some excellent Czech-style lagers.  Ursus Black is one of my favorites.  When I was in Timisoara, I got a glass of Timisoreana for just 8 Lei at the Timisoreana Brewery.

Kyrgyzstan – $1.71 In Bishkek I got a pint of Harat’s Lager at the Guinness Pub for just 150 Som.  Bishkek has to be the cheapest city in Central Asia.  Friendly people, and lots of cafes and bars around.

Kosovo – $1.64  Kosovo has come a long way since the war years of the 90’s.  You’ll see snow-capped mountains, eat delicious Balkan food, and meet friendly people.  They love Americans (if you happen to be one) and even have a statue of Bill Clinton.  The national beer is Peja, and you can get one for just 1.5 Euro at the ski resort O’Deer Cafe Bar in Boge.

Senegal – $1.59  Friendly Senegal has two main beers, Flag and Gazelle.  Gazelle is a little tastier, lower in alcohol, but mostly come in large 600ml bottles.  The cheapest beer I had was a Flag for 1000 CFA at the Astalla Bar in laid-back Saly.

Zimbabwe – $1.50  Poor Zim has had some tough times these last twenty years or so.  Hopefully things will turn around in this lovely country.  There’s a lot to see here, and they need your tourist bucks.  Stop into the Mutare Club and have a Golden Pilsener or a Castle Lager for $1.50 US.  Yep, they use US dollars in Zimbabwe, as nobody trusts whatever garbage the government is printing these days.

North Macedonia – $1.43  This country with a brand new name deserves more tourists.  Its charming little capital Skopje has more statues than any city on earth.  And for just 80 Denars, you can find a cold bottle of Skopsko (I swear that’s what the label reads.  It’s in Cyrillic).

Eswatini – $1.40 Don’t call it Swaziland if you want the barman to slide you a cold Sibebe Premium Lager for 20 Rand.  Swazis like their beer, but they didn’t like their colonial national name, so the king changed it to Eswatini in 2018.  Fun Fact: King Mswati III has 15 wives, and picks up a new one every couple of years at the Reed Festival.

Rwanda – $1.35 Sleepy Kigali may be the most pleasant, clean, safe, and boring city in Africa.  The police don’t take bribes.  The entire poulation is legally required to come out and clean the streets one day a month.  The nightlife is missing something.  Not much going on here.  You can get a Mutzig for 1200 Francs at one of the few roadside bars.

Transnistria – $1.33 Ok, I know Transnistria is not a member of the U.N. and not recognized as a country, but this is my beer list, so I can do whatever I want.  This fascinating place is as much of a country as anywhere else I’ve been.  And it’s got great dark beer for just 20 Roubles.  It isn’t quite the cheapest beer in the world, but probably the best value beer in the world.  I didn’t get the name of the beer because the menu was in cyrillic, so I had to just point at the picture and grunt “BEEEER” like a moron.  It all worked out.

Tanzania – $1.28 We spent six days hiking up and down 19,341 foot Mount Kilimanjaro.  Note: There are no bars on the hike up Kilimanjaro.  Major investment opportunity for someone there.   After six days of much hiking, and no beer, we were sooo happy to pay 3000 Shillings for a Kilimanjaro Premium Lager in Moshi town.  Serengeti, Safari, and Ndovu all taste about the same as this one.

South Africa – $1.22  South Africans like to party.  Whoo yeah.  Cape Town, Durban, anywhere you go, you’ll find some hopping bars.  The bars look just like any you would find in America.  Except white folks and black folks still often stay in different self-segregated bars, which I found shocking and sad.   Their currency has taken a beating over the last few years, to your benefit.  You can get a Carling Black Label for 17 Rand in the small town of Swellendam.  And where else can you see rhino, lions, and giraffe AND craft beer on the same tour?  Only on the Cape Town Game Drive and Craft Beer Tour.

Hungary – $1.20  Bootyfest, ahem, excuse me, BUDAPEST has phenomenal bars and clubs.  I wouldn’t say beer is a Hungarian specialty, unlike their neighbors Czech Republic and Austria, but there is plenty of it, and it can be cheap if you pick the right bar.  I found a draft Borsodi for only 390 forint in ruin bar Fuge Udvar.  There are soooo many little interesting bars to explore, but the cool ones can be hard to find.  I highly recommend doing the Budapest Pub Crawl to get to all the best spots, and have a fun time with new friends.  I had so much fun, I went TWICE!

Azerbaijan – $1.18  I was really pleasantly surprised by Baku, the modern capitol of Azerbaijan.  It’s a spotlessly clean seaside city, sort of a mini-Dubai full of interesting glass skyscrapers.  Most Muslim-majority countries tax alcohol prohibitively, but not Azerbaijan.  You can get a delicious Xirdalan draft at Road Pub for just 2 Manat.

Guinea-Bissau $1.17  This country feels way off the beaten path.  A former Portuguese colony, they speak a Portuguese creole, and drink beer shipped straight from Portugal.  That means tiny little bottles of Cristal or Sagres or Super Bock.  At first it seems annoying to get these tiny beers that you have to order twice as often as they are so little, but it’s hot hot hot here, so no one wants a huge beer sitting around getting warm.  At the soccer stadium bar in ramshackle Bissau I had an 8.45 ounce/250ml Cristal for 500 CFA, which is the equivalent of 710 CFA for 12 ounces.

Serbia – $1.14  Serbia has some outstanding nightlife and delicious beer.  Belgrade is most famous for its Splavovi, riverside barge nightclubs that blast music till sunrise.  You won’t find cheap beer in the Splavs, but on a side street in charming Zemun, you can find a draft Lav for only 120 Dinars.  I recommend upgrading to a Niksicko Tamno dark lager.  Belgrade is a big, wild city, and I started off my visit by joining the Belgrade Pub Crawl.

Italy – $1.11  Italy?  A major Western European nation breaking into the cheapest beer locations in the world?  I was surprised too, but it’s true.  In Naples, you’ll find several bars in the Piazza Bellini area offering bottles of Peroni for just one Euro.   Among them are the #11 Bar, the Amnesia Bar, and Bar Fiorillo.  On weekends, Piazza Bellini packs in a thousand people hanging around mostly just outside the bars, with street performers, musicians, and an all around party atmosphere.

Ethiopia – $1.11 Addis Ababa has some strange nightlife.  There are dirt floor, single-lightbulb, corrugated sheet metal shacks, blasting deafening African hip-hop with the bass turned to 11, and packed with people drinking beer for a dollar.  And then there are high-class hotel rooftop bars with socialites drinking cocktails for $10.  But nothing in-between.  Weird.  Anyway, at any bar or restaurant, you can find some quality Ethiopian brewed beer like St. George for as little as 30 Birr.

Uganda – $1.09 Kampala!  I love your mud-filled alleys, your 2am rotisserie chicken salesmen, your friendly, talkative, beer-chugging, madly dancing people.  I love that I can walk home on your pitch-black cracked streets at any hour and not fear for my life.  You are Nairobi without the Nairobbery.  This mzungu looks forward to his next Nile Special for 4000 Shillings.

Czech Republic – $1.05  While not quite #1 for cheapness, the Czech Republic is #1 for quality in my book.  I love a Czech dark lager above all else.  Staropramen, Krusovice, Budvar, Kozel, I love em all.  If you only visit Prague, you’ll pay a lot more than a buck.  Get out into the countryside and the prices drop quick.  I had a pint of Eggenberg in a plastic cup at the top of the castle in Cesky Krumlov for just 23 Koruny.

Philippines – $1.02   You can sit on a Pacific beach and sip a bottle of San Miguel Light for just 60 pesos at Pito’s Sutokil, in Santiago Bay, Camotes Islands.  You can even get a full meal for about three dollars more.  The Philippines are warm, fun, friendly, and so so cheap.

Mozambique – $0.98 Oh, how I miss Tofo Beach!  It ticks all my boxes for paradise.  White sand.  Warm Indian Ocean waves.  Snorkeling, Diving.  Expats managing delicious pizza joints, and laid back ocean-view bars.  And you can get my absolute all-time favorite African beer, Laurentina Preta, for as low as 60 Meticals per beer.   It didn’t win cheapest beer in the world, but it would be my top value pick as the “cheapest best beer”..  I gotta get back there before the South Africans buy up everything.

Madagascar – $0.96 This huge island feels like being at the far end of the world.  Mountains and beaches, massive baobab trees and lemurs.  It’s unlike anywhere else.  It’s also one of the five poorest nations on Earth, and everything is very, very cheap.  The nightlife is not so hot, as most people are struggling just to get by.  Any bars will be filled with mostly European expats and a handful of tourists.  You can always find a big bottle of Three Horses Beer for as low as 3000 Ariary.

Zambia – $0.90  If you are coming to Zambia, you are almost certainly coming to see Victoria Falls.  Nearby Livingstone is where you’ll stay.  It’s a fun town.  Unpretentious bars with live music pack in both locals and tourists together.  Zambians are friendly and fun-loving.  And they love their Mosi Lager.  I paid just 9 Kwacha for a Mosi in an empty bar where I took shelter from a rainstorm.

Ghana – $0.85  Friendly, fun Ghana has great deals on beer if you know where to look.  At Duncan’s Pub in Accra, you can get a smooth Club from the tap for just 10 Cedis.  Ghanians love their beer, and you’ll rarely drink alone, as you’ll have a local telling you “You are welcome!” in no time.  Ghanians are at the top of my list of favorite people in Africa, and I can’t wait to see more of their country.

Togo – $0.80  The dusty, muddy, horn-honking, moto revving streets of Lome, Togo are difficult to love.  But if you need a break from walking through the chaos, you can get a cold bottle of Castel for just 500 CFA at St Jacques Bar.  We spent an hour here, shielded from the grime and noise just a bit.

Burundi – $0.71 Certainly the best beer deal ever, I got a massive 720ml Primus at the Safari Gate Hotel pool bar in Bujumbura for just 4300 Burundian Francs.  In cents per ounce, Burundi wins.

Malawi – $0.64  You’ll love the warm waters of Lake Malawi, and the sandy beaches of Cape Maclear.  You might not love the ambiance of the “Beach Boys Bar”  which  is best described as the post-apocalyptic ruins of a building now open to the air which somehow has a bar and a speaker system installed.   The friendly bartender can pass you a cold Kuche Kuche for only 2500 Kwacha.  Kuche Kuche.  It’s fun to say and easy to drink.

Ukraine – $0.60   Kyiv is a wild, crazy, fun city.  You can find upscale clubs where oligarchs are buying thousand dollar bottles of Cristal.  And you can find back alley bars where broke students are buying draft beer for JUST 60 CENTS!  At Bar Palata #6 I paid just 16 Hryvnia for a pint of local beer.  Which is nearly the cheapest pint in the world.  I was so confused by this bill (totaling $3.60 for the 6 pints my two friends and I drank), I told the bartender “I want to pay for ALL the beers, not just mine.”  He looked at the bill, squinted and said, “That IS all the beers.”  Our visit to this bar included a bizarre ritual of donning a flame retardant jumpsuit, an army helmet, drinking multicolored shots, having the bartender set our helmets ON FIRE, then blowing a fireball against the charred wall, and smashing an empty keg on our heads to extinguish the flames.  If you want a guide to such places, try the Kiev Bar Crawl Tour.  (Written in 2017 -Hoping for a peace to return to Ukraine soon!)

So where is the cheapest beer in the world? 

Vietnam!

Vietnam – $0.43  It’s true what you have heard about beer in Vietnam.  It is incredibly cheap.  Actually most everything is extremely cheap in Vietnam.  At a streetside outdoor restaurant in Nha Trang, I had this can of Tiger for just 10,000 Dong, which is 43 cents US!  In fact Vietnam is so cheap, it blurs the lines of the standard I set of “a beer in a bar or restaurant”.  This particular “restaurant” was a single tiny room in a side alley, with a food cart out front.  The seating was outside in little plastic kids chairs that started to collapse each time I shifted my American size frame.  A horde of rats crept one at a time out of the building, becoming bolder, and ever closer to our table as the night wore on.  No Michelin stars were to be found here.  Still, the food served was fresh and delicious, and the beer was cold.  I think it counts.

But wait, it gets even cheaper than this!   Vietnam has a unique type of beer.  Draft-only ‘Bia Hoi” is brewed daily by local breweries and delivered to local bars in steel barrels.  It has no preservatives and thus has to be consumed that day.  You can find it at all the cheap streetside carts where locals eat.   It usually isn’t served by the pint, but rather in two liter jugs set in a bucket of ice.  I tried it and it’s very tasty, as good as any bottled light beer.  I did the math on how much it costs per 330ml, and it came out to around 25 cents!  Unquestionably the cheapest beer in the world.  Why didn’t I list it then?  For one, it generally has only 3% alcohol content.  We have to draw a line in the sand that defines a “beer”, and I’m cutting it off at 4.0% alcohol.  Secondly, it is rarely served in single servings of 330 to 500ml.  As such, I’m not counting unregulated, very light beers like “Bia Hoi”.  (But if I lived in Vietnam, I sure would drink them!)

And please, before you leave a comment on how stupid I am,

and that I could have gotten a beer much cheaper at XYZ bar,

remember that these are the actual prices I paid,

representing one persons experience,

and not a scientific measure of the beer of your fine country by any means.

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My #1 International Travel Packing List rule is PACK LIGHT.

You will be very unhappy carrying 40+ pounds of stuff.  I’ve seen couples walking through airports with a massive 80 liter backpack on their back, with hiking boots and rolled up sleeping mats dangling off the top, AND another bursting-at-the-seams 30 liter backpack strapped to their chest.  They look very sad and confused.  It doesn’t have to be that way!

I recommend limiting yourself to a backpack of 45 liters or less, with a small, foldable 10-18 liter daypack, and a maximum of 25 pounds of total weight.  I recently traveled comfortably for five months, through all types of weather, with 22 pounds of stuff.  Every year I take less and less.  This International Travel Packing List will help you minimize and comfort-ize.

Think carefully about each item you pack.

Do you really like that shirt?  Have you used it often on past trips?  There is nothing more regret-inducing than re-packing your bag at the end of each stop, and seeing some heavy object that you still haven’t used.  It is a waste of your limited packing space, wasted physical effort to jam that thing in there, and wasted effort to drag it all over the world.

Weigh everything you plan to take.

This forces you to evaluate the “energy expenditure cost“ of bringing each item.  That extra pair of shoes are nice, but do you really NEED them?  Especially now that you know they weigh 2.3 pounds?   The 22 pound international travel packing list below had to get me through 95 degree afternoons in summertime Africa, as well as 25 degree mornings in wintertime Germany.  I had to have clothes for European coffee shops, and for days on Madagascar beaches.  I needed to survive a 46 hour journey from Hawaii to Addis Ababa, and a 16 hour day on Mozambican buses.

Take the international travel packing list “Proper Packing Test”.

Put all your gear in your backpack. It should fit with a little room for a few more things (that you’ll want to buy on your trip).  Now put the backpack on, click the waist-belt shut, cinch the shoulder straps.  Put your choice of walking shoes on.  Go walk around your town…at noon…for two hours.

How do you feel?  You should feel hot and tired, but not in pain.  Your back should not be hurting, your shoulders should not be chafed.  If you feel just plain tired, you have achieved success.  If it was absolutely miserable, then it’s time to re-evaluate.  Backpack a bad fit? Too much weight? Find the answer BEFORE your trip. You can replace a lot of stuff on the road, but there is no REI in Lesotho.

Travel is not a fashion show.

Unless you are Insta-famous and making big bucks from your Taj Mahal photo-shoots, it’s just not practical or necessary to lug around piles of clothes.  You need to become comfortable with wearing the same clothes.   Besides, if you are moving to new locations every three or four days, no one at that location will get to see any more than your three core outfits.  So pick three outfits you really like, and be prepared to do some hotel sink/shower washing every three days.

I highly recommend investing in some merino wool.  Merino wool is a magical fiber that really, truly does not stink.  You can wear a merino shirt for three days and it will not smell.  YOU might smell, but the shirt will not.

On your international travel packing list, there are some things you CANNOT forget and must not lose:

These would be: your passport, 2 ATM cards, 2 credit cards, emergency cash stash, smartphone, and any critical uncommon medications.  These items must be secure at ALL times.  They should never be tucked away in the bottom of your backpack.  When you are moving between locations, they should be kept securely ON YOUR BODY, in a zipped pocket, or in a well hidden travel wallet.

Additionally, these things should be duplicated, and placed in separate locations.  Location A has one ATM card, one credit card, half your cash, and your passport. Location B has one ATM card, one credit card, half your cash, your cell phone, and a laminated photocopy of your passport.  For more on this, read my post How to Access Your Money in Foreign Countries.

You should also have scanned copies of passport/atm/credit cards kept in your email inbox, or google docs, or anyplace you can easily retrieve from any computer.  Generally, you should leave the items in location A in your hotel when you are settled in a place.  Even in countries that legally require you to have your passport on you at all times, I would still leave it in the hotel, and keep the laminated copy with me.

How much do I need to spend on stuff for my trip?

The short answer is nearly nothing.  Almost everything on this international travel packing list are items you’ll already have.  You don’t need to buy special “travel-size” things. However, if you have a little money to spend there are some things that can really improve your travel experience.

Remember that you can buy just about anything you need on the road.  Surprisingly, people wear clothes pretty much everywhere.  In fact, they wear interesting, different clothes, which you’ll want to buy.   So leave some space in your bag.  And every place on earth has cell phones. That charging cord you lost?   You can buy a new one in Uganda.  If you didn’t bring the correct electric plug converter for Myanmar, I guarantee you can pick one up in the local market for a couple bucks.  Prescription antibiotics can be purchased over the counter in most countries, and for much cheaper than in the USA.  SIM cards, camera memory cards, earbuds, all that stuff is available wherever you are going, probably for cheaper than at home.

Why should you trust me?

• I chose the stuff on my International Travel Packing List by searching trusted review sites like The Wirecutter, Outdoor Gear Lab, and others.  I’ve spent hours and hours choosing the BEST item for my personal international travel packing list. I have learned through trial and error.  I’ve lost money through many pairs of uncomfortable shoes, and wedgie-producing underwear.
• I paid my own hard-earned cash for all of these things and I use them on every trip I take.  That includes a five month around-the-world trip in 2017/2018 through freezing temperatures in wintertime Europe, scorching heat in summertime Africa, through 40 countries, and dozens of airports, buses, trains, vans, taxis, bicycles, and one camel.  I used every item on the list, and I’ve ONLY listed items that YOU will be glad to have with you.
• I have not been paid to endorse, nor been provided, any product by any of these companies.

The Ultimate International Travel Packing List:

The Stuff I ALWAYS Pack:

CHECK ON AMAZON At 56 ounces, the Osprey Farpoint 55 Travel Backpack is my top choice for a travel backpack today.  (Full Disclaimer – I’m currently using an old no-longer-available REI Ruckpack 40L, but when it dies, this is my pick)  My factors in choosing a backpack are – airplane carry-on-ability, durability, weight, comfort, price.  This one ticks all the boxes for me. It is durable enough to last years of travel without a single rip. It’s comfortable and light enough that you could walk 10 miles with all your stuff in it.  It’s really only 40 liters, with a detachable 15 liter day pack, which is all the space you need.

It meets US carry-on baggage requirements.  This is critical as it allows me the flexibility I need to change itineraries, drop segments, accept bump vouchers, avoid bag fees.  Is it possible to travel with a rolling suitcase?  Yes, but only if you are limiting your travel to first world countries, and mostly in cities.  A rolling suitcase is going to be a real bummer the first time you have to walk a mile down a dirt road or broken sidewalk to get to your hostel from the bus station.

CHECK ON AMAZON  40oz The ASUS Chromebook Flip CM3 is the smallest, lightest laptop I can find that does everything I need it to do.  (Full Disclaimer – I’m currently using an older ASUS Flip C302A, but when it dies, this is my pick) It weighs only 2.51 pounds, and fits easily into my Atom day pack. I can manage Worldwide Wilbur through the WordPress site, watch Netflix, and quickly and responsively surf the web even with 30 tabs open at once. It has a 360 degree hinge, a back-lit keyboard, and a full aluminum case. It is a Wirecutter pick for Best Chromebook and Best Laptop Under $500. In their testing, they found it to have a brighter screen, more responsive trackpad, and a more comfortable keyboard than its competitors. It’s battery also lasted over 8 hours under heavy use.  I love this little Chromebook!

CHECK ON AMAZON 17.2oz Osprey Daylite 15 Liter Day pack.  (this is effectively the attached 15L day pack that comes with the Farpoint combo pack.  Now that I lug a laptop with me, I decided to upgrade from a squishy cheap day pack.  The Osprey Daylite feels light and comfortable, yet bulletproof with a durable water repellent exterior.  It has a side-entry zipper located by the padded back panel to inconspicuously hold a 13″ laptop.   I especially like this, as I can lug my laptop while still looking like a broke backpacker.  On the front of the pack, a long zip-closing stash pocket keeps small important items handy.  The shoulder straps and back padding are much more substantial and comfortable than the average day pack.

CHECK ON AMAZON 11.1oz   The Tribit StormBox Micro 2 Portable Speaker is the best small, light, yet powerful Bluetooth speaker. It pumps out 90 decibels and weighs only 11 ounces.  There is no speaker lighter or smaller with as big of a quality sound. I love having music wherever I am, and this is the top choice for portability versus volume.  It’s water resistant, can be paired with another one for stereo sound, charges quickly with a USB-C input, and has a 12 hour long battery life.   It has a strap to attach it to a bike or belt loop, or tree branch.  It has a huge 120 foot Bluetooth range, so you can walk away from it with your phone in your pocket and it keeps going.

CHECK ON AMAZON 9.5oz  The PackTowl Personal Quick Dry Microfiber Towel is the fastest drying, most absorbent lightweight travel towel made.  I love this towel.  With it, I can jump in the ocean anytime, anywhere.  I can turn a bathroom sink into a full shower. I get the largest size (Beach 36″ x 59″), as even that size folds small enough to pack easily in the zip bag the comes with it.  It can be used as an extra blanket, or folded up as a pillow. It doesn’t smell bad when wet, and dries very quickly. There is an even lighter version called the Ultralight, but it isn’t as absorbent.

CHECK ON AMAZON 8.5oz (including case)  Google Pixel 7 – 5G 128 GB Unlocked    Your smartphone is the most powerful travel tool ever created.  You need one to book flights, hotels, translate languages, convert currencies.  I switched from an iPhone to a Google Pixel.  I had two main reasons.  The Pixel takes the best pictures of any smartphone on the market, and I need to start taking better pics for the blog.  Secondly, I wanted to switch to Google Fi, the absolute best phone service for frequent international travel.   For more specifics, please check out my post on how to Get Cheap Mobile Phone Service Worldwide.  Also, you should always download an offline map of your destination onto your phone BEFORE you travel.  With Google Maps, you can download a local map, and then even with no cell service, you’ll be able to navigate a city with only your GPS signal.  I got this lifesaving trick from the helpful Backpacking Europe Packing List.

CHECK ON AMAZON 6.9oz (with two cords) The Nitecore NB 10000 Gen II Ultra-Slim Power Bank is my pick for best travel battery backup.  I used to carry a 20,000mAh battery bank that had twice the battery power, but was also twice as heavy and bulky.  It was great for recharging on plane flights and bus rides, but it had a major flaw.  Often I found myself heading out to walk around town all day and needing a battery backup, but not really able to fit it in my pants pocket.  The Nitecore easily fits in any pocket, right next to my phone.  A Pixel 7 can recharge 2.4 times at a blazing 20 watts through a USB-C cord.  I love this thing.  It is a huge upgrade in portability.

CHECK ON AMAZON 6.0oz The Zendure Passport III Universal Travel Adapter is by far the best travel adapter on the market today.  It has US/EU/AU/UK wall plugs.  It can charge up to six devices at once, at a combined 65 watt output.  It has four USB-C ports, one USB-A port, and one universal multi-prong power cord port.  If you have an old adapter with just USB-A ports, it’s time to upgrade to something like this that can charge your phone twice as fast.  I chose the bright blue version, since I already have lots of stuff that’s plain black or white floating around in my bag.

CHECK ON AMAZON 5.6oz Kindle (11th Generation)  I can’t carry 10 books along on my travels, but I can load thousands of books on this very easy to use device. It’s 6″ display is easy to read in bright sunlight, which is critical to me, as I like to read outdoors. You can even read in the pool as it is waterproof to 6 feet and up to an hour! It’s worth investing in one even if you don’t have time for pleasure reading, because all major travel guides are available in fully searchable e-book formats now. And did you know that Lonely Planet guides are available for free to Kindle Unlimited subscribers? The battery lasts up to six weeks, and fully charges in just two hours with a USB-C cable! It really has no competitors, other than battling with screen glare by reading a book on your phone or tablet for free. I chose this version over the Kindle Paperwhite as it is the smallest and lightest (and cheapest)!

CHECK ON AMAZON 4.3oz  Zero Grid Travel Security Belt.  I call this “The Magic Belt”.  I love it.  It is one of the most valuable items on my international travel checklist.  It is a great place to hide that $200 in emergency cash you need to carry.  I fear the day will come when I get robbed of everything, but at least I will still have cash thanks to this belt.  It also serves as extra walking around cash.  Many times I’ve been out on the town and down to my last dollar, when it was not convenient to go find an ATM, and I remembered “Hey!  I have $200 around my waist! Yay!” Then I just find a men’s room stall where I can inconspicuously remove my belt and pull a couple twenties out.  If you don’t like the casual nylon look of this belt, try the Leather Boss Leather Money Belt.

CHECK ON AMAZON 3.5oz Clear Travel Toiletry Bag I used to have a really nice super-lightweight toiletry bag with separate pockets and zippers and whatnot.  But TSA insists on seeing what liquids are in my bag, and I’m sick of sourcing a one liter zip-lock bag for that absurd security theater.  This bag is see-thru, and while it’s larger than one liter, I’ve never had it rejected by TSA.

CHECK ON AMAZON 3.3oz  Sea to Summit Lightweight Dry Sack 13 liter. You want this for a couple of purposes.  First, when you’ve just completed a muddy, rainy 5 hour hike, your clothes are disgusting, and you just have enough time to shower and change before you catch the bus to your next stop.  What do you do with those clothes? You need a waterproof bag to separate them from the rest of your belongings in your backpack. Second, let’s say you are on an all day rafting trip. You want to bring your phone, camera, a dry change of clothes, maybe a book. A dry bag is the only safe place for that.  I chose this one for its light weight and size.

CHECK ON AMAZON 2.3oz The Sea to Summit Ultra-SIL Compression Sack 10 Liter can squish your puffy jacket, fleece, and rain jacket all down to the size of a softball.  I put all my winter clothes in it when travelling in warm areas.  I put in my swimshorts/towel when in winter areas. The Sea to Summit version is as lightweight as it gets.  If you have a puffy jacket, you need one of these.

CHECK ON AMAZON 3.2oz Marathon Basics CL030010WH Simple Travel Alarm Clock. I like this simple, reliable little alarm clock. I sleep better knowing it will work. Somehow my phone alarm is unreliable, other app functions get in the way, volume controls, battery issues etc. This alarm has never failed.

CHECK ON AMAZON  2.6oz  The Black Diamond Spot 400-R Headlamp is the greatest travel headlamp you can buy.  It is bright at 400 lumens, light at 2.6oz, durable, waterproof, and can be charged by a Micro-USB.  Some of the world has no streetlights, and bad sidewalks.  You’ll want a headlamp.

CHECK ON AMAZON 1.4oz The Shacke Hidden Travel Belt Wallet w/RFID Blocker is where I store all my absolutely critical stuff on the international travel checklist. Passport, cash, credit cards all go in here. It hooks through a belt loop, and you tuck it inside your pants. The felt backing is comfortable against your skin. It has three pockets to separate things as needed. It is RFID blocking to protect your credit cards.  It works for me, but I recommend checking out all the options and picking out the perfect hidden travel money belt that fits you best.

CHECK ON AMAZON 1.4oz NecTeck Car Charger USB Adapter  You might rent a car where you’re going right?  Better bring this adapter.  It has a fast charging USB-C and an old school USB-A slot.

CHECK ON AMAZON 1oz The Nidra Sleep Mask is simply the most comfortable eye mask out there.  Way better than the one in your free airline care package.  A must have along with foam earplugs.

CHECK ON AMAZON 0.7oz  OnePlus Bullets Wireless Z2 Earphones.   I love my Bose Noise-Cancelling Headphones, but they take up too much space.  I also can’t do the individual earbuds because one of them inevitably falls out of my ear into the depths of the plane seat while I’m sleeping and then is gone forever.  Get some nice connected earbuds.  These sound great, wont break the bank, and have a 30 hour(!!) battery life.

0.4oz Ink Pen.   Bring three pens.  You’ll need them to fill out customs forms at each new country.  Be the hero who has one to share with your fellow traveler.

CHECK ON AMAZON 0.2oz Carbon Fiber Money Clip  Lightweight packing means no thick leather wallet weighing you down.  When I walk around a sketchy Latin American city where I could get mugged (as I did in Quito, Ecuador) I want to be carrying only the minimum needed; a little cash and one or two ATM/credit cards.

0.1oz Small Paper Clip   This is actually a really important item.  You need one of these to pop open your phone to change out the sim card.  I once wasted an hour asking people to borrow one in Japan.

CHECK ON AMAZON 0.1oz the Flight Flap  This thing is brilliant.  You squeeze one end in between the tray table and the seat, and bend the bottom, and it holds your phone so you can watch that movie you downloaded onto Netflix.

CHECK ON AMAZON 0.1oz Macks Slim Fit Soft Foam Earplugs are a CRITICAL item in every backpack. They will get you through flight announcements, snoring hostel roommates, and blasting music videos on buses. In the hellhole of beeping car horns that is India, I wore them 10 hours a day. Bring a bunch. They disappear quickly.

Men’s clothing Packing List:

Guys, here are my tips on choosing clothes for long-term travel:

Pack lightweight clothes.  

Consider the weight of each item you pack.  Travel pants weigh half that of a pair of jeans.  Sturdy hiking boots can weigh as much as all your clothes combined!  Go light with every item.

Pack LESS clothes.

You don’t need more than two of anything (except underwear).  Pack only clothes that you REALLY like.  Don’t bring that shirt you don’t wear much, but you kinda think it might be good on a rainy day.  Nope, it will just sit in your bag and haunt you.  Bring that one shirt you think you looks really good on you, and wear it every damn day.  Also, be willing to do some sink scrubbing every three days.

Embrace Merino Wool.

I know $50 for a tshirt sounds crazy, but when you wear it you’ll see why it is worth it.  Super lightweight, cool, non-smelly, and saves you frequent trips to the laundromat.

Here is what I wear:

CHECK ON AMAZON 14.9oz Royal Robbins Alpine Road Pants  These are my go-to evening wear pants.  They are sooooooo comfortable.  Though technically “hiking pants”  they look like any normal dressy pants you’d wear to the office.  Especially in the darker colors like charcoal, no one will notice that these are made of a stretchy, lightweight, technical material.  I travel with two pairs of pants, one light colored for walking in the sun, and one darker, for looking presentable at dinner.  But, these pants would also be perfect for a long hike on a cloudy or rainy day as water just rolls off them.

CHECK ON AMAZON 13.0oz Saucony Kinvara running shoes in black.  These are my all around active shoes.  These super-lightweight running shoes are made for fast training sessions.  But they are sturdy enough for non-technical hikes, walking around town, and in the all black color, you might even get away with wearing them out to dinner.  I don’t think you can find a better combination of light weight, durability and support in a running shoe.

CHECK ON AMAZON 12.8oz The Marmot Reactor Jacket fleece in gray is a lightweight, breathable fleece that is form fitting, with two useful zippered pockets in front, and one on the chest. Its really comfortable, and is my go to chilly weather pull-on. I bring it on airplanes, and anywhere air conditioning can be turned a little low. When paired with my SmartWool sweater, my Ghost Whisperer down jacket, and my rain jacket, I have a layered fortress of warmth and dry that can tackle temps down to zero Fahrenheit.

CHECK ON AMAZON 12.2oz Outdoor Research Ferrosi Pants in Tapenade.  These pants are simply the lightest, most comfortable hiking pants around.  They are made of a thin material I can only compare to those 1980’s parachute pants with all the zippers.  Despite being so light and thin, they seem durable and sturdy, and look like normal pants not made for breakdancing.  I wear these throughout the daytime, and they stay cool in hot sun.

CHECK ON AMAZON 10.9oz Mountain Hardwear Stretch Ozonic rain jacket.  This is the best deal in lightweight athletic rain jackets right now.  It’s stretchy, breathable for running and hiking, yet waterproof.  (Full disclosure- I’m currently getting by with an old North Face rain jacket that is no longer available.  I keep spraying it with water repellency chemicals, and it’s still working.  But when it fails, this is the jacket I would buy).

CHECK ON AMAZON 8.3oz The Mountain Hardwear Ghost Whisperer Down Jacket is truly the Rolls Royce of down jackets.  You will not believe that something that weighs 8.3 ounces, and stuffs to the size of a softball can keep you soooo warm.  It is a miraculous piece of equipment. This is my single favorite item in my backpack!  I love the look of it. It’s not cheap. But it is worth it. You have to try it on to believe how amazing it is. It is an Outdoor Gear Lab’s top pick, and the lightest down jacket currently made.

CHECK ON AMAZON 8.0oz Smartwool Intraknit Merino 200 Pattern Crew.  This medium thick long sleeve shirt/sweater is made of soft merino wool, and can be worn as a single layer during cool temperatures or a base layer in the cold. It is form fitting and soft against your skin. And the best part is that merino wool is a naturally antimicrobial fabric, which prevents accumulation of odor-causing bacteria. You can wear this for a week (as I did on Mt. Kilimanjaro) and it WILL NOT SMELL.

CHECK ON AMAZON 7.8oz Quiksilver Amphibian Hybrid Shorts.  I’m a big fan of Quiksilver products.  These shorts are comfy to wear around town, AND you can swim in them!  They are quick drying, lightweight, stylish.  What’s not to like.

CHECK ON AMAZON 6oz Wooly Clothing Merino Crew Neck Tee Shirt.  Merino Wool!  You gotta get this stuff.  This tee is light, cool, and does not collect odor.  You don’t need to wash this shirt more than once a month.  Just soak and lay flat to dry.  Wooly Clothing brand makes inexpensive (by Merino standards) shirts that fit well and look good.  These shirts will snag and wear out more quickly than some others, but at half the price.

CHECK ON AMAZON 6oz Wooly Clothing Merino Ultralight Polo Shirt.  This polo shirt is made out of an even lighter thinner wool than the Crew Neck Tee.  It’s soft and cool.  Saves me from doing laundry.  I like it.

CHECK ON AMAZON 3oz Wooly Clothing Merino Wool Ankle Air Socks.  These socks go well with my black Saucony Kinvaras and stay odor free for multiple days.

8.6oz  The Reef Phantom sandals just fit me best, and are very cushiony and light.  They don’t last all that long. They did survive two months of everyday wear in Africa.  Most long term travelers will prefer sturdier sandals like Chacos or Tevas.  A serious travel minimalist could do an entire warm weather trip with no other shoes but Tevas.  I prefer a casual, super lightweight, slip-on sandal like Reef.

3.3oz  Banana Republic boxers. I bring 5 pair of these plain old cotton/poly boxers.  They just fit me best. I have tried merino boxers and Ex Officio briefs, and they just don’t work for me.  Nothing special about these, undies are certainly a personal choice.

CHECK ON AMAZON 1.6oz Two pair of Smartwool Womens Everyday Spruce Street Crew Socks. By now, you’ve figured out that I really, really like merino wool. Doing laundry is a time consuming task when traveling. With merino wool, I can triple the days I can go in between doing laundry. And these socks are my go-to dressy evening socks.  I’m not sure why these are considered women’s socks.  I think they are plenty manly enough for me.

International Travel Packing List – Toiletries / Medical Packing List:

This is the stuff that gets jammed into my see-thru bag.  Most toiletries can be replaced on the road.  Some of the medicines are actually much cheaper and easier to buy abroad than in the USA’s bloated medical system.  If you need very specific medication, be sure to bring it with you.

• Toothbrush (cut in half to save room) 
• Travel size Toothpaste
• Dental Floss
• Hairbrush
• 3.4oz sunscreen tube (expensive to buy in places with no indigenous pale people!)
• Carmex lip balm
• Travel size Deodorant stick
• Solid Cologne (for when deoderant just isn’t enough)
• Razor with replacement blades
• 3.4oz Shaving gel
• Macks Slim Fit Soft Foam Earplugs
• Ibuprofen (great for swelling, and my nightime pain reliever)
• Excedrin (my morning pain reliever as it has caffeine.  The best hangover cure on Earth)
• Eyedrops (for dry eyes)
• Antibacterial wipes (to clean cuts and scrapes)
• Antibacterial gel (to put on cuts before applying a bandaid)
• Bandaids
• Tweezers
• Mosquito repellent (at least 40% deet)
• Hydrocortisone cream (for allergic skin reactions, poison ivy)
• Cough Drops
• Azithromyacin Z-PAC (this is the universal tool of the antibiotic world.  It cures  traveller’s diarrhoea, as well as killing multiple bacterial infections.  You can get it over-the-counter nearly everywhere outside the US.  Keep at least 4x250mg tablets on hand. It could save your life.)
• Malaria pills (if needed for your destination.  These are NOT cheaper to get abroad.  You defenitely want to get these before you go.)

International Travel Packing List – Documents:

I keep all of this inside my Shacke Hidden Travel Belt Wallet w/RFID Blocker.

Passport with at least 6 months validity and no ripped pages or damage (confirm this before you fly)

Two laminated color copies of your passport (to carry with you everyday, and show to corrupt police, instead of your actual passport)

Yellow Fever proof of vaccination (Some countries won’t let you in with out this yellow card)

Two Debit/ATM Cards (in case one gets lost/stolen/ has banking account issues) For more on this, read my post How to Access Your Money in Foreign Countries.

Two Credit Cards that get you travel rewards (in case one gets lost/stolen/shut off) See my post: Free Flights Worldwide in Nine Steps to choose the best card for you.

At least $200 cash in US Dollars or Euros

US Drivers license (in case you might rent a car)

International Drivers License (This is required to rent a car in most countries that do not use the Latin Alphabet, and you can get this by mail from AAA for just $20)

Ten passport photos for visas-on-arrival (these are becoming less needed as countries switch to e-visas)

I keep this stuff printed out with a paper clip:

Flight itinerary both into and out of the country (some airports won’t even let you in the door without proof of a booked flight, and some countries won’t let you on the plane without proof of an exit flight booking!  I once had to book a one-way flight out of South Africa on the spot at check-in to avoid being denied boarding.)

Booking of your first hotel/hostel (even if it’s fake.  Some countries won’t let you in without proof of lodging.)

World Nomads Travel Insurance policy info (If you can’t afford Travel Insurance, you can’t afford to travel!)

Digital Packing List:

There are some things you need to have “packed” digitally in the cloud.  You need to be able to access these items even if every physical object you have is gone.  Keep these in your Google Docs, or email account, or anywhere you could access from an internet-connected device.

Picture of your passport ID page (to get a replacement if lost, and to be able to fill out forms with your passport info even if it is not on your person)

Pictures of each current/future visa (in case passport is lost)

Picture of all your credit and debit cards, front and back (if you lose them, you’ll know the numbers, and who to call.)

A time-stamped photo of your bag and all of its contents (If anything is stolen, you’ll have proof of ownership for your World Nomads Travel Insurance)

A picture of any prescriptions for critical medication (to get refills, though most meds are available without a prescription outside the US)

Things that do NOT make it onto my international travel packing list:

• Several pairs of shorts. – Quite simply, grown men do not wear shorts in most of the world.  Even when it is 90 degrees out, adult males do not wear shorts in pretty much all of Africa, the Middle East, and much of Asia.  If you want people to laugh at you behind your back, wear your Gap cargo shorts across Africa.  You could even be arrested for wearing shorts in some muslim countries.
• Zipoff pants. – The look stupid as pants.  They look stupid as shorts.  You wouldn’t be caught dead wearing them at home.  That’s a false economy of utility for me.
• Packing cubes – If you need ways to organize your stuff into smaller bags of stuff, you brought too much stuff. 
• A DSLR camera.  I’m not a pro photographer.  My Pixel 3XL takes really good pics and I have it with me at all times.  A big camera is a flashing red light that screams “I am a tourist, and I have expensive things”  I like to be able to walk down any dusty dirt road and say hello to people, and look like I am carrying nothing of value.  Maybe I actually have the equivalent of 6 months wages for a Zambian in my pocket, but my sandals, t-shirt, and carefree smile says “broke backpacker”.
• An umbrella.  I find that rain is often accompanied by wind.  Wind is the enemy of the umbrella.  A good rain jacket like the Marmot Precip works much better then an umbrella, and is lighter and smaller.

When you are ready to book your trip, be sure to use the best booking sites:

Book Your Flight:

Find your flight using Momondo.com. It is the best airfare search engine, as it finds the cheapest flights, and will find ALL the flights. (Here’s the proof.)

Book Your Accommodation:

Choose your lodging using Booking.com as they consistently return the cheapest rates. (Here’s the proof.)

Get Travel Insurance:

You can’t afford to travel without travel insurance.  Car accidents, illnesses, and theft do happen. It could save your life. I never travel without it. I use World Nomads.

THANKS FOR READING

Full Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links.  This means that if you buy anything, I’ll earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only link to stuff I use, love, and recommend.  I don’t accept bribes to endorse garbage. Your clicks help keep this site alive.

THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

If you enjoyed the “International Travel Packing List”,please share with your friends:

The post International Travel Packing List: All In a Carry-On! first appeared on Worldwide Wilbur.

“The 12 Best Things to Do in Palau” will get in the water, diving with sharks, snorkeling with jellyfish, and kayaking to desert island beaches.  It explains everything you need to know about visiting the “Pristine Paradise of Palau” — where to stay, what to see, what to eat, and more.

Children of Palau,
I take this Pledge,
To preserve and protect your beautiful and unique island home.
I vow to tread lightly, act kindly, and explore mindfully.
I shall not take what is not given.
I shall not harm what does not harm me.
The only footprints I shall leave are those that will wash away.

As soon as you land in the Palau Islands, you know you have arrived somewhere a little bit different.  At customs and immigration, you don’t get just any old passport stamp.  You get the above Palau Pledge stamped in your passport, and you must read it and sign it.  The Palau people take environmental protection seriously.  As well they should, since a massive portion of the country’s income is from tourists there to experience the crystal clear underwater scenery.

Why go to Palau?

Palau is an absolutely gorgeous, tiny country of just 18,000 people.  Only Vatican City, Tuvalu, and Nauru are smaller.  Spend a year here, and you’d know everyone.  The Palau island nation consists of one decent-sized island named Babeldaob, a couple smaller islands, and another 340 tiny specks of limestone rock capped by green jungle.   These “Rock Islands” look like something out of a James Bond movie, as your speedboat traverses crystal blue ocean, between steep island cliffs and jungle.

Where is Palau? 

Palau sits in the North Pacific, 600 miles east of the Philippines, 600 miles north of West Papua Indonesia, and 800 miles southwest of Guam.  In other words, it ain’t close to anywhere.  It gets tourism from sorta nearby Taiwan, and guest workers from almost close by Philippines.  But, most tourists coming here are SCUBA divers from far away Europe or the Americas.

Palau has maintained its beauty by restricting the over-development that is so common in other developing countries.  For starters, most businesses can only operate if they have a Palauan citizen owning at least 51%.  No foreigner can buy land in Palau.  They can only lease.  So the Palauan people have stayed invested in the future of their island.  They haven’t been bought out early like in Hawaii, Tahiti, Fiji.

Bye-Bye China

In fact, Palau is so committed to preventing over-development, it took on the regional 800 pound gorilla in the room, China.  By 2015, Palau tourism was completely dominated by Chinese arrivals, and the infrastructure could barely keep up.  There were many reports of Chinese visitors taking shells, destroying reefs, disregarding environmental rules.  The Palauan government sought to put limits on Chinese group tours.  China responded by banning ALL its tour companies from sending trips to Palau.  This has deeply hurt the Palau economy, of which fully 50% is tourism.  But, Palau stands its ground, and wishes to continue to offer the world a pristine paradise, rather than become another Cambodia, completely overrun with casinos and Chinese restaurants.

The 12 Best Things to do in Palau:

#1 In Palau SCUBA Diving is World Class. 

The diving in Palau is AMAZING.  The Blue Corner Wall is perennially ranked among the top 5 dive sites on Earth.  Other famous dives are Ulong Channel, and Peleliu Express.  If you aren’t dive certified, you really ought to consider it before you go to Palau.  It’s what everyone you meet will be spending their day doing.  I saw manta rays, blacktip sharks, Napoleon Wrasse, a leopard shark, and so many colorful small fish.  Palau diving is NOT cheap.  Book ahead, especially if you have specific sites you want to dive on.  Be sure to get Nitrox certified.  I was strongly encouraged to get the certification on the spot, to increase my available bottom time.  You’ll need to have the Rock Islands Permit which costs $50.  Your dive shop will sell it.

• • I dove with Sam’s Tours, who were a top class organization.  Two tank dives ($160), including renting gear ($35), cost $195 a day.
  • Fish N Fins Palau has similar prices and excellent reviews.  Also has a liveaboard boat; the Ocean Hunter III.
  • Neco Marine has two tank dives for $160, plus equipment rental.
  • Palau Dive Adventures does week-long dive packages starting at $1150.

#2 Do a kayak/snorkel tour of the Rock Islands. 

I spent a day doing a kayak tour with Sam’s Tours for $130, and it was magical.  We zipped to the rock islands in a speedboat, then unloaded the kayaks into the water.  Paddling silently through steep limestone cliffs, we watched birds, bats, and jellyfish pass by.  We jumped in to snorkel in a protected lagoon rich in ocean life.  The last adventure of the day was getting dropped into a very fast-moving current where we could snorkel over the reef like we had jets on our backs.  So much fun!  You’ll need to have the Rock Islands Permit which costs $50.  This permit is good for ten days, so you only need to buy it once for ten days worth of tours.

#3 Snorkel with Stingless Jellyfish in “Jellyfish Lake”.

Here you can swim and snorkel in a saltwater pool that is fully enclosed from the ocean, and filled with stingless jellyfish.  This just re-opened to tourists after a weather event that killed off most of the jellyfish in 2018.  So I missed out on this one, but it is a top draw of any trip to the Palau Islands for most people.  You’ll need to have the Rock Islands / Jellyfish Lake permit, which costs $100.  If you know you are going to Jellyfish Lake, just buy this $100 permit, not the basic $50 Rock Islands Permit.

#4 Get Wet at Ngardmau Falls. 

These tall and wide waterfalls can be reached by a 30min drive, and then a steep 30 minute hike down a trail.  You can splash around at the base, and even walk behind the falls. The entry fee is now up to $20, so you need to be a really big waterfall fan.

#5 Learn about Palauan Culture at the Etpison Museum

Learn about the Palau Islands history and culture.  Open 9-5 Monday – Saturday.  $10 entry for adults , free for children under 12.

#6 Take a boat trip to Peleliu Island for some WWII history. 

Tanks and bunkers abound where one of the bloodiest battles of the Pacific was fought.  You can get there in just over an hour by speedboat from Koror.  There is a $30 permit fee to go on the island.

#7 Swim in the Milky Way lagoon. 

Underneath the turquoise water lies a white mud that is said to provide excellent skin care.  You can scoop it up from the bottom and smear it all over yourself.  You need the Rock Island Permit.

#8 Explore the Belau National Museum. 

It has some Yap giant stone money.  Adults $10, Children $5.  Open Monday to Saturday 9-5.  Sunday 1-5.

#9 Visit the Airai Bai

It’s a big traditional men’s meeting house, and nearby is a Japanese communications building.  Entry is $5.

#10 For Flipper fans, try Dolphins Pacific

See a trained dolphin encounter where you can swim with them for $30.

#11 See the Badrulchau Stone Monoliths

37 giant stone columns with carvings sit in a field.  They date back 2000 years, and no one knows their significance. $5 entry.

#12 Get a massage

There are a couple of locations on the main street downtown for $25.

12 Best Things to do in Palau: Know Before You Go:

Backpacker Daily Budget:

$110 a day.  Palau is NOT a budget destination.  With the only hostel charging $40 for a dorm bed(!!), and cheap street food hard to find, money burns fast in Palau.  Palau seems to be actively discouraging backpackers with numerous government fees for everything imaginable, nearly no hostels, no campsites, and no bicycle rental.

Palau Travel Tips: The government fees are especially onerous. 

For example, if one wants to come to the Palau just to swim in Jellyfish Lake, they must pay: 

• The $100 “Palau Pristine Paradise Environment Fee” which will be included in your airline ticket fare.
• The $50 Palau National Marine Sanctuary Permit.
• The $50 Jellyfish Lake permit.
• A $20 departure tax upon leaving the airport.
• A $30 “green fee” upon leaving the airport.

That’s $250 in government fees, and we haven’t even discussed the cost of the boat tour to Jellyfish Lake, or your accommodations and food!

Cheap Beer index:

$4 for a Red Rooster draft pint in a bar or restaurant.  Red Rooster is the national beer of Palau and comes in four different versions; Amber, Light, Wheat and Stout.  Each is excellent.  This was a real treat after a week stuck with Bud Lite or Steinlager in Micronesia.

Best Time to visit Palau:

At 7 degrees above the equator, the temperature practically never changes on Palau.  Highs are 86-88, lows 78-79, every day, year round.  There is a rainy season, peaking in June and July at 13-14 inches a month.  March and April are the driest months, with 6 inches of rain monthly.  January through April would be the best times to come, but really your Palau vacation can be enjoyable any time of year.

What languages are spoken?  

Palauan and English are both official languages.  There are many Filipino and Chinese workers on Palau, so you’ll hear Mandarin and Tagalog as well.

Do you need a Palau visa? 

Visas are not required for USA, UK, CAN and AUS.  US citizens are issued a free one year visa on arrival.  UK, AUS and CAN citizens are issued a free 30 day tourist visa upon arrival.  This may be extended twice for a fee of US$50 for each extension for a maximum stay of 90 days. 

Palau charges a $100 “Palau Pristine Paradise Environment Fee” to all foreigners who enter the country.  This should be included in your airline ticket fare.

How to get to Palau:

Palau is much easier to get to from Asia than from the USA.  The only international Palau airport is Koror (ROR).

Flights to Palau arrive from:

• Seoul on Asiana and Korean Air
• Taipei on China Airlines
• Macau on Lanmei Airlines
• Sihanoukville-Cambodia on Lanmei Airlines
• Guam on United
• Manila on United

The Chinese government has  effectively banned all flights here from mainland China.

No cruise ships stop here.

Upon arrival in the airport: taxis are available; $20-30 for the 20 minute ride into town.  Best to arrange pickup from your lodging.

If you are coming from the USA or Canada, you should book your flight using United Mileage Plus Miles.  While the cheapest round trip fare from Honolulu to Palau is an eye watering $1480, you can book it for just 55,000 United miles, which have a calculated value of only $825.   I booked a multi-city flight from Maui via Honolulu with three stops in Kwajalein, Pohnpei, and Palau and then back to Maui using just 67,500 United Mileage Plus miles.  If you are booking an island hopping trip, you can choose to stop in any or all of the four Micronesian islands, the two Marshallese islands, and Guam and Palau.  To learn the most efficient way to accumulate United Miles, and how to get to Palau, please check out my page Nine Steps to Free Flights Worldwide.

You are required to pay a $20 departure tax plus a $30 green fee ($50 total) per person when you leave NOTE – This may be included in your airline fare as well now.

Getting around Palau: 

• The only way to get to Koror town from the airport is a $30 taxi.
• There is no public transport.
• Koror has relatively cheap taxis, a 1-2 mile ride is only $2 to $4, but they are very few, and hard to find.  They don’t have a light on the roof to identify them at night, and they don’t drive around looking for a fare, but rather park in spots you may not know about.   You can call one by phone, but of course only if you have a local SIM.  I ended up walking a mile back to my apartment after dinner a couple of times when I couldn’t find a taxi.
• Car rental would be the cheapest way to see Babeldaob island.  IA Car Rental has the best rates, but somehow hasn’t figured out the internet yet.  You may have to call them to arrange a car.

Palau currency: 

U.S. Dollars are the official Palau currency, and are available at many ATMs.   For more info on your cash-versus-credit card options when travelling, check out my post on How to Access your Money in Foreign Countries.

Stay Connected: 

Palau has only one mobile operator:

• PNCC with its mobile brand PalauCel and internet provider PalauNet

SIM cards are sold only at PNCC offices in Koror (across the post office) Mon-Fri 8am-4:30pm.  A SIM costs $25 and includes $10 worth of airtime.   Refill cards called GSM mobile airtime cards are available there and at more than 100 local stores.  These data packages are available :

Many foreign phones set up for global roaming won’t work in Palau, because PNCC doesn’t have roaming agreements with many foreign operators.  The mobile network on the islands is supplemented by public WiFi hotspots operated by the two internet providers PNCC/PalauNet and Palau Telecoms. They both sell prepaid airtime for their WiFi hotspot access.

 For more info on your telecom options, check out my post on How to Get Cheap Mobile Phone Service Worldwide.

Palau Accommodations:  

Palau does not have any budget accommodations as you would find in nearby Philippines or Taiwan.  Expect to be underwhelmed by the value of Palau hotels wherever you are staying.  (Warning: Read the fine print on booking sites.  Many rates don’t include the 12% tax AND the $12 city tax per person per night)

• Camping is possible.  There is no organized campsite, but you could convince your dive boat to leave you on one of the rock island beaches for the night, and pick you up the next day.  It’s legal.
• Palau 8090 Dream House has dorm beds for $40, and is the cheapest option on the whole island.  It is within walking distance of downtown.
• I stayed at Skyway Apartments in Malakal for $71 a night on AirBnB.  It was a good value, and great location for diving.
• DW Motel has rooms for $82 a night.  It is located right in downtown.
• Ocean Star Hotel has rooms for $126.  It is right on the ocean, with beautiful views and free breakfast.

Palau Food:  

Dining out is one thing that won’t break your budget.

• try the Bento Boxes in convenience stores.  These are a cheap $3-5 meal.
• Taj has decent Indian food at kinda high prices.
• Drop Off Bar & Grill at the Palau Royal Resort has great pizza

Palau Nightlife: 

Koror has some decent bars for such a small town.  There are a couple of “dive bars” where people start out the night.  And by dive bars, I mean bars located directly in the SCUBA dive centers.  Folks finish their last dive of the day and saddle up to replace the nitrogen in their blood with alcohol.  After that, they may move on to the bar located at their resort.  The rowdiest are the final stops, the downtown bars where locals and tourists come together.  One important note:  Palau does not seem to have banned smoking in bars and restaurants yet, unlike the rest of the planet.  In several locations I had to just walk out due to disgusting amounts of smoke.

• Bottom Time Bar & Grill is the bar in the Sam’s Tours Dive Center.  They have Red Rooster on tap, wine, mixed drinks, and serve food.  It has a great sunset view.  I enjoyed this spot after each dive.  Located on Malakal island
• Drop Off Bar & Grill is located at the swanky Palau Royal Resort and is one of the classier bars on island.  I had a good pizza and ran into some Palauan government bigwigs here.  Smoking allowed.  Located on Malakal island.
• Night Market – Every other Friday there is a big night market in the center of town with food, dance performances, trinkets for sale.  Its well worth visiting.  Watch out, the traditional dancers might pull you up on stage to dance!
• Canoe House is a restaurant and bar that might be THE nightlife spot of Koror.  They have live music on weekends.  The night I went, the US Navy was ashore and had turned it into a frat party.  Located in the center of downtown.

My experience:  

After several days in the Marshall Islands and Micronesia, arriving in Palau was like jumping forward fifty years.  Perfectly paved roads, clean streets, neon lights for restaurants and bars, and even a shopping mall. The infrastructure looks asian, but the views are 100% stunning pacific islander.  The Rock Islands of Palau are steep limestone towers covered in thick foliage. They stretch for a hundred miles to the south of the main island of Babeldoab. The chain starts around the capital town of Koror, so as you drive through there are big rocks and jungle dotting both sides of you as you cross bridges and drive near the shore.

Koror is a pleasant town with everything a tourist might need.  Over fifty restaurants to choose from, a dozen bars, several massage spas, a shopping mall.  You can walk the length of it in 15 min. I stayed on Malakal island, which is just south of Koror town, and connected by a bridge.  All the dive shops operate from Malakal, and my AirBnB apartment is literally across the street from Sam’s Tours. Each morning I could walk 3 minutes to be on the dive boat.  While this was convenient, i wish i had chosen to stay in the center of Koror. All the dive shops will pick you up and drop you back off for free, so it is not necessary to be close to them.  But each night when I wanted to go into town for dinner, I had to track down a taxi, or walk a mile.  I recommend staying right in Koror town, maybe a block or two off the main street.

If you are a diver, Palau is paradise.  You can dive somewhere new for days on end.  If you don’t dive or at least snorkel or kayak, it might be a little boring.  There are no easily accessible beaches from Koror town, so don’t be picturing Hawaii or Tahiti style beach resorts.  If you are satisfied with hanging by the pool, then there are plenty of resort hotels with nice pools, and good restaurants.  All in all, Palau is a first world, underwater paradise, with world-class tourism infrastructure, and a real commitment to protecting its environment.

Get a Palau Islands guidebook:  

There are a couple kinda-out-of-date guidebooks on Palau: 

•  Micronesia and Palau (Other Places Travel Guide) 

• The Palau Guide: A guide to yachting and tourism in Palau

There are several excellent books on diving and marine life in Palau:

• Diving and Snorkeling Guide to Palau and Yap  

• Dive Palau: The Shipwrecks

What to Pack:

Shorts, flip-flops, and a t-shirt is the uniform.  Bring swimsuits, snorkel, a hat, reef-safe sunscreen, a water-shirt to wear while snorkeling, sunglasses.  To learn how to pack light and be prepared for anything, check out my post The Worldwide Travel Packing List.

Is Palau safe?   

Palau has very low crime, and you should feel very safe while on land.  Koror enforces a curfew between 2:30 a.m. and 5:00 a.m., Monday through Thursday, and between 4:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. Friday to Sunday, and on national holidays.  You should plan on not walking around after 2:30am, though I can’t imagine why you would anyway as not a single thing is open after midnight.  It is illegal to walk around in public with alcohol.  Homosexuality is technically illegal though unlikely to be enforced.

There is still unexploded ordnance left over from World War II.  Don’t go picking up rusty metal either on land OR underwater!

Bull sharks are common, but have not attacked divers in recent memory.

There are saltwater crocodiles, and no warning signs to indicate their presence. Reconsider going alone to explore the shoreline off the beaten path.

THANKS FOR READING

Full Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links.  This means that if you buy anything, I’ll earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only link to stuff I use, love, and recommend.  I don’t accept bribes to endorse garbage. Your clicks help keep this site alive.

THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

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The post The 12 Best Things to Do in Palau: Don’t Miss #3! first appeared on Worldwide Wilbur.

Why should you trust Worldwide Wilbur?

As a longtime Kihei resident, I can give you the real inside-scoop on all the best Kihei has to offer.  I’ve lived in Kihei since 2004.

I came to Hawaii on vacation in 2003, and I knew immediately this is where I wanted to live.  Surely a lot of visitors to Hawaii feel that way, but most just go home and continue on with their lives, and let their vision of Hawaii slowly fade away.  Not me.  The day after I got home from my Hawaiian vacation, I started scouring the interwebs for a job, ANY job, anywhere in Hawaii.  After nine months of searching, applying, and hearing crickets…. I got a job!  I moved out to Kihei, Maui and have been here ever since.

What makes Kihei the best beach town in America?

I was willing to live anywhere in Hawaii, but fate landed me in Kihei, and I couldn’t be happier.  I’ve been to over 100 countries and all 50 U.S. states and I honestly think that Kihei has the best quality of life of any town in America.  Here is why:

• The temperature is in the 70s to 80s and sunny almost every single day.  Kihei only gets 10 inches of rain all year!  It rarely gets above 90, or falls below 60. I don’t even THINK about the weather here. I just assume everyday is going to be sunny, warm and dry.  And I’m almost always right.
• There is no home in Kihei further than a mile from the ocean.  Practically everyone who lives here can walk or bike to the beach.
• You can bike all over town, as the main thoroughfare, South Kihei Road, is pancake flat.
• Kihei has fantastic public beach park services with restrooms, showers, and plenty of parking at nearly every beach.
• Kihei has lots of well-maintained public athletic facilities.  You can get involved in a pick-up game of basketball, beach volleyball, soccer, baseball, softball, ultimate Frisbee, roller hockey, Frisbee golf, flag football, swimming at the pool.  You name it, it’s going on, outdoors, year-round in Kihei.
• With only 25,000 residents, Kihei still has small-town politeness.  Drivers will wave you in front of them in traffic.  People smile and say hello.  It’s a real community, full of hard working people.   It’s not a tourist ghetto like Waikiki, Wailea, or Kaanapali.
• Kihei has the best nightlife on Maui.  And, it’s all located in one place, the Kihei Kalama Village, so there is no temptation to be driving around from bar to bar when you shouldn’t be driving.

Here are the 16 Best Things To Do in Kihei:

I’m going to let you in on all the best things to do in Kihei.  Some are gloriously free.  Some are tours with a price tag.  No doubt you will be inundated with a bewildering amount of tour options from magazines, flyers, and even sketchy timeshare high-pressure sales pitches.  After living here 15 years, I know the BEST BUDGET OPTIONS for all these tours and activities.  If you can find a QUALITY tour or activity priced cheaper than what I have listed, please let me know, and I’ll update the page.

The #1 Best Thing To Do in Kihei:  Go to the Beach!

Beaches are the #1 reason to come to Kihei.  And best of all, they are all free.  There are so many beaches in South Maui, they deserve an entire blog post of their own.  Check out “The Ultimate Guide to Kihei Beaches“.

#2 of the Best Things To Do in Kihei Maui:  Snorkel at Molokini Crater

Molokini is a crescent shaped volcanic crater, located just a couple of miles offshore from Kihei.  It is world renowned as one of the best dive/snorkel spots in the world.  If you only do one paid activity during your time here, choose Molokini.

BEST OPTION – Maui Snorkeling  has a big yacht with a 20 foot water slide!  They depart from nearby Maalaea Harbor on a 5 hour tour that gets you snorkeling at Molokini and Turtle Town for $141, with drinks and lunch.  So much fun.

#3 of the Best Things To Do in Kihei Maui:  Get on a Whale Watching Boat

The big expensive whale watch boats all leave from Lahaina.  But there is no need to drive that far, as you can go right from nearby Maalaea.

Sail Maui has a 2 hour trip departing Maalaea Harbor on a gorgeous sailboat catamaran for just $80.  Enjoy only the sounds of the waves and the whales as your ship rides the wind.

#4 of the Best Things To Do in Kihei Maui:  Experience a Lu’au

There is no longer any reason to drive all the way over to the west side to see one of the older, more well-known Lu’aus, as there is now a top class Lu’au in South Maui.   Be forewarned, if you sit near the front, you might find yourself up on stage trying to hula before the night is over.

I recommend the Feast at Mokapu at the Andaz Maui Resort in nearby Wailea.   The show encompasses the song and dance of several South Pacific cultures and the culture of old Hawaii.   Everyone gets a fresh flower lei greeting.  The stage is in front of the ocean, so you get a wonderful sunset ocean view.  No waiting in a buffet line here.  You will be served five star dining, at your table, by their executive chef.  And of course, an open bar.  $250 per adult.

#5 of the Best Things To Do in Kihei Maui:  Paddle a Kayak and Snorkel with Turtles

You can back your car right up to the beach at Makena Landing to drop a rental kayak.  From this spot, you have immediate access to fantastic snorkeling all along the Makena coast, and Turtle Town, which is normally only reached by charter boat.  If it’s your first time, it’s best to go with a tour.

South Pacific Kayaks leads an amazing 4 hour kayak and snorkel tour along Makena coastline for $112.  They go several days a week at 7am.

If you prefer a shorter trip, they also lead a 2.5 hour kayak and snorkel tour for $91.  They go daily at 715am.

#6 of the Best Things To Do in Kihei Maui:  Check out Kihei Fourth Friday Town Party

Every Fourth Friday of the month you’ll find a street party in Kihei’s Azeka Mauka shopping center.  From 6pm to 9pm, they close off the shopping center and one street to cars, and fill the space with all the best food trucks, local pop-up booths selling arts and crafts, clothing, cookies, and jewelry. bouncy castles, games for kids, and a stage with live bands.  Diamonds Bar does a roaring business.  It’s a lot of fun.  And best of all it’s FREE!  People think Maui is expensive, but it has many free activities like hula performances, Fourth Fridays, County beaches, State Parks and more!

#7 of the Best Things To Do in Kihei Maui:  Paddle an Outrigger Canoe

Hawaiian Outrigger Experience departs from the Grand Wailea beach on a real Hawaiian Outrigger Canoe for a one hour tour for $79.  You can learn Hawaiian chants and the art of sport canoe paddling.  They teach the non-instrumental navigational techniques used by the ancient Hawaiians.  You might even get a chance to snorkel with turtles.  It is a real cultural experience.  They go daily at 8am, 9am, 10, and 11am.

#8 of the Best Things To Do in Kihei Maui:  Learn to Surf

Kihei has two competing surf schools right next to each other at The Cove.  Both do a good job, but I recommend Maui Waveriders .  They have their own building directly across the street from the cove, and have professional instructors and quality equipment.  They provide rashguards and water shoes to protect your feet from the sharp reef.  Their 2 hour semi-private lessons, with all equipment included are $95 +tax.  You can even keep the board for a few more hours to surf on your own after the lesson.   Pro Tip: For the glassiest water, go EARLY.

#9 of the Best Things To Do in Kihei Maui:  Experience the Sunday Sunset Drum Circle at Little Beach

Little Beach is really so much more than just a nude beach.  Sunday sunsets are the big draw.  On that afternoon it gets packed.  People gather in a rocking drum circle.  Someone with a bucket of glow-in-the-dark body paint is pressing handprints on all that want one.  People are dancing, swimming, singing, doing cartwheels, and smoking massive amounts of weed.  The vibe is full of positive energy and pure happiness and gratitude for being in such a beautiful place.  After sunset a group of fire-dancers start in, and the drummers turn up the volume.  It’s an experience unlike anything else in South Maui, and I highly recommend a visit.  (And you don’t have to get naked.  Nobody’s judging.  On Sunday it’s probably 20% naked/80% clothed)

#10 of the Best Things To Do in Kihei Maui:  Go Stand Up Paddle Boarding

South Pacific Kayaks does private 2 hour lessons for $123.   The same folks that take thousands of people kayaking each year, do a great job with paddle boarding.  If you haven’t tried it, you really should.  The board is wider and more stable than a surfboard, and by standing up, you have a better view down into the water to see what’s below you than you would surfing with your face attached to the front of the board.  Pro Tip: wear polarized sunglasses with a strap to avoid losing them.  This is a crack of dawn sport for most, as wind and waves are the enemy, and both pick up by noontime.

#11 Get Under the Water and SCUBA Dive:

There is a company doing shore dives for under $100, but I DO NOT recommend them due to some safety concerns.  Mike Severns Diving has a two-tank boat dive to various dive sites, including ALL gear (most places don’t include BCD and wetsuit), leaving from the Kihei Boat Ramp for $134.  Severns Diving is one of the few companies that does dives on the back side of Molokini, which is a really outstanding dive.  They go daily at 615am, every day but Sunday.

#12 Go to the Movies:

Kihei now its very own brand-new four-screen Kihei Cinemas in the Kukui Mall.  You no longer need to drive to Kahului to see “Avengers 27, Seriously, Probably The Last One”.  Budget Tip: Movies before 4pm are at the bargain matinee price of $10.

#13 Golf 18 Holes:

Golfing in South Maui is fantastic.  The famous Plantation Course in Kapalua (home of the Sentry Championship PGA tournament) gets more press, but it can be windy and often rainy there.  Kihei and Wailea are more reliably perfect.

• Kihei has its own golf course, Maui Nui (formerly called Elleair).  The new owner has really upgraded it.  Is it as nice as the Wailea Blue?  Um no.  But it is a lot cheaper, and it has the Sunsets Bar for your 19th hole.  You can golf a round after 2pm for just $51.
• Wailea Blue has the popular Mulligans Irish Pub parked conveniently past the 18th hole.  You can play a round after noon for $143.
• Wailea Emerald has the best views of the four.  You can play a round anytime for $216.
• Wailea Gold hosts the Champions Skins Game in February. You can play a round anytime for $216.

#14 Hike the Kings Trail:

There isn’t much hiking to do in South Maui.  ALL the land mauka (uphill) of Kihei / Wailea / Makena is privately owned with no public access.  But there is one interesting and challenging hike option, the Hoapili Trail, aka The Kings Trail.  This ancient trail, blazed by pre-contact Hawaiians, takes you through a treacherous lava field to a black sand beach.

#15 Explore the Boardwalk at the Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge

If you’re a bird watcher, Kealia Pond is heaven.  In these protected wetlands you’ll see a lot of endangered ae‘o (Hawaiian stilt) and ‘alae ke‘oke‘o (Hawaiian coot).  My favorite is the Auku’u, the black-crowned night heron.  The long boardwalk gets you up close to the birds.  The refuge is located halfway between Kihei and Maalaea on North Kihei Road.

#16 Learn About Whales at the Hawaiian Islands Humpback Whale National Marine Sanctuary

In front of the building is the Kōʻieʻie fishpond, which was built over 500 years ago. Open Mon-Fri 10am to 3pm

Even More Things to Do in Kihei:

Get out and Exercise!  Many sporting activities are available in Kihei:

Windsurfing/Kitesurfing   

• Sugar Beach is the best spot for strong winds, yet flat water.

Beach Volleyball

• Kalama Park has a beach volleyball court right next to The Cove surf spot.
• Kamaole Beach Park 1 has a court.

Basketball

• Kalama Park has two outdoor basketball courts with lights for night games.  You can get in on a pickup hoops game there most evenings at 7pm, or on Saturday and Sunday starting at 8am.  Sunday morning is the biggest game, with two courts going at once and up to 50 people playing.  The age range is from 12 to 70(!) and it’s not all guys, some girls play too.
• Kihei Youth Center has a single court, with no lights.

Tennis

• Kalama Park has four public tennis courts, and Kihei Beach Reserve on Waipuilani Road has six public courts.
• Also check Wailea Tennis Club for their events.

Cycling

• Check the Maui Bicycling League for group rides, events, and maps of South Maui.  The best ride in South Maui is to start anywhere in Kihei, and head into Wailea, continue into Makena, and just keep going til the pavement ends, then turn around and retrace.  The further out you go, the prettier it gets, and the less traffic.

Running

• Every Wednesday the Valley Isle Road Runners group run leaves the Kihei Community Center at 5-530pm for a leisurely 4 mile loop and pizza after at Pizza Madness.  For more info check Maui Running.

Swimming

• The public Kihei Aquatic Center has an Olympic-sized 8-lane 50m by 25yd competition pool, 8-lane lane 25×30 yd warm-up pool & a 10x30ft Keiki pool w/fountain.  Free.  Open M, T, Th, F, Sat. 9:00-4:30, (MWF 6:30-8:00 am early laps) W 10:00-4:30, Sun. 12:00-4:30

Gym

• Maui Powerhouse Gym has a $20 daily rate, and a $70 weekly rate.  This is the biggest, most modern, and best equipped gym in Kihei.  They have lots of free classes for spin, yoga, etc. I’m a member.

Yoga

• Afterglow Yoga Kihei is the highest rated Yoga studio around.  They have a one-week visitor pass for $65.  Classes are daily at 8am and 930am, and during the weekdays an evening class as well.

Playground for little ones

• Kalama Park has a great playground with stuff to climb on.  Maui is a great place to vacation with a baby or young kids.  It has lots of playgrounds, parks, pools open to the public, and everything from Luaus to restaurants to activities are family friendly.

Best Things To Do in Kihei: The Best Shopping

Best local women’s boutique

Mahina – I’ll admit I don’t do a lot of shopping at womens clothing stores, but I know Mrs. Worldwidewilbur makes this her #1 stop for gift buying for the ladies.

Best consignment store

Rainbow Attic – This place is like an upscale yard sale on steroids.  Antiques, Hawaiiana, clothes, they have it all.  I found a Members Only jacket!

Best Scuba/snorkel Shop

Boss Frogs – They’ve got masks, fins, wetsuits, everything but sharks.  You can find them literally everywhere with three locations in Kihei.  The “Snorkel Sets for $1.50 a Day” are a get-you-in-the-door teaser.  Trust me, you won’t want to use these sets that look like 1950s technology.  But they have lots of other great gear at a reasonable price.  The other day I bought a sweet used snorkel there for $20.

Best Surf Shop

Hi-Tech Surf Sports If it involves a board on the water, Hi-Tech has everything you need.

Best Tattoo Shop

Mid-Pacific Tattoo If you’re getting some ink, you want it done right.  You can trust Mid-Pacific.

Best electrology/laser hair removal

Medispa Maui – Sick of shaving?  Pay them a call before showing off your back sweater at the beach.

Best Smoke shop

Still Smokin – Dropped your pipe in the ocean?  They’ll set you straight.

Best Bridal Shop

Elly’s Formal Wear & Bridals – Here for a wedding and had a wardrobe malfunction?  Elly’s to the rescue.

Best Bike Shop

South Maui Bicycles – I love these guys.  They can transform my bike from a no-shifting, brake-squeaking wreck into a smooth machine in an hour.  They rent top-notch multi-speed Trek bikes, way better than the single-speed beach cruisers other places rent,  for $22 a day or $99 a week.

Best Jewelry Store

Topaz Jewelers – This family owned store has been around a long time.  They always fix my broken watches and bent jewelry quickly and are reasonably priced.

Best place for a Facial

Beauty Spa Maui – They have every service under the sun here, but are really well known for facial treatments.  I’ve been in for a massage and they are great at that too!

Best place for a haircut

808 Hair Salon can get your hair to be doing what it’s supposed to be doing.

Best place for a Mani/Pedi

Maui Nail Bar – Get your toes ready for the beach scene here.

Best Adult shop:

The Love Shack – This is the friendliest sex shop you’ll ever enter.  The kindly grandma running the place will make you blush as she offers you lube tester samples.  Conveniently located in “the triangle” between five bars, so your inhibitions will be low enough to stroll right in.

Where to Eat in Kihei:

Kihei has a lot of restaurants, too many to review in the confines of this post.  Please check out my post: “The Ultimate Guide to Kihei Restaurants“

Best Things To Do in Kihei – Need to Know Before You Go:

Backpacker Daily Budget:

$77.  The only way to make Kihei even remotely affordable for a backpacker is to travel in a group of four or more.  Figuring costs of: $130 a night for a condo with a bed and a pull-out sleeper-sofa ($32.50 per person), $35 a day for a car that seats four and $10 a day for gas ($11.25 per person), $7 for breakfast bagel sandwich and a coffee at Café a la Plage, $7 for a lunch of two chicken tacos and a drink at Horhitos taco truck, and $10 for a dinner off Three’s happy hour menu, $9 for three beers at Dog N Duck Irish Pub, and free access to countless beaches, adds up to $77 a day.

Cheap Beer Index:

The cheapest beer you’ll find in Kihei is $3.

• You can enjoy multiple domestic beers for $3 at the Dog and Duck Irish bar anytime.
• South Shore Tiki Lounge has $3 Primo draft 11am to 6pm.
• Lava Rock has $3 beer specials 3-6pm and 9-11pm.
• Diamonds has a different $3 beer special each day.

Best Time to Visit Kihei:

Anytime is a good time to visit.  Kihei has warm weather year round.  In my opinion, the best time is January through March for low humidity, and the chance to see whales.  But it really depends on your plans:

• The temperature hardly changes.  The hottest month is August with highs of 87 and lows of 73.  The coolest month is February at 80 and 65.
• Humidity does change: August is the worst at 84% humidity.  January, February, March, and April are the best with low humidity at around 30%.  If you like sunny, but not muggy, choose winter.
• Rainfall varies quite a bit.  The driest month is June with only 0.3 of an inch.  The “wet season” is December through April 15 with averages between 1.5 and 2 inches per month.  This isn’t really very much rain, but it is possible to get a week where it rains every single day in these months, particularly January and February.
• Ocean temperatures vary by 5 degrees, peaking at 80 in September, and bottoming out at 75 in March.  Visitors will probably judge the ocean to be plenty warm anytime, but as a soft local, I find it chilly in March and nice in September.  If you plan to spend a lot of time in the water, for snorkeling or SCUBA diving, August-September-October might be the best for you.
• Humpback whales visit in the winter, with peak whale density from January 15 to March 31.  You can possibly see one or two as early as October, and as late as May.  If you are going on a whale watch, February and March are perfect.
• Surf swells change seasonally.  Winter brings BIG waves to the North shore, and flat to small waves in Kihei.  Summer brings 3-6 foot waves to the south side in Kihei, and similar waves to the north shore.  The flattest time of year in Kihei is November and December, with over 73% of the time flat.  If you want to surf at Cove Park in Kihei, the best waves of the year come in June, July, and August.
• Price of accommodations change dramatically throughout the year.  Rates peak the week between Christmas and New Year, when every single room on the island is sold out.  Room rates are at their lowest in September and October.  A typical Kihei condo that goes for $199 in January, might be only $130 in October.

What languages are spoken in Kihei?

Everyone speaks English cause Hawaii really is part of America.  However, folks who grew up here will speak Hawaiian Pidgin to each other, and Brah no can speak da kine?   Very few people speak Hawaiian these days.  You also hear a lot of Canadian in the wintertime in Kihei, so take off eh?

Do you need a US visa?

Americans obviously do not need any papers to come to the 50th state.   (many Americans are not aware of this…)  Canadian visitors do not need a visa, and can stay for 182 days out of a year.  AUS and UK visitors need to complete an Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) before arrival, and then get 90 days to visit.

How to Get to Maui

There are no ferry boats from Oahu.  So, the most common way to arrive is via Kahului Maui Airport (OGG).  The recent arrival of Southwest Airlines to Maui has us locals very excited.  For the last decade, Hawaiian Airlines has had a near monopoly on inter-island flights.  This resulted in round-trip tickets to Honolulu routinely costing over $200 for what is just a 25 minute flight.  Southwest has put an end to that with $78-$88 round-trip fares!  Flights to OGG arrive from 14 Mainland destinations, and 8 Hawaiian ones:

• Honolulu (Oahu)- Hawaiian, Southwest, Mokulele (prop-engine planes)
• Los Angeles – Alaska, American, Delta, Hawaiian, United
• San Francisco – Alaska, Hawaiian, United
• Seattle – Alaska, Delta, Hawaiian
• Portland – Alaska, Hawaiian
• Lihue (Kauai) – Hawaiian
• Kailua-Kona (Big Island) – Hawaiian, Mokulele
• Dallas – American
• San Jose – Alaska, Hawaiian, Southwest
• Oakland – Alaska, Hawaiian, Southwest
• Vancouver, Canada – Air Canada, WestJet
• Sacramento – Alaska, Hawaiian
• San Diego – Alaska, Hawaiian
• Phoenix – American
• Salt Lake City– Delta
• Chicago– United
• Denver – United
• Hilo (Big Island)- Hawaiian
• Hana (Maui) – Mokulele
• Kalaupapa (Molokai) – Mokulele
• Molokai  – Mokulele
• Waimea-Kohala  (Big Island) – Mokulele
• Lanai – Mokulele

Seasonal flights only:

• Anchorage – Alaska
• Bellingham – Alaska
• Calgary, Canada – WestJet
• Edmonton, Canada – WestJet

How to get to Kihei town center from the airport:

Rent a car.  Car rentals are expensive in Maui. It’s hard to find one for cheaper than $40 a day.  The best deal I can find, is Dollar Rent A Car which has a weekly off-peak-season rental of $218 for a week.  That’s pretty hard to beat at just $31 a day before taxes.   Also, Maui has just about the most expensive gas prices in America.  At last check $3.83 a gallon.  The cheapest gas is ALWAYS at Costco, which is right next to the airport.  If you are renting a car, be sure to fill up at Costco before you return it.  Their gas is generally 80 cents/gallon less than the next cheapest station on the island.

Turo.  Turo is the AirBnB of car rental.  If you are not picky about how old your car is, it can be cheaper than renting from an agency in Maui.  You can find older model economy cars around $35 a day.

By taxi: At the airport exit there is a lineup of metered taxis.  These typically cost $40-$45 to get to locations in Kihei.  20 minutes. I can’t think of any reason to take a taxi over Uber or Lyft.

By Uber:  UberX usually costs about $28-$32 to get to Kihei.  20 minutes.  As of February 1, 2019 Uber and Lyft are now allowed to pick up riders at OGG Airport.

By Lyft:  Lyft is also about $28-$32 to get to Kihei.   20 minutes.

By Airport Shuttle:  These big comfortable passenger vans will take you from the airport and drop off people one by one at multiple hotels in Kihei for $18.  They will take two large pieces of luggage.  Must book ahead of arrival.  A little slower than an Uber, but considerably cheaper.  From 30 minutes to 50 minutes depending on the number of dropoffs before yours.

by County of Maui Bus: This is by far the cheapest option, and not horribly inconvenient.  Try downloading the Maui Bus app before you arrive, it makes planning easy.  Bus #35 “Haiku Islander” and Bus #40 “Upcountry Islander” stop at Airport Pickup Zone #3 once per hour.  From there it is a 20 minute ride to the Queen Kaahumanu Mall.  There you’ll have to change to Bus #10 “Kihei Islander”, which makes a quick 20-30 minute drive to drop you off at multiple stops anywhere in Kihei.  $4 ($2 for each bus segment, must have exact amount in cash, no change is given.  Only one suitcase/backpack size item is allowed. )  54 minutes.

How to get around Kihei:

By taxi: A couple of taxis hang around outside the Kihei Kalama Village nightlife area at closing time.   I can’t think of any reason to take a taxi over Uber or Lyft.

By Uber:  Uber has enough drivers in Kihei to reliably get you places during normal hours.  You will almost certainly be out of luck trying to find a ride at 3am.

By Lyft:  Lyft seems to have less drivers available than Uber.

Turtle Tracks:  This new company has four open-air green electric golf cart style vehicles that seat 5.  They drive up and down South Kihei road from as far north as the Azeka Mall and south to the Fairmont Kea Lani in Wailea.  They drive around daily between 1pm and 9pm.  To get picked up you can call or text 808-866-9979.  You can also just wave them down if you see them going by.  Fares are as little as $3 for a mile or so, up to $12 to go from Azeka all the way to Wailea.

by County of Maui Bus: This is by far the cheapest option.   Try downloading the Maui Bus app before you arrive, it makes planning easy.  There are two buses that serve the Kihei area:  Bus #15 “Kihei Villager” starts in Maalaea and has six stops along the north end of South Kihei Road, finally connecting at the Piilani Shopping Center.  Bus #10 “Kihei Islander”, starts at the Queen Kaahumanu Mall in Kahului, then stops practically everywhere at 19 stops along the entire length of South Kihei Road, getting as far south as Wailea Ike Drive.  Bus fare is $2 for each bus segment, you must have the exact amount, no change is given.  Only one suitcase/backpack size item is allowed.  No surfboards.  The buses do have a bike rack with room for two bikes, so you might be able to bring a bike.

Bicycle: Kihei is a pretty good town for cycling.  South Kihei road is perfectly flat, and usually has a bike lane.  If you plan to spend all your time in Kihei, a bike is all you need.  You can rent a bike from South Maui Bikes for $24 a day

Rented Moped/Scooter:  A scooter is certainly a fun way to get around Kihei.  You could easily cover the entire island on a scooter.  (The road to Hana is FUUUUUUN on a scooter.)  Just be advised that people do get schwacked by cars.  Passing cars on the right is a good way to get hit.  Also, they are hardly any cheaper than rental car at $35 a day.  Not really a budget saving choice, but a fun one.  If I was staying for a month, I’d BUY a used scooter for under $1000, and resell it on facebook marketplace the last day!

Stay Connected in Kihei:

AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint all provide excellent cell coverage in Kihei.  If you are a US citizen coming from the mainland, you’ll see no change in your service if you are with any of these providers.  For tourists coming from other countries, three of these providers have a retail store in the Piilani Village Shopping Center.

• AT&T
• Verizon
• T-Mobile

Where to Stay in Kihei:

Finding a place to lay your head at night is painfully expensive everywhere in Maui.  There are no hostels in Kihei.  The cheapest private room in a house on AirBnB is $106 a night in the low season.  The cheapest studio condo on Booking.com is $130 a night in low season.  The best budget accommodations I can recommend are these two condo complexes

• Kihei Bay Surf
• Maui Vista

Both have a pool, and are right next to the ocean in North Kihei.  They both have lots of rooms available on Booking.com

Kihei Nightlife

Kihei has the best nightlife on Maui.  It has the famous Maui Brewing Company.  Folks drive in from Kahului, Wailuku, and Wailea on Friday and Saturday nights to enjoy it.  Nightlife deserves a post all its own, so please check out my post “The Best Maui Nightlife: Kihei Kalama Village”. 

Get a Maui Guidebook:

Maui Revealed is far and away the best guidebook to Maui.  The author lives a year at a time on each of the four main Hawaiian Islands, and re-reviews everything every four years.  I don’t know why Lonely Planet and other publishers even bother to try to compete.  Get it from Amazon before you come, cause it’s gonna be $24.95 here on island.  I’d like think I’ve just covered Kihei more extensively than any guide available, but you’ll enjoy this book for the rest of the island.

What to Pack:

You can get all this stuff on Maui, but not at Amazon prices.  It’s much cheaper to bring with you quality gear at mainland prices.  You also don’t want to be spending your limited vacation time searching for the right stuff.  Here is what I use, and recommend you bring:

Snorkel, Mask and Fins – The Cressi Palau Short Fins provide a mask with a great fit for all faces, durable quality, and great fins that aren’t so long you fall on your face trying to exit the water.  The best snorkeling package value.  You’ll need this to see all the fishies at each beach you visit.

Travel Towel – The PackTowl Personal Microfiber towel is the best travel towel there is.  It’s comfortable, quick-drying, lightweight, and packs down to the size of a paperback book.  Comes in four sizes and eleven colors.  I have the largest size “Beach” at 36 x 59 inches in Blueberry.  Get this towel, and avoid having to buy a crappy convenience store “ALOHA” towel for $29.95 that you’ll never use again.

Reef Safe Sunscreen – Effective January 1, 2021 the State of Hawaii has banned all non reef-safe sunscreens from sale in the islands.  Why not get ahead of the curve, and bring this excellent sunscreen with you?  Thinksport SPF 50 rubs in easily and feels good on your skin.  And you’re saving our coral reefs.

Sunhat – It’s pretty sunny on the south shore, and you might want a decent hat to go with that reef-safe sunscreen.  These Hemlock Hat Company wide brimmed straw hats are what all the cool kids are wearing at the beach these days.  I have the “Bandit” color.

While these items are of particular importance to make the most of your visit to Kihei, it would be worth checking out my Ultimate Travel Packing List that covers everything you might need for your trip.

Is Kihei Safe?

Yes.  Kihei has very low violent crime.  I’ve never heard of anyone being mugged in Kihei.  We have a HUGE homeless population, but they seem mostly harmless.

The biggest thing to worry about would be moped thefts and car break-ins.  Moped scooters get stolen daily here, someone has a chop shop somewhere and is reselling them.  Cars get broken into if left in empty spots where no one is around.  The nightlife is generally safe.  You can walk anywhere all hours of the night.

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The post 16 Best Things To Do in Kihei Maui – Don’t Miss #9! first appeared on Worldwide Wilbur.

by Worldwide Wilbur, November 2018

Living on Kwajalein Atoll is unlike any other US Army post in the world. 

Army Garrison Kwajalein is a restricted ballistic missile research and testing site, on a remote island leased from the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI).  Totalling just 1.2 square miles, around 1,000 American soldiers, defense contractors providing logistics support, and their family members, are living on Kwajalein Atoll.   It is covered in palm trees, an airstrip, big concrete buildings, green grass, and paved roads.  One one side of the island is the worlds largest lagoon, on the other side, the open Pacific Ocean.  Living on Kwajalein feels like you’ve been transported through time and space to a decaying US Army base located in the Florida keys in 1985.

Kwajalein was a major battleground in WWII.

Kwajalein Atoll had little involvement with the outside world until German occupation from 1899, and then a Japanese takeover after World War One.  Japan used Korean slave labor to fortify and militarize Kwajalein in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s.   U.S. air forces softened up the Japanese defenses by destroying all their aircraft in carrier-based air raids in December of 1943, and January of 1944.  They then took the atoll in a bloody four-day battle known as Operation Flintlock on February 3, 1944.  46,000 US Navy, Marines, and Army soldiers took on about 8,000 Japanese.  36,000 artillery shells were fired from the battleship Tennesee and from Army artillery on captured Carlson island.   B-24’s dropped bombs from the air.

After four days, only a couple hundred Japanese soldiers were still alive and they were captured by amphibious landing Army troops.  Mass graves for the 4,300 Japanese casualties were hastily dug, and are at least one is still somewhere hidden underground.  Residents are not allowed to dig more than 6 inches into their lawns, but that’s less about mass graves than it is about unexploded ordnance from 1944.

Immediately after WWII, the US kept control of the Marshall Islands, and used Kwajalein as the command center for 67 nuclear bomb tests on Bikini and Enewetak Atolls from 1946 to 1963.  In 1964, the United States started anti-ballistic missile testing with the Nike-Zeus program, with Kwajalein as the hub.

What can you do for fun living on Kwajalein Atoll?

• go sailing to desert island Bigej, on a friend of a friend’s sailboat from the Kwajalein Yacht Club.
• go deep sea fishing on another friend’s powerboat.
• Swim and relax at the man-made white sand beach.
• Snorkel right from shore.  The spot by the beach on the lagoon side is best.  It has a concrete stair entry, and very shallow water.
• Go SCUBA diving to one of the many wrecks in the lagoon.  Tank refills are available at the marina shop.
• go Windsurfing or Kitesurfing in the reliable 14mph trade winds.  You’ll have to borrow the equipment from someone, there is none for rent.
• Bicycle laps around the island.  You’ll have to borrow a bike from someone, there are none for rent.
• Play 9 holes on the Kwajalein Atoll golf course by the airstrip.
• Ride the ferry for a day trip to Ebeye Island.  (free) Just walk over and get on.

Kwajalein is among the most remote spots of land on Earth. 

It is 2000 miles from Australia, 2100 miles from Japan, and 2100 miles from Hawaii.  The only way to truly appreciate how enormous the Pacific Ocean is, is to spend a couple of days flying over it.  Hawaii is 5.5 hours from the mainland USA.  Kwajalein Atoll is another 6 hours in the same direction.  And if there was a direct flight to Australia, it would be a further 6 hours.  That’s 17 hours of flying 500 miles per hour, and all you would see in that time is a couple large Hawaiian islands, and some specks of land in the Marshall’s.

Living on Kwajalein Atoll is like being in a perpetual summer camp for adults.  

Everyone cycles slowly from place to place, waving to each person they pass. Someone is having a party every weekend and you are invited.  Everyone knows someone who has a sailboat.  Kwaj attracts the adventurous types. Folks are moving there from Antarctica, or leaving on a sailboat for a year.  Some have been there for twenty years. Some would probably prefer to retire, but you can’t retire and stay on Kwaj, so they keep working. It’s a tight-knit community where people help each other out. 

Kwajalein is in fact a real army base.

Kwaj really is a regular old Army base with the standard brown signs on every concrete building, but with the best background scenery of any base on Earth. You can jump in right off the shore for some excellent snorkeling at one end.  Then relax at a beautiful man-made white sand beach nearby.  The base has all the modern conveniences you’d expect anywhere else.  The grocery store is stocked with all the American staples like Doritos, and doughnuts, and soda.  You can buy the most up to date cell phones and electronic accessories next door.  Apartments and houses have good air conditioning and wi-fi.  People here live a much, much, much better life than on any other remote Pacific island.

Kwajalein Atoll Jobs:  

There are always a few open jobs here.  You must be a U.S. citizen.  Many jobs require a security clearance.   Some are “unaccompanied”, so not so good for married folks. Check out open Kwajalein jobs here: KwajNet

Cost of Living on Kwajalein Atoll:

Living on Kwajalein island is not only a great lifestyle, it can also be very lucrative.   You can eat three meals a day for free at the cafeteria. All housing is owned by the US Army, and is free for contract workers. Electricity and water service is free.  If you are a contractor (as most people are) you don’t have to pay US Federal taxes on your salary, only a 5% Republic of Marshall Islands tax.  If you are smart enough to claim a US state with no income tax as your “permanent residence”, you’d pay no state income tax either.  Most Kwajalein jobs include a stipend for a plane ticket to the mainland once a year for your vacation. You have literally zero expenses, and could conceivably save 85% of your salary!  

What about the Marshallese?

Many Marshallese work on Kwaj, but they all have to be off the island within two hours of the end of their shift.  The Army provides a free ferry to nearby Ebeye island where all the workers live. It seems like a strange version of apartheid, but there are lots of American civilians who work on military bases on the mainland, who also don’t get to live on that base. It’s just that here instead of driving home after work, they take a ferry to another island.  And believe me, Ebeye is not just another island, it is a whole other planet away from Kwaj.

How can you stay active on Kwajalein?

When you aren’t at your job, you can swim in one of two saltwater pools, play on multiple tennis courts, racquetball courts, and basketball courts.  There are playing fields for baseball, softball, and soccer. The Corlett Recreational Center (CRC) has indoor basketball, volleyball and soccer. There is a nine-hole golf course near the airport, a bowling alley, libraries, a fitness center and two movie theaters. You can rent boats for water skiing and fishing at the Kwajalein marina. You can spear-fish, deep-sea fish and scuba dive.  Whatever you like to do, it’s happening in Kwaj, and you can find someone to join you. Except for skiing.  The skiing isn’t so good.

Go before the islands cease to exist.

The average height above sea level in Kwajalein is only 6 feet.  Once sea level rises 16 inches above its current state, the entire Marshall Islands drinking water aquifer will become undrinkable, rendering the entire nation uninhabitable.  Scientists project that this WILL occur sometime between 2045 and 2083.  The population will have to move.  There is no plan for where as yet.

Things to Know Before you go to Kwajalein:

Kwaj Backpacker Daily Budget:

$27.  Your housing will likely be free (there are no independent hotels), your meals $6 each at the cafeteria, beers are $3.  There is not much else to spend money on.

Cheap Beer index:

$3 for a Bud Lite at the only bar on island, the Ocean View Club.

When to visit Kwajalein Atoll: 

At 8 degrees above the equator, the temperature never changes on Kwaj.  Highs are 86, lows 77, every day, year round.  There is a rainy season from mid-April to mid-December, and is rains 10-12 inches a month during this time.  January, February, and March are the driest months, with 4 inches of rain monthly.

What languages are spoken on Kwajalein Atoll?  

English, and also Marshallese by the day-workers from Ebeye.

Do you need a Marshall Islands visa? 

Republic of Marshall Islands visas are not required for US citizens, who can stay as long as they like.  Visas are not required for UK citizens (until Brexit), who can stay for up to 90 days.  AUS and CAN citizens can get a free tourist Visa On Arrival to stay for up to 30 days. They must provide a “police record” dated within last 3 months, and a “health clearance” showing they are free from HIV/AIDS and TB; dated within last 3 months.  All visitors must have a passport valid for at least six months, must have sufficient funds for stay, and have an onward/return air or sea ticket.  (NOTE: These are Republic of Marshall Islands tourism rules, none of which exactly apply to Kwajalein – see below)

However, living on Kwajalein island is restricted to active-duty US military personnel and civilian contractors with proper orders.  Kwajalein tourism is NOT accessible to the general public.  You can only visit if you are “sponsored” by a U.S. citizen working on the island.  Your on-Kwaj contact will process paperwork to get you “Entry Authorization” orders.  United Airlines will not allow you on the plane without these orders.  So, if you want to visit Kwaj, better start networking among military contractors in the Pacific region.  You could start with the KwajNet facebook group.  Or check out Kwajalein jobs here: KwajNet

Getting to Kwajalein Atoll: 

Flights to Marshall Islands:  99% of visitors to Kwaj arrive via United Airlines at Bucholz Army Airfield (KWA).  United Airlines “Island Hopper” Flight 154 departs from Honolulu, Hawaii on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and costs $1400+ roundtrip.  It makes one short stop in Majuro, taking a total of seven hours.  The Island Hopper flight 155 departs from Guam Monday, Wednesday and Friday and costs $1200+ roundtrip.  It makes stops in Chuuk, Pohnpei and sometimes Kosrae, taking around seven hours.   You REALLY want to fight for a window seat on either of these flights.  Seeing these little islands pop up out of the endless blue ocean is magical.  You can de-plane at any of these stops to look around, take pictures, and buy a snack in the tiny one-room airports.

Ideally, you should book your flight using United Mileage Plus Miles.  While the cheapest round trip flights to Marshall Islands from Honolulu are an eye watering $1400, you can book it for just 55,000 United miles, which have a calculated value of only $825.   I booked a multi-city flight from Maui via Honolulu with three stops in Kwajalein, Pohnpei, and Palau and then back to Maui using just 67,500 United Mileage Plus miles.  If you are booking an island hopping trip, you can choose to stop in any or all of the four Micronesian islands, the two Marshall islands, and Guam and Palau.  To learn the most efficient way to accumulate United Miles, please check out my page Nine Steps to Free Flights Worldwide.

Air Marshall Islands also lands here, and provides service to 13 other islands in the RMI.

When you land at KWA, you’ll quickly learn this is not a normal airport.  There will be a flight announcement that it is illegal to take photos of any government buildings once on the tarmac.  Kwajalein is de jure part of the Republic of Marshall Islands, but it is de facto 100% America.  The US pays $18 million a year to the Marshall Islands government to lease Kwaj, which then pays the owners of the islands because all land is privately held.  The lease is in force until 2066, with an option through 2086.

There is no contact with RMI  government for any customs or immigration.  You’ll be met at the stairs by a couple of very serious, large, armed American police.  They’ll direct you to walk into an open-air cage of concrete and fencing.  You’ll sit on plastic chairs, and be given papers to fill out.  The large, serious men with guns will tell you all the rules of being on Kwaj.  No betel nut chewing.  Do not touch fences.  No entering unauthorized areas.  Many of the people in the cage are Marshallese citizens who are continuing on to the nearby island of Ebeye.  Those folks are led into a waiting van, which takes them directly to the ferry to Ebeye.  No one wanders around Kwajalein unknown.  You’ll get a badge which you must wear (or at least have) at all times on the island.  Once you have your badge, you’ll be let out of the cage, where your “sponsor” has been waiting.  Welcome to Kwaj!

Getting around Kwajalein Island: 

There are no personally-owned cars for anyone living on Kwajalein.  It is possible to rent a truck or a golf cart for a couple of hours if you need to move stuff from one end of the island to another.  The vast majority of your travel on island will be by bicycle.  Bicycles aren’t available for rent, but every resident has at least one, and someone will have an extra clunker you can use.  Normen “Auntie” Sablas has a fleet of 85 bikes available for free to visitors.

Kwaj Currency and how to get it: 

U.S. Dollars are used everywhere in the Marshall Islands, and are available at a couple of ATMs.   For more info on your cash-versus-credit card options when travelling, check out my post on How to Access your Money in Foreign Countries.

Kwajalein Internet and Phone Service: 

There are no cell phone towers on the island.  Landline phones are still in use all over the island.  Phone calls are free.  WiFi is available in all homes, and some businesses.  For more info on your telecom options, check out my post on How to Get Cheap Mobile Phone Service Worldwide.

Kwajalein Atoll Real Estate:  

You can’t buy a home here.  In fact, there are only two options for lodging; stay for free with your sponsor in their house or apartment, or stay at the Kwaj Lodge.

• Kwaj Lodge – basic motel rooms.  You won’t find it on Booking.com, cause it can only be booked by your sponsor.

Where to eat on Kwaj:

• Captain Louis S. Zamperini Dining Facility – This Army-style chow hall is the biggest food option on island.  Meals here are free for local staff, so pretty much everyone living on Kwajalein eats here.  It’s all-you-can-eat buffet style, and pretty darn good.  And it’s named for the wartime hero of the book and movie Unbroken who was held here for 42 days and tortured in a Japanese POW camp.  Watch this film before your visit.  You’ll see why it’s kinda funny they named, of all things, a dining facility after Captain Zamperini.
• Subway – tastes just like your Subway at home.
• Burger King – somehow not quite as good as your Burger King back home.
• Donato’s Pizza  – serves by the slice.  Tastes like pizza.

Kwajalein Island Nightlife: 

There are only four types of nightlife on Kwaj, and they generally occur in the following order:

• Start with a backyard barbecue at someone’s house by the ocean.  Only married folks and high-ranking military living on Kwajalein get assigned to an actual house.  These tend to be the kind of folks who can afford to feed lots of people.  They may also prefer to shut it down early.
• Alternately, there might be a party at the Kwajalein Yacht Club.  You don’t even need to own a yacht to attend.
• Next you move on to a party in someone’s apartment.  Apartments get assigned to single folks.  These parties can go late.  But if it starts to wind down…
• You end the night at the Ocean View Club aka “The Snake Pit“.  This is the only actual bar on the island.   It’s an A-frame building open to the air, and it has an ocean-side view. It has a full liquor bar, and beers are $3 and up.   There is a dance floor, and a free computer-jukebox behind bulletproof/drunkproof glass.  You might find 2 or 20 people there on a given night.  It is the last stop of any night out on the town, as is open til 3am.  Expect to find folks too drunk to speak or move.

Get a Marshall Islands guidebook:

There are NO guidebooks that cover Kwajalein.

What to Pack for Kwaj:

You can get the basics you need on Kwaj, but not at Amazon or Walmart prices.  It’s better to bring with you quality gear at mainland prices.  You also don’t want to be spending your limited vacation time searching for the right stuff.  Here is what I use, and recommend you bring:

 Snorkel, Mask and Fins – The Cressi Palau Short Fins provide a mask with a great fit for all faces, durable quality, and great fins that aren’t so long you fall on your face trying to exit the water.  The best snorkeling package value.  You’ll need this to see all the fishies on the barrier reef.

 Travel Towel – The PackTowl Personal Microfiber towel is the best travel towel there is.  It’s comfortable, quick-drying, lightweight, and packs down to the size of a paperback book.  Comes in four sizes and eleven colors.  I have the largest size “Beach” at 36 x 59 inches in Blueberry.

 Reef Safe Sunscreen – Effective January 1, 2021 the State of Hawaii has banned all non reef-safe sunscreens from sale in the islands.  Why not get ahead of the curve, and bring this excellent sunscreen with you for all your beach trips?  Thinksport SPF 50 rubs in easily and feels good on your skin.  And you’re saving our coral reefs.

 Sunhat – It’s pretty sunny here, and you might want a decent hat to go with that reef-safe sunscreen.  These Hemlock Hat Company wide brimmed straw hats are what all the cool kids are wearing at the beach these days.  I have the “Bandit” color.

While these items are of particular importance to make the most of your visit, it would be worth checking out my Ultimate Travel Packing List that covers everything you might need for your trip.

Is Kwajalein safe?  

Kwaj is about the safest place on Earth.  Everyone living on Kwajalein had to pass a government background check to get there.  There is no known crime, other than the occasional drunk “borrowing” of a clunker bicycle.

The water is safe to drink, thanks to the efforts of master water engineer Eric Nystrom.

There are big black-tip and nurse sharks in the water by the marina.  Maybe not the best place to go snorkeling.

If you bicycle around the airstrip, pay attention to the sign that reads “WATCH FOR AIRCRAFT”.  United flight 154 landing on your head is to be avoided.

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Well, Skopje (pronounced SCOPE-yeh) is the capital of the newly named country of NORTH Macedonia 

by Worldwide Wilbur September 2019

First impressions of the city are:  friendly, charming, full of wide open pedestrian-only spaces to enjoy, with some very unusual architecture.  The center of the city, Macedonia Square, was completely rebuilt by the “Skopje 2014 Project” at a cost of up to 700 million dollars, a huge expenditure for one of the poorest countries in Europe.  Today, the city center is filled with massive columned stately government buildings, an absurd number of statues, and even a huge old-timey pirate ship, permanently moored in the river as a hotel.  Everything you see is brand new, and prosperous looking, though often incongruent and out-of-place.  

The “Macedonia Naming Dispute”

To understand why all these massive statues suddenly got built here, it’s important to understand the naming dispute.  I don’t want to embroil myself in the contentious politics of this or take a side.  Long story short: 

By the year 323 B.C. a guy named Alexander the Great had conquered most of the known world.  He came from a region of what is today mostly northern Greece called Macedonia.  Millions of Greek people today trace their lineage and ethnicity back to this ancient Kingdom of Macedonia as a pre-cursor to the ancient Greek Hellenistic civilization and the modern nation of Greece.

As you can see in this map, about 80% of the Ancient Kingdom of Macedonia was in what is today Greece, and 20% was in what is today North Macedonia.

In September of 1991 the country of Yugoslavia was falling apart with both Slovenia and Croatia declaring independence, and the so the “Republic of Macedonia” also declared independence from what remained.  The Greek government immediately objected to the name of the new country, as they claimed Macedonia was appropriating a culture and heritage that is Greek, and not Slavic or Albanian, the two ethnicities that make up most of North Macedonia today.

So, the country name was initially changed to the unwieldy “Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” or “FYROM” in all official international forums.  Still, Greece effectively blocked the FYROM from any attempt to join the European Union or NATO until a national name acceptable to both parties had been decided.  In retribution, a pro-nationalist Macedonian government decided to take their claim of Macedonian history into overdrive with the massive expenditures of Skopje 2014, building a hundred statues of ancient Macedonian heroes.

Finally, after 25 years of arguing, on February 12, 2019 the nation became known as North Macedonia.  It seems everyone in both countries were equally dissatisfied, which was the most anyone could hope for.

Today, everyone here still refers to themselves as Macedonians, but the giant statue in Freedom Square is officially called “The Warrior on a Horse” even though he is obviously meant to be Alexander The Great.

7 Cool Things to do in Skopje:

#1 Cool Things to do in Skopje: Walk around the city center counting statues.

One of the best things to do in Skopje is the Free Skopje Walking Tour  They go twice a day at 10am and 5pm.  If you are here on a day trip or are looking for day tours, choose this tour.  Our guide was Vasko, and he was truly fantastic.  Full of knowledge and jokes, we learned a lot about his country in just a short time.  He explained the reasons for each statue we passed, and told us what goes on behind every giant columned new building.  He was old enough to remember the days of Yugoslav Socialism, describe the war years, and explain the controversy about the country name.  He showed us the Mother Teresa Memorial House, and explained how she grew up in Skopje.  His tour was the best part of our visit.

#2 Cool Things to do in Skopje: Shop the Old Bazaar

Among the largest Turkish bazaars in all of Europe, second to only the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, this fine example of an Ottoman marketplace has cobblestone streets, and feels like stepping back 100 years in time.  Smells of meat grilling, shopkeepers calling out to passers by, and coffee mugs clinking fill the air.  In the evenings shops close up and bars and restaurants start to fill.  Try the Hotel Arka‘s top floor cafe for a nice view at sunset.

#3 Cool Things to do in Skopje: Scramble around on the Kale Fortress

Right next to the bazaar is Skopje’s ancient fortress, called the Kale (Turkish word for Fortress)  It sits on the highest point in the city.  First built in the 6th century, it’s been rebuilt many times, and the interior today is mostly ruins.  Entry is free, and the views can’t be beat.

#4 Cool Things to do in Skopje: Hunt for Brutalist Architecture

In 1963 a terrible earthquake leveled 80% of  the city, made 200,000 homeless, and killed over a thousand people.  The entire city needed to be rebuilt and Brutalist architecture was at its peak of popularity.  Dozens of major buildings were built with raw concrete facades, unpainted, with unusual shapes and angles.

#5 Cool Things to do in Skopje: Get outside the city

After a full day in Skopje, we were ready to get out into nature, so we signed up for the Vodno Mountain and Matka Canyon Tour.  For $28 per person, we got out of town to a couple of relaxed nature views.  We started at 1pm and had a ride in a van to Mount Vodno.  We rode the cable car up to Millennium Cross on arrival, and enjoy panoramic views back across Skopje from one of the biggest Christian crosses in the world.

#6 Cool Things to do in Skopje: Scale Vodno Mountain

Erecting a massive Christian cross that lights up at night and is visible from everywhere in the city, even though 25% of your countrymen are ethnic Albanian non-Christians, is such a perfectly Balkan thing to do.  I can’t imagine why there have been so many wars in the region? 

After taking the cable car back down Vodno Mountain we continued to the mountain village of Gorno Nerezi and visited a small 12th-century Orthodox church.

#7 Cool Things to do in Skopje: Cruise the Lake in Matka Canyon

Next, we drove way out of the city Canyon Matka.  You can do a number of things in this gorgeous canyon.  For just a few dollars you can take a boat trip into the Vrelo cave.  You can walk along the canyon for a couple miles. There is a rock climbing wall, where you can rent gear and try scale the canyon wall.  Or, you can just sit and have a meal at a waterside restaurant and watch the boats go by.

Cool Things to do in Skopje- What to Know Before You Go:

Backpacker Daily Budget: 

$26 a day. It’s really cheap in Macedonia.  You can get a bed at City Hostel for just $6. Three budget meals should cost around $12. Two bus, trolley or tram rides add up to $1.50. Three big beers will set you back $6.

Cheap Beer Index:

$1.43 – For just 80 Denars, you can find a cold bottle of Skopsko (I swear that’s what the label reads.  It’s in Cyrillic).  Actually, I’m sure you can find it even cheaper than this, but that’s the best price I saw at the downtown bars.

When to visit Skopje:  

The best time to visit Skopje is in summer.  June, July, August and early September have highs in the 80s, and lows in the 50/60s.  December, January and February only get into the 40s. Rainfall is about the same year-round.

What languages are spoken in Skopje?  

Macedonian is the primary national language spoken by 65% of the population, with Albanian also having official status and spoken by 25%.  Macedonian is a South Slavic language nearly identical to Bulgarian. Younger people may speak English also, as it is now taught in schools.  I found English to be much less common than in neighboring Serbia.

Do you need a North Macedonian visa?

Visas are not required for nationals of USA, UK, Australia, and Canada.  You can stay for 90 days out of a 180 day period visa-free.

How to Get to Skopje:

Skopje International Airport (SKP) is 9 miles south east of the city.  It serves cities all over Europe as well as Dubai, UAE and Hurghada, Egypt.  It is one of the hubs for Wizz Air, which often has the best fares. Learn how to get to Skopje for free on my page How to Fly For Free

The Skopje Central Bus Station is located a 20 minute walk southeast of the center of Old Town.  You can easily catch buses to Kosovo, Serbia, Greece, Albania, and Bulgaria.

Getting around Skopje:

Taxi is pretty much your only option to and from the airport.  There is a big sign outside the airport that lists the exact set fare to all nearby locations.  Downtown Skopje was listed at 1220 Denars ($22) and that is exactly what our driver asked for at the end.  (It’s very unlikely your taxi will be a Lada or a Yugo, but there are still some on the road!)

Walking is all you need to get around most of this compact city.

Local Currency and how to get it:

North Macedonian Denar (55 MKD = $1 as of July 2019) are available at numerous ATMs.    For more info on your cash-versus-credit card options when travelling, check out my post Should I Exchange Money Before I Travel?

Mobile Phone Service in Skopje:

North Macedonia has two networks that offer pre-paid SIM cards for tourists, but only one with 4G/LTE.  The registration of the prepaid subscribers is required, so bring along your passport.  For more info on your telecom options, check out my post Get The Best International Phone Plan

• Makedonski Telekom (aka T-Mobile or Telekom) is #2 operator with 48% share.  It is the ONLY provider that offers 4G/LTE for pre-paid SIM cards.  Its SIM card is sold in their stores for 399 MKD with unlimited calls, 100 SMS and 100 MB data included. They also sell a prepaid surf card with data only for 499 MKD. It comes with 5 GB internet for one month.  Top-up vouchers are available from 100 MKD in lots of stores.
• VIP has pre-paid SIM cards for tourists that only function at 3G speeds.

If you have a European SIM,  be aware that North Macedonia is neither part of the EU, nor of the EEA, so roaming rates on European SIM cards are not capped or regulated in the country and can therefore be much higher. Better buy a local SIM card instead.

Where to stay in Skopje:  

Lodging is very cheap in Skopje.  You can get amazing deals and save money on hotel rooms and apartments.  If you consider AirBnB’s the Debar Maalo section of town is lovely.

Cheapest Good Hostel – City Hostel has dorm beds for just $6!  It’s only a ten minute walk from the city center, and has lots of comfy outdoor garden seating.

Best Cheap Hotel/Apartment – Hotel RM has single rooms with shared bathroom for just $14.  You get a TV, and A/C.

Better Cheap Hotel – Calla Bella Residence has single rooms with bathroom, TV, and AC for $22.  It’s perfectly located a stones throw from the Warrior on a Horse.

Best Hotel in Town – Skopje Marriott has fancy rooms for $130 and up.  Literally right on Macedonia Square.

Skopje Nightlife: 

I would characterize Skopje nightlife as….chill.  It’s a far cry from crazy Belgrade.  But it is a little better than in neighboring Albania or Kosovo.  There are lots of subdued bars downtown among the massive statues.

We enjoyed Kolektiv- Craft Brewery Temov, right smack in front of Alexander the Great.  Great beer, rocking 80’s pop, and decent people watching.

Later on we visited Irish Pub St Patrick, your basic “Irish pub in a box” that every city on earth seems to have.  It’s busy and on the riverfront with nice views of the bridges all lit up.

Finally, we ended the night at Havana Summer Club.  This big outdoor venue next to the Skopje Zoo hosts live music several nights a week.  They had a kick-ass rock band the Wednesday night we were there.  Great bands, cheap beers, under the stars! 

Get a guidebook:

The best guidebook, actually the ONLY guidebook that focuses on North Macedonia is the North Macedonia – Bradt Travel Guide .  Bradt guides are so well researched and extensive.  They cover the history and culture.

What to pack:

You can wear the same clothes you’d wear anywhere in Europe.  To learn how to pack light and be prepared for anything, check out my post International Travel Packing List: All In a Carry-On!

Is Skopje safe?

North Macedonia is very safe.  It has an annual murder rate of 1.5 per 100,000 people.  That puts it on par with Belgium and Canada, and much safer than the USA’s rate of 5.3.

THANKS FOR READING

Full Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links.  This means that if you buy anything, I’ll earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only link to stuff I use, love, and recommend.  I don’t accept bribes to endorse garbage. Your clicks help keep this site alive.

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So what would it be like visiting here as an American?  What do people think about the wars of the recent past? Do they think about them?  Does any of it matter anymore? Is it even acceptable to ask? These are the questions I came to Belgrade with, hoping to get answers.

First impressions of Belgrade are mixed.  It is not an obviously beautiful city. You won’t mistake it for Prague or Budapest.  There are lots of grey apartment buildings and graffiti.  There are also beautiful Art Deco style buildings like the one above.  There is a medieval fortress with a wide grassy park around it.  A central square has the requisite “important man on a horse” sculpture.  There is a single, protected cobblestoned street with traditional restaurants.  But in general, Belgrade feels like a lived-in, businesslike city.  Busy, bustling, growing, and hustling.  It’s the kind of place that slowly grows on you, only after you acquire a favorite restaurant, a bar where they know your name, a spot in a park where you can read a book and listen to the birds chirp.  Would I rank it in the top ten “must visit” European cities?  Definitely not.  Would I consider living here?  Sure.

Serbia is not a rich country.  It’s gross national income per person is $6390, about a tenth of the USA.  But you wouldn’t necessarily pick up on that during a visit to Belgrade.  Folks in the city are attractive and well dressed.  The ladies seem to be working overtime to impress.  I saw more collagen-filled lips in Belgrade than in the entire rest of my life.  Permanent duck-face is at epidemic levels in the riverside nightclubs.  The guys aren’t slacking either.  I witnessed two Serb men street racing their Lamborghinis between stoplights downtown.  The average Serb man is 6 feet tall, third tallest in the world behind their neighbor Montenegro, and the Netherlands.  Suits and Italian shoes are their clubbing uniform.  Visitors of both genders may feel a bit… overmatched here.  

13 Awesome Things to Do in Belgrade Serbia:

Things to Do in Belgrade: #1 Start With a Walking Tour

I arrived in Belgrade with my friend Aaron, and we started our visit with the Small Group Walking Tour  For $17 we got an informative walking tour of the old town area.  Our guide was a human Wikipedia talking very quickly and spouting more dates than any person could possibly absorb.  He even had props, postcards for us, and copies of a 500 Billion Dinar note from the early 2000’s era of inflation.  We started in Republic Square, and got to see all the major sights like the National Assembly building, the New Palace where the President of Serbia lives, Nikola Pašić Square, the Hotel Moskva, the Nikola Tesla Museum, the shopping street of Knez Mihailova, and the Kalemegdan Fortress.

#2 Stroll on Knez Mihailova

This is the bustling pedestrian cafe-filled street of the old town, where the beautiful people come to see and be seen.  It is packed all hours of the day and early evening.  Certainly the best people watching spot in the city.  If you are looking for the Adidas store, to buy matching Russian mafia tracksuits, or for Guess, Lacoste or Zara, this is the place.  They even have a Starbucks.  I didn’t spend a whole lot of time here, preferring to find the backstreet bars and restaurants with some character.

#3 Hit the beach at Ada Ciganlija

Not exactly a beach, Ada Ciganlija is an island in the Sava river that was turned into a peninsula and made into a pebbly beach for swimming and outdoor activities.  It ain’t exactly Maui, but you can swim, kayak, boat, canoe, windsurf, waterski, rent a jet ski. If water isn’t your thing you can walk, bike, play volleyball, basketball, tennis, soccer, rock climb, even bungee jump.  There are lots of bars and restaurants too.  We came here nursing a terrible rakija hangover, and did not properly appreciate the place.  Of course, it was mid September as well.  I imagine on a scorching Saturday in July this place is a blast.

Things to Do in Belgrade: #4 Stuff your face in Skadarlija

Skadarska Street is home to a bunch of excellent traditional Serbian restaurants.  We made this cute cobble stoned street our home, staying in a comfy Airbnb next door to the Red Bar.  We had dinner at a different spot here every night, and didn’t have a single bad meal.  And while this street is surely a tourist draw, they serve mostly Serbian families out for a celebration, so don’t worry about falling into a tourist trap.  Evenings are packed here, and roving bands of fiddlers, trumpet players, and singers bounce from place to place serenading diners for some small bills.

Be forewarned, you will have to pass the street-side pop-up 100 Dinar Rakija Bar, and these cobblestones get awful slippery after your third shot.

#5 Have a Sundowner in Kalemegdan Park 

The park is home to the Kalemegdan fortress and a stunning statue by Ivan Meštrović.  This is the highest point in Belgrade, and it’s where locals gather with their sweetheart or a bunch of friends to sip a drink and look out over the city.  There are no laws against drinking in public , so go ahead and bring a bottle of wine or a couple of beers.  You have a lovely view of the confluence of the Sava and the Danube rivers.  After drinks, you can let your inhibitions wild in a shopping spree on Knez Mihailova street just down the hill.

Things to Do in Belgrade: #6 Get Down on the River

If your trip to Belgrade includes a Friday, Saturday, or Sunday; I recommend hopping on the Belgrade River Cruise.  For just $14, you get a 90 minute river tour with an English speaking guide.  It usually meets at 6pm (though start times vary), so the tour doubles as a sunset booze cruise, as they keep plenty of cold beer onboard! 

#7 Learn some Yugoslav History

On Day 2 you should do the Red Belgrade Communist Tour  For $21 you get a 3 hour tour.  It meets at noon Tuesday through Saturday.  You’ll see the Serbian Parliament building where Slobodan Milošević was overthrown in 2000.  Pass by the ruins of the Serbian General Staff Building (above) bombed by NATO in 1999.  The guide takes everyone onto a trolley to visit the part of the city where the Communist Party bigwigs all lived.   Possibly the best part, is visiting the Yugoslav History Museum.  This museum is co-located with the mausoleum of Josip Broz Tito, who ruled Yugoslavia from 1944 to 1980.

Things to Do in Belgrade: #8 See the Other Side of the Sava

One way to explore the other side is the Walking Tour of Zemun.  Zemun was its own city for hundreds of years.  It marked the end of Austro-Hungarian Europe, while Belgrade was the northern reach of the Ottoman Empire.   You can easily see that the architecture is totally different in Zemun then in old Belgrade.  It looks like any historic small town from central Europe.  It also survived many of the bombings that devastated Belgrade over the centuries.  The walking tour takes you all over this quaint and picturesque town, which only became incorporated into Belgrade proper finally in 1955.

#9 Get Around the City on Two Wheels

The Belgrade Bike Tour  was the most fun tour we did in our short visit.  For just $21, our young guide took us all over the city, mostly spending time pedaling in New Belgrade and Zemun.  I’ve been on bike tours that just cover a couple of miles, with lots of stopping and talking, and eating.  Not this guy!  We really covered some ground.   Towards the end of our time, I looked at the Belgrade Fortress from miles away in Zemun, and thought, “Man, we still have to ride all the way back THERE?”  We did this tour on our last day in the Belgrade, and it seemed like we covered every bit of the city.  It was especially cool to find stuff like the Genex Tower, and the “I Love Serbia” sign.  We felt like we could ask our guide anything, and we had some frank discussions about war, politics and corruption.

Stop at the Genex Tower, known as the “Western City Gate”.   Built in 1977, it is a 36-story skyscraper and a phenomenal example of brutalist architecture. The building has two 384 foot tall towers connected by a 2 floor bridge, with a rotating restaurant on top at a height of 459 feet.  Sadly, half of it is completely empty now, and the restaurant has long gone out of business.  It sits incongruently in a large open space, with no commercial activity or other buildings around it.  Just plain weird.  And awesome.

Things to Do in Belgrade: #10 Drink Rakija…if you can handle it.

Hang around Serbia long enough, and someone will offer you a shot of this locally made brandy.  Be sure to maintain eye contact with your host as you toast “Ziveli” (ZHEEE-VEH-LEE).   Sip, don’t chug.  You are meant to enjoy the various flavors of this homemade brandy.  And don’t down too many in one go, as Rakija is very high in alcohol content. 

I absolutely hated Rakija.  I tried several types, but after three or so brave attempts, I gave up and refused any more for the rest of the trip.  Now my friend Aaron on the other hand…liked it enough to buy an entire round for the bar on our visit to The Magic Garden.  That’s 24 shots of Rakija, that we distributed to the patrons near closing time, and set Aaron back around $30.  I preferred the stuff inside those brown bottles seen in the fridge behind the barman. 

#11 Ride Tram #2 Around and Around

If you want a cheap and effortless tour of the city, just hop on Tram #2.  It makes a loop of the city center. A ticket costs about a dollar, and you can get on right from Knez Mihailov street. 

Things to Do in Belgrade: #12 Risk your Life at a Soccer Match: Red Star vs Partizan

The most fierce and violent football rivalry in Europe can be found in Belgrade.  On the off chance that you happen to be in town when these two face each other, you have two choices: Pick a side and join the fun, or stay inside to avoid the tear gas, riot police, and flying fists and bottles.  They weren’t playing each other when we were in town, but we got a dose of the frenzy anyway.  On a peaceful early evening walk through the calm backstreets of Belgrade one night, we suddenly heard chanting.  And then smelled smoke, then saw some fireworks.  Eventually we turned a corner, and were face to face with a squad of fully body-armored Serbian riot police!  They were calmly pulling on elbow pads, adjusting helmet straps, and arranging their clubs and walkie-talkies.  They weren’t blocking our path, so being the idiots we are, we continued TOWARD the chanting.  We discovered a couple of hundred men in a small park chanting slogans, lighting fireworks, and drinking thousands of beers.  A bystander next to us was filming it with her phone, and we asked her what was up?  “Partizan supporter meeting.”  “What are they going to do?” we asked.  Before she could answer, the chanting suddenly stopped and the whole group started walking in our direction.  The girl stopped filming and took off in a quick stride away, saying “You should leave”.  We did.

#13 Party til Sunrise on a Splav

Whoo boy, does Belgrade have nightlife. It was proclaimed best nightlife in the world by Lonely Planet in 2011.  Start your night with a Pub Crawl  We had a blast with these folks on our first night in town.  The first bar had unlimited rakija shots (yechhh), the second bar got us a round of decent Serb beers, and then some more beers in another bar that seemed to be in a random apartment complex common area.  Then finally a walk across the big bridge to Splav Shlep.  It was well worth $17 to have someone lead us around, and have the chance to meet people from all over Europe who joined.

Belgrade doesn’t just have bars and clubs like other places, in the summer they have giant clubs on permanently anchored barges on the riverside called “splavovi”.  These Splavs get going late, around midnight, and some last til 6am!  There are different styles of Splavs, so it’s worth doing some research or asking a local about them to pick one that fits your preference.  Some are like fancy Vegas clubs with go-go dancers, DJ’s, smoke machines, VIP velvet rope seating, bottle service, and snobby waiters.  Some are like frat basement American dive bars, no seating, big dance floor, and you serve yourself at the bar.

Belgrade feels like a city where anything is possible.  Where rules are only guidelines.  Smoking in restaurants, Lamborghinis street racing in downtown traffic, river barges that blast techno til 6am, unlicensed rakija from grandpa’s shed sold everywhere.  It’s kinda the opposite of Switzerland.  And I like that.

Things to Do in Belgrade: Know Before you Go

Backpacker Daily Budget

$30 a day. Belgrade is cheap!  You can get a bed at Play Hostel for just $7. Three budget meals should cost around $14. Two bus, trolley or tram rides add up to $1.50. Entry to Kalemegdan Fortress is free! Three big Jelen Pivo beers will set you back $6.

Cheap Beer Index

$1.14  On a side street in charming Zemun, you can find a draft Lav for only 120 Dinars.  But I recommend upgrading to a Niksicko Tamno dark lager.  I couldn’t get enough of these.

When to Visit Belgrade:

The best time to visit Belgrade is summertime; June through September. June and September have highs in the 70’s. July and August are in the low 80’s. Nightly lows are 50-60 in the summer. Winters are chilly, it rarely gets above 45 in December and January.

What languages are spoken in Belgrade?

Serbian is the common language, but English is a rapidly growing second (or third) language. English is a mandatory subject in all primary schools, and in most universities. It’s very likely any younger person you meet will speak English, often fluently.  We had no problem getting around with just English.

Do you need a Serbian visa?

No. USA, UK, AUS and CAN passport holders all get 90 days to visit visa-free within a six month period.

Getting to Belgrade

The quickest way to arrive is via Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport (BEG). The biggest airport in Serbia, it has flights to all over Europe, a few to the Middle East, and Air Serbia even has one flight to New York-JFK. Be sure to search for Air Serbia’s flights, as they seem to beat most other airlines on many routes to Belgrade. BEG’s busiest airlines are:

• Air Serbia (Half of all traffic to BEG)
• Wizz Air 9%
• Lufthansa 6%
• Montenegro Airlines 6%
• Swiss Air 4%

Learn how to get to Belgrade for free on my page How to Fly For Free

To get into the city center from the airport:

By bus: Near the airport exit is a bus station for “Mini Bus A1”. This operates between the airport and Slavija Square, New Belgrade (Fontana, and near Belgrade train station. Tickets can be purchased on the bus for 300 dinars ($3). Mini Bus A1 operates 7 days a week from 05:00 till 21:30. Bus leaves every 60 minutes. During peak hours (8:00 am – 18:00pm) it operates more frequently. 30min drive.  Of course, it’s unlikely yopu have chosen to stay in comparatively boring New Belgrade, so you’ll then have to figure out the city bus system to get to Old Town Belgrade.

CarGo is the Uber of Serbia. Download the app before your trip, plug in your credit card, get a local sim on arrival, and you are set.  This is what I did, and it worked like a charm.  I hailed a car on the app from the arrivals area, and he arrived within 10 minutes.  The fare to Old Town was 1261 Dinar, 30% cheaper than using a fixed-fare airport taxi.

By taxi: Inside baggage claim, right after passport control, there is a yellow and black taxi information desk, where you can order a taxi with a fixed price.  Anywhere in the Old Town is 1800 dinars ($17).  You just say the address to the (English speaking) taxi information desk officer, and they will give you a voucher you will take to the first available taxi driver. You pay when you arrive. 20-30min drive.

Getting around Belgrade

Public transportation in Belgrade is a pain in the ass for foreigners. It’s the largest city in Europe that doesn’t have a Metro. The taxi drivers are to be avoided like a raccoon with rabies. They will happily charge you 8 times the correct fare. There is a bus and trolley system, but good luck figuring it out if you don’t speak Serbian. That leaves you with one good option; CarGo.

CarGo is the Uber of Serbia. Download the app, plug in your credit card, get a local sim, and you are set.  We used this all over the city, at all hours of the day, and it worked great.  We took short rides that ended of costing just $2-3, and long rides from the Splavs that cost $9.  It’s very convenient.

Serbian Currency:

The Serbian Dinar (105RSD to $1USD) are available at ATMs.  For more info on your cash-versus-credit card options when travelling, check out my post Should I Exchange Money Before I Travel?

Stay Connected in Serbia:

Be aware that Serbia is NOT part of the EU, nor the EEA, where international roaming rules are enforced. So roaming rates on European SIM cards are not capped, and can be very expensive. DO NOT rely on an EU sim card. Buy a local SIM card.  Or, better yet, skip the hassle of getting a local SIM and check out my post Get The Best International Phone Plan

Mts – Telekom Serbia holds 45% of the market . Mts sells two 30 day prepaid tourist SIM cards in their own stores, Tabac Press, and Maxim.  Their tourist SIMs are confusing and difficult to activate. Not recommended.

• Tourist SIM: This is good for a 3 day trip. 600 RSD ($5.70) including 3 x 24 hour internet sessions with unlimited 4G/LTE. The clock starts from your first data connection and lasts for 24 hrs no matter if you are online or not.
• Super Tourist SIM: This is good for a 4-30 day trip. 1,800 RSD ($17) including 10 GB data (up to 4G/LTE), 30 international voice minutes, and 120 intra-net minutes on mts.

Telenor is the #2 provider at 31% market share. Prepaid SIM cards are available in Telenor stores or from newsstands in Belgrade like Moj Kiosk or Corner shop . There are currently 2 prepaid plans.  These are easy to use, and a great bargain.

• Telenor pripejd: Good for a 7 day trip. 300 RSD ($3) for a voice and data SIM card with 30 RSD credit valid for 7 days. As a promotion they give you 3 GB data and 900 RSD for domestic calls and SMS.
• Telenor pripejd plus: Good for an 8-15 day trip. 500 RSD ($5) for a voice and data SIM card with 30 RSD credit valid for 15 days. As a promotion they give you 5 GB data and 2500 RSD for domestic calls and SMS.

Where to Stay in Belgrade:

Cheapest Good Hostel – Hostel M has dorm beds for $8.  It’s right by the central bus and train station, so easy to get to on arrival/departure, and not far from the old town.

Best Hostel – Balkan Soul Hostel has dorm beds for $12.  Its got really plush furnishings, very clean, great staff, and perfect location.

Best Cheap Hotel/Apartment – L9 Top Central Rooms and Apartments 2 has rooms with bathroom for just $26.  You get a TV, desk, A/C, mini fridge, 

Most Historic Luxury Hotel – Hotel Moscow  Open since 1908, the most historic hotel in the city has rooms for $127.  Albert Einstein stayed here.

Where to Eat

Be mentally prepared to have your meal liberally flavored with cigarette smoke.  EU rules are not in effect here, and nearly every restaurant is filled with a haze of burning cancer sticks.  Look for outdoor seating.

We enjoyed Tri Sesira on Skardarska Street.

Nightlife in Belgrade:

Whoo boy, does Belgrade have nightlife? It was proclaimed best nightlife in the world by Lonely Planet in 2011.

For excellent Serbian craft beer try:

• Black Turtle pub 3 
• Gunners Pub 
• Miners Pub 
• Samo Pivo 
• Krafter
• Kabinet
• Beerville Beer Bar

These popular bars get going around 11pm:

• Blaznavac 
• Bar Central
• Wurst Platz 
• Passengers Bar 
• Tranzit Bar

Plan to move on to the Splavs no earlier than midnight, unless you are trying to get a table at one of the snobby ones like Freestyler, then you need to be in line at opening time.  There are over a dozen splavs, and lots of info about them online.  We enjoyed Shlep and 20/44.  Hated Freestyler.  

Get a Guidebook

The Serbia Bradt Travel Guide is the best guidebook around. Lonely Planet barely touches on Serbia in their Eastern Europe compendium.

What to pack:

You can wear the same clothes you’d wear anywhere in Europe.  To learn how to pack light and be prepared for anything, check out my post International Travel Packing List: All In a Carry-On!

Is Belgrade Safe?

Serbia is very safe.  It has an annual murder rate of 1.1 per 100,000 people.  That puts it on par with Sweden, Denmark and the UK, and much safer than the USA’s rate of 5.3.

THANKS FOR READING

Full Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links. This means that if you buy anything, I’ll earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only link to stuff I use, love, and recommend. I don’t accept bribes to endorse garbage. Your clicks help keep this site alive.

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A connected smartphone is the most valuable travel tool in your backpack.  You can use it to find your hotel with Google Maps, call an Uber, check-in for your flight.  But without a locally functional data plan, you won’t be able to do any of that the moment you land in a foreign country.  So what should you do?  The easy answer is; Google Fi has the best international phone plan.   But, there are several ways to use your phone abroad, so lets go over them from worst to best:

Terrible Option for the Best International Phone Plan:

You Do Nothing. You pay up to $4000 for 2GB of data!

Let’s say you don’t bother signing up for an “international plan” with your cell phone provider.  You own an expensive phone that you got from your provider for “free” and have a monthly payment plan, so it is “locked”.  “Locked” means that your provider (AT&T, Sprint, Verizon) effectively owns your phone, and it is impossible to put another providers SIM card in it and get it to work.  If you are in this situation, you are pretty much out of luck.  No cell service, no international plan, and no ability to pop in a local SIM card.  Even worse, you may get some signal bars on international roaming which will allow you to run up a massive bill that could amount to more than your entire vacation!

If this is your situation, your only recourse is to immediately put your phone in AIRPLANE MODE, and then enable WIFI.  This way you can at least use your phone on hotel wifi, with no chance of running up a bill.  Remember, cell phone apps constantly download data automatically in the background, even if you are not using it.  A phone left on, actively connected to cell towers, and untouched for a week, can still run up a big data bill.  Without a purchased global roaming plan, both Verizon and AT&T charge about $2 per minute for international calling from Europe, and $2 per MB of data!!  If you spent all day on your phone downloading movies, and uploading photos, it would be possible to run up a $2000 bill in just one day!  There are many better ways to get one of the best international phone plans.

Bad option for the Best International Phone Plan:

You own a LOCKED phone, and sign up for a major provider’s “Global Roaming Plan”.  Up to $300 for 2GB.

These rates will still be very high no matter which provider you use.  AT&T, Verizon, Sprint all have international plans you can sign up for.  With these plans you won’t have to pay crazy amounts, like $2 a megabyte, but the options are still terrible.  Both AT&T and Verizon offer a $10 a day global roaming plan, which allows you to use your normal data and voice plan abroad for an additional $10 each day you use anything.    When you include Sprint Global Roaming, all three plans compare as about the same price.  That means you are effectively paying $300 extra per month.  This is not the best international phone plan.

One exception is T-mobile’s ONE Plan which allows you to text and browse the web from most countries without roaming fees.  But it really only provides the bare minimum mobile internet access at deathly slow speeds of about 256kbps or 2G.  It is a great choice for travel to Mexico or Canada, as you’ll get the same unlimited data plans & calling service as you do in the US.  Outside North America, I would replace it with a local SIM as soon as possible.

A Mediocre Option for the Best International Phone Plan:

You own an UNLOCKED phone, and you purchase an “International SIM card”.  $40 for 2GB

This will allow you to use your mobile cell phone in many different countries.  The rates will vary country by country.  Be sure to verify that the country you are visiting is covered, and at a reasonable rate.  These companies buy up data/minutes from local cell service providers worldwide, and then charge you a premium to use them.

Here are some of the most popular, ranked by how much they charge for a SIM with 2 gigabytes of data;

• WorldSim $33.75
• GoSim $35 to $178 depending on the country
• GigSky  $39.99 but good for only 15 days

In my view, worldwide sim cards are a bad deal.  You still have to go through the hassle of ordering it and activating it, just like you would getting a SIM in-country.  And yet, they are more expensive than a local in-country SIM.

*** ROADBLOCK ALERT FOR USA TRAVELERS***:  There are two main types of cellular data networks in the world; CDMA and GSM.  In the US, Sprint, Verizon, and US Cellular use CDMA.  AT&T and T-Mobile use GSM.  Pretty much the entire rest of the world uses GSM.  Some phones can connect to both networks.  So what does this mean for you?  If you purchased your phone directly from Sprint, Verizon, or US Cellular; there is a high possibility that it is CDMA ONLY.  This means that your phone is a useless brick everywhere else on Earth. Seriously.  Even if your CDMA phone is “unlocked”, it can’t connect to a GSM network.  If you have such a phone, and plan to start traveling, it’s time for a new phone.

Cheapest Option for the Best International Phone Plan:

Buy a local SIM card on arrival.  $5 to $20 for 2GB.

The cheapest way to communicate and get mobile internet access abroad is usually buying a local SIM card.  You cannot do that if your phone is locked, so pay off that new iPhone ASAP!

You want to buy a local sim card as soon as possible upon arriving in a new country.  Often there are kiosks in airport arrivals terminals. You pick out a pre-paid plan that works for you, and the agent will put the sim in your phone and activate it on the spot.  Now you can walk out of the airport with access to all the critical things you need like hailing an Uber, and Google Maps to find your hostel.  

You might be shocked at how cheap and easy these local SIM plans can be. I have paid as little as a dollar a day for data plans in some African countries.   You may have to provide a copy of your passport and fill out some forms.   Many countries want to know who has what phone number in order to track and stop terrorism.  Some simply want to be able to spy on their own population.

Besides being the cheapest way to access data, with a local sim card, you get a local telephone number.  This is really important if you want to receive calls.  With a worldwide SIM or an International Plan, you’ll be able to call people.   However, in a developing country cell phone minutes are precious.  Nobody is going to call you back if you have a foreign phone number.

If you run out of minutes or data, you can usually top-up by purchasing extra data on little scratch-off-code tickets at convenience stores.  And before you start buying SIM cards, make sure you are using a credit card that gets you maximum bonus miles.  To learn how, check out my page: Nine Steps to Flying Free Worldwide

The Best International Phone Plan:

Sign up for Google Fi.  $20 or less for 2GB in 164 Countries!

I highly recommend that anyone planning to do a large amount of international travelling switch their service provider to Google Fi.  With Google Fi, you don’t have to sign up for a pricey “International Plan”. And you don’t get worthless 2G data speeds internationally like T-Mobile’s “One”, you get data at whatever the top speed the local cell towers can offer, which is always at least 3G, and usually 4G.  

It offers two plans;  With UNLIMITED data plan you get unlimited data use, in 164 countries, as well as unlimited voice and texting for just $70 a month, plus taxes. After 22GB of data use, your data is slowed, but who uses 22GB a month??  You also get Google One membership with 100GB of storage in the cloud.

With the FLEXIBLE plan, you pay $20 a month plus taxes, and $10 per GB of data used, with data above 6GB FREE.  Basically, if you go over 6GB a month, your bill is $80 plus taxes, and you would have been better off choosing UNLIMITED.  For people who are always under 6GB a month FLEXIBLE is the right option.

With both cell phone plans, you CAN also use your phone as a hotspot tether.  There is NO contract, you can cancel at the end of every month.    And you don’t get worthless 2G data speeds internationally like T-Mobile’s “One”, you get data at whatever the top speed the local cell towers can offer, which is always at least 3G, and usually 4G-LTE.   International voice calling rates are reasonable too, usually not more than 21 cents a minute, and free over wi-fi.  And if you are looking for a family cell phone plan, the more phones you add to your account, the cheaper it gets per phone.

I was with AT&T for years, but their international cell phone plan is massively overpriced, so I switched to T-Mobile.  I had heard T-Mobile had “free” data in 200 countries.  Well, that’s technically true, but its 2G data.  Does anyone even know what 2G is anymore?  Well, let me tell you, it’s like using that AOL dial-up CD your dad got in the mail in 1993.  Not much fun.  I spent 20 minutes trying to upload one picture to Facebook in Belize.  This year I switched to Fi, and it has made traveling so much easier.  I used to have to scramble to buy a new SIM card in the airport of every new country.  Now I just use my phone normally.

At home in the U.S., Google Fi uses the cell towers of both T-Mobile and Sprint, switching between whichever has the best signal, so you have more cell coverage than just about anyone else.  I have a Pixel 3XL, which is built specifically to use Fi, but most Android and iPhones also work with Fi.  If you sign up through my referral HERE, you’ll get $20 off your first bill, and I’ll get $20 off my next bill. Everybody wins!

App Alternatives to “Calling Home”

There is no longer any need to have “minutes” on your mobile phone plan with the many apps available.  You can easily circumvent traditional cellular calling when overseas using one of these:

Skype

Skype remains the most popular video chat and voice app.   You don’t need the person you’re connecting with to be on Skype as well.  With affordable Skype credits, you can call any regular phone number.   This may be the best way to keep in touch with grandma.

WhatsApp

WhatsApp is a household name all over the world.  It has completely replaced “texting” in countries where MMS messages are charged by the message.   And it has video-chat just like Skype.

Facebook Messenger

Facebook bought WhatsApp and incorporated the technology into Facebook Messenger.  It does most of the same things.

Facetime

If you have an iPhone, you can video chat anyone else on an iPhone for free over wifi.

THANKS FOR READING

Full Disclosure: Some of the links in this post are affiliate links.  This means that if you buy anything, I’ll earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. I only link to stuff I use, love, and recommend.  I don’t accept bribes to endorse garbage. Your clicks help keep this site alive.

THANKS FOR YOUR SUPPORT!

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When you tell your friends you are going to Ljubljana (pronounced “loob-lee-yah-nah”), you should expect blank looks.  Few people have heard of the capital and largest city of tiny Slovenia. This picturesque city of 300,000 dates back to at least the 12th century, but gets left off most European travel itineraries.  It doesn’t have the fame of Prague, Budapest, or Krakow yet. But once you get here you’ll see why this little city is a gem worth staying for a while.  So let’s explore the best things to do in Ljubljana:

Slovenia has both Adriatic Sea beaches and Alpine villages with stunning castles.  And charming Ljubljana sits right in between.  Americans and Western Europeans of a certain age might readily associate it as part of the former Yugoslavia, and thus arrive expecting to find an “Eastern European post-Communist vibe”.  Visitors will be quickly disabused of that idea. Slovenia was indeed part of Yugoslavia for 73 years. But for the 120 years before that, it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and also part of the Venetian Empire even further back.  Slovenians are a Slavic people, but in Ljubljana you’ll feel much more influence from Austria and Italy, rather than from fellow Slavic countries further East.

Contemporary History of Ljubljana:

Slovenia escaped the violent collapse of Yugoslavia nearly unscathed.  They declared independence on June 25, 1991, the very same day that neighboring Croatia declared it’s own independence.  While Croatia suffered a devastating four year war with what today is Serbia and Montenegro, Slovenia’s war for independence lasted just ten days!   The Slovenians had plans in place to capture border controls, and surround Yugoslav Army bases. The Yugoslav Army quickly realized it didn’t have any defensible positions or resources to hold Slovenia, especially when it had a much bigger war with Croatia.  After ten days of isolated battles, and 74 deaths, a cease-fire was reached, and Yugoslav troops began withdrawing from Slovenia.

Slovenia has been a model addition to the European Union, which they joined in 2004.  They are a net contributor to EU coffers, the only “Eastern European” country to achieve that so far.  Their economy is growing quickly, having passed both Portugal and Greece in GDP per capita.  For some comparison to their neighbors: The average Slovenian is half as rich as the average Austrian, and 25% poorer than the Italians, but almost twice as rich as Croatians.  Many Slovenians work across the border in Austria, and vacation on the sea in Croatia.

 They have left their communist history behind and have moved full-force into European culture, and capitalism. English is spoken by 75% of the people under the age of 35, roads are smooth, and everything is just gorgeous!

by Worldwide Wilbur September  2019

12 Best Things to Do in Ljubljana:

#1 of the Best Things to Do in Ljubljana:

Join a Walking Tour

One of the best things to do in Ljubljana is to start off your visit with a walking tour of the Old Town.  There are two tours by the city tourism bureau available for just $19 each.  If you arrive early, you can do the 10am Guided Walk & Funicular Ride to Ljubljana Castle.  If you arrive later in the day, try the 2pm Walking Tour and River Cruise.  Both tours have an English speaking guide, last about two hours, and include a stop for a snack.  I arrived later, so I did the River Cruise tour my first day. Our guide (in the red shirt) was full of information and jokes, and we even got to randomly meet the Mayor of Ljubljana during our visit to the Town Hall.  It was the perfect start to a visit.

We saw the Dragon Bridge, created in honor of mythical Greek hero Jason and the Argonauts arriving here and killing a dragon that was menacing the village.

And passed the Franciscan Church known as “the meeting place” to locals.

Prešeren Square is the beating heart of the city, with street musicians, fire jugglers, and people sitting on statues just watching the world go by.

Next to Preseren Square is the Triple Bridge.  Once only a single bridge, in 1929 the city wanted to add a pedestrian lane and widen it.  Architect Jože Plečnik decided it was cheaper and prettier to just add two pedestrian bridges on the sides rather than widen the existing one.  Since 2007 all three bridges are pedestrian only, as is the entire city center, which really adds to the charm of Ljubljana.  It’s so calm and walkable.

 #2 of the Best Things to Do in Ljubljana:

Get on a River Cruise

At the end of our walking tour we boarded a glass tourist boat for a cruise along the Ljubljanica River.   We admired the bridges and picturesque embankments and basically got to see the city from a different perspective.  These cruises leave from several points on the river for less than 10 euros.  Easily one of the best things to do in Ljubljana.

#3 of the Best Things to Do in Ljubljana:

Ride the Funicular up to the Castle

If you don’t get on the walking tour with the Ljubljana Castle, you’ll certainly want to add that on your own after your tour.  It is open 9am to 9pm in summer. Pro Tip: All castle tickets are 10% off if you book online instead of at the door.

 Castle tickets for adults are 10 Euro.  If you want to add a round trip Funicular ride, it is 13E.  If you want to also add the Time Machine Tour or the Behind Bars Tour, that gets you to 15E.  

I chose to do the Time Machine tour.   It’s an hour-long interactive tour with six costumed actors who each present a story about the history of the Castle.  In July, August and September it is presented daily at 11am, 1pm and 5pm.  I was afraid it was going to be embarrassingly hokey, but I actually enjoyed it.  The actors do a great job, and interact with the crowd to get some laughs.  It was easily worth the couple extra Euro.

The Behind Bars tour is also an hour-long an interactive tour with six costumed actors who each present a story about life in the dungeon of the castle.  In July, August and September it is presented once daily at 3pm.

There is also an audioguide tour for 15E, if you don’t want to be trapped on an hour-long tour with thespians.

#4 of the Best Things to Do in Ljubljana:

Tour the City on Two Wheels

The walking tour was the perfect way to get my bearings and learn about the city’s history.  But, even more fun is a 3 Hour Cruiser Bike Tour with Roundabout Travel.  I looked at doing another 3 hour Bike Tour with Ljubljana Tourism, but they only go on Sundays and Thursdays, which didn’t work for me.  The Roundabout trip gets you a ways out of the city, and a chance to see things you probably wouldn’t find on your own.

#5 of the Best Things to Do in Ljubljana:

Sample Slovenian Food

Hot Horse – Ever think about eating a horse?  Yeah, me neither.  But they do in Slovenia.  And every Slovenian I asked about it seemed to have no idea that people don’t eat horse in most of the world.  I’m not exactly recommending it, but if you are walking around lovely Tivoli Park, there is a fast food stand on the edge of the park that serves one thing only…horse.  Yep, for a few euro, you can get a horse burger.  I tried it, and it pretty much just tasted like a regular burger.  Except for the whip marks from the jockey.  Hey-Oooooo!  (It’s directly across the street from the Union Brewery too)  The old guy that runs the place seems perturbed by the tourists lining up giggling as they order.

But seriously, for real local food, try Sarajevo 1984, which serves delicious Bosnian food.  More info below.

#6 of the Best Things to Do in Ljubljana:

Have a Drink with a View

The Nebotncik (Skyscraper) building is the highest in Ljubljana at 231 feet.  Back when it was completed in 1933, it was the 9th tallest building in all of Europe.   Ok, so it’s not exactly the Burj Khalifa, but it does have a restaurant at the top, and you get a great view over the city.  I stopped in at sunset and had a beer while frantically snapping photos.  You’ll find it at Štefanova ulica 1.  Bring a jacket, cause it’s often windy and cold up there.

#7 of the Best Things to Do in Ljubljana:

Do a Pub Crawl

The best way to explore the nightlife is with Pub Crawl Ljubljana.  They meet at 10pm every night of the week during July and August, and every night but Sunday in May, June, and September.  It’s only $17, and you get an English speaking guide that takes you around to five different bars and clubs, with free shots at each stop.  They play some fun drinking games on the way. They keep going til at least 2am. 

#8 of the Best Things to Do in Ljubljana: Spend a Night Behind Bars

This could happen to you if the Pub Crawl goes off the rails.  But seriously, you can spend a night in a converted prison that now houses the Celika Hostel.  It’s been redesigned into a bright, arty, comfortable place to stay, but the bars are still intact!

#9 of the Best Things to Do in Ljubljana:

Explore Metelkova Mesto Street Art

Metelkova is officially an “autonomous social and cultural centre”, but up close it appears to be a controlled anarchy of squatters, artists, and the center of Ljubljana’s counter-culture.

The area was once the military barracks of the Yugoslav National Army.  On June 25, 1991, Slovenia declared it’s independence from Yugoslavia. Within days the Yugoslav Army (now Serbia and Montenegro) pulled out of Slovenia, abandoning the barracks.  Immediately after their departure some alternative and youth groups petitioned the city for use of the abandoned buildings. At first the city agreed, but then in 1993 decided to bulldoze some buildings.  Squatters moved in and defended the destruction successfully, and have occupied the space ever since.

Today you’ll find interesting murals all over the buildings, and an art gallery aptly named “Galleria Alkatraz”.  There are several bars that open in the evening.  I wandered through around noon, and it just looked like the remnants of a giant frat party.

#10 of the Best Things to Do in Ljubljana:

Shop at one of the Markets

Ljubljana has several street markets.  The biggest is the Mestna Trznica “Central Market”.  Here, you’ll find fruit, vegetables, handicrafts, souvenirs and even street musicians.  Open every day but Sunday at Pogacarjev trg 1.

On Saturdays you’ll find two Art Markets – One by  Stari and Gornji trg Square has free creative workshops for adults and children, theater performances, music concerts.  Another at Novi trg Square has painting, sculpture, design, textiles, ceramics, decor, and jewelry for sale.

If you are in town on a Sunday, be sure to catch the Flea Market on Cankarjevo Nabrezje Embarkment along by the river.  Open about 8am til noon.

#11 of the Best Things to Do in Ljubljana:

Get a Green Escape in the city

Ljubljana’s Tivoli Park is five square kilometers of forest right in the city.  It has miles of paths for biking, walking, or jogging. It’s full of ponds, fountains, playgrounds, and grassy fields and flowers.  I went for a pleasant jog here one morning, and found every fit person in the city doing the same!

#12 of the Best Things to Do in Ljubljana:

Get outside the city to Lake Bled:

There is lots to see outside Ljubljana.  But if you only have time for one day-trip, you must make it a Trip to Lake Bled and Bled Castle  This is by far the number one sight in Slovenia, and for good reason.  I scoured the interwebs for the best deal on a tour, and I found Kompas Tours to have the best price at $56, and the best reviews.  

Lake Bled has emerald-green waters, a picture-perfect postcard church on the island in the middle, a medieval castle on the rocky cliff, and some of the highest peaks of the Slovenian Alps as the background.

Towering 330 feet above the lake, Bled Castle is the iconic image of a medieval fortress, with towers, ramparts, moats and a terrace offering magnificent views. The castle houses a reconstruction of Gutenberg’s wooden printing press, on which for a small fee, a printer will demonstrate old printing techniques using hand-made paper by stamping your name on a certification that you visited.  Be sure to try Bled’s famous cream cake, kremšnita.

For 15 Euros, you can take a Pletna boat, a traditional boat known only to this region, to the tiny tear-shaped island on the lake.  I chose instead to walk the circumference of the lake, a pleasant, shaded 4 mile path.  There are a couple of public beaches where you can jump in, and places to stop for a beer or an ice cream.

So, we’ve agreed that you are going to Lake Bled right?  Well, if you want a full day of sightseeing, you can easily add some things on to your Lake Bled Tour.

For $68, you can do a Day Trip to Bled and Vintgar Gorge.  This is the trip I chose.  We did all of the above, as well as a visit to Vintgar Gorge.   Here we walked a mile on a wooden path through a tight canyon, above the rushing waters of the River Radovna.  The walkway ends at the Šum Waterfall, and you can stop for lunch in a little cafe before making the return walk back to the start.

After that we drove to the stunningly beautiful glacial Lake Bohinj in Triglav National Park.  Here you can jump in and swim, or explore the lakeside on foot, or by kayak/canoe/paddleboard.   I opted to jump in, and it was coooooold!  But the water is so crystal clear and refreshing, I loved it.

Our last stop was a visit to the well-preserved town of Skofja Loka. We walked around the medieval town center, and learned the history of the town.  It was great to see a “real” historic town in Slovenia.  Ljubljana is very beautiful, but it is clear that lots of money has been invested to make the city center look absolutely perfect.  Skofja Loka looked like just a regular town that happened to have lovely 18th century buildings still in use after all this time.  Other popular day trips include Postojna Cave.

If you want to save some money, or just don’t wish to join a tour, there are several other options to get to Lake Bled from Ljubljana including the bus, train, or even a taxi. 

Know Before You Go:

Backpacker Daily Budget: 

$50.   $15 for a decent hostel bed.  $18 for three meals from local street food kiosks.  $6 to get into the castle. $3 for two public bus rides.  $8 for three beers.  

Cheap Beer Index:

$2.46  It is possible to get a Union or Lasko draft at the Pivnica Union Brewery for just 2.20 Euro.  This cool bar is co-located with the Union Brewery in the University section of town.  Local draft beers are usually $2.60 to $3 all over town. But, you can also get excellent Slovenian craft beers on tap in the $3 -$4 range, and the normal tap beer size here is a big 17 oz/500ml, not 12oz/330ml.

When to visit:  

The best time to visit Slovenia is in summer.  June, July, August and early September have highs in the 70s, and lows in the 50s.  December, January and February only get into the 30s. Rainfall is about the same year-round.

What languages are spoken in Slovenia?  

Slovenian is the national language, but English is also spoken as a second (or third, or fourth) language by over 60% of the population, and most of the people you’ll meet in tourism related industries.

Do you need a Slovenia visa?

Visas are not required for nationals of USA, UK, Australia, and Canada.  Slovenia is a member of the EU, and is within the Schengen Zone, where you can stay for 90 days out of a 180 day period visa-free.

How to Get to Ljubljana:

Ljubljana Jože Pučnik Airport (LJU) is 15 miles northwest of the city. It serves cities all over Europe as well as Tel Aviv, Israel and Hurghada, Egypt.  It WAS the home base of Adria Airways, which just went bankrupt on September 24, 2019.  Learn how to get to Slovenia for free on my page How to Fly For Free

From the airport to the city: 

• The cheapest option is the Public Alpetour Bus #28 for 4.10 Euro.  It leaves on the hour for a 50min ride.  4.10e payable to the driver. It drops you off at main bus station, bay #28.  From the bus station it should be walkable distance to any lodging in the city center.  Departure Schedule: From Monday to Friday:  5.00, 6.05, 7.00, 8.00, 9.00, 10.00, 11.00, 12.00, 13.00, 14.00, 15.00, 16.00, 17.00, 18.00, 19.00, 20.00.  Saturdays, Sundays and holidays: 7.00, 10.00, 12.00, 14.00, 16.00, 18.00, 20.00.  I rode the bus BACK to the airport.  It was cheap and easy.  My only issue was that “Bay 28” was a little hard to find.  Be sure to ask them to point you the right way from the ticket window.

• You can book a Shuttle Bus that drops you at your hotel for 10 euro. The main companies are GoOpti, Nomago, Markun Shuttle, MNJtransfer and ZUP Prevozi.   I chose to ride with GoOpti, as they had a booking desk right outside customs.  Despite being told a van would leave “in a few minutes”, we actually sat and waited 50 minutes to leave until the van was full, a transport practice I thought only existed in Africa.  I realized I should have just taken the bus, which was my choice on the return trip.
• A taxi from the airport should cost 25-35 Euro.  Agree to the price before stepping in the taxi.

By road or train:

You can drive into Slovenia from Austria, Hungary, Croatia, or Italy.  Vienna, Bratislava, Munich, and Budapest are 4-5 hours away. Venice is less than 3 hours, and Zagreb less than 2.  Buses are available.

How to Get Around Ljubljana:

Walking – The city is pretty small, and you can see quite a bit just by walking around.  If you are just here to stroll and experience the city, you are unlikely to need any public transport.  The city center has large areas closed off to vehicles, making Ljubljana a lovely walking city.

Cycling – Ljubljana has an amazing FREE bike share network.  There are 51 BicikeLJ stations around the city, about 500 meters apart one from another, where you can hire and return a bike. The first hour of hire is free of charge. You will just need to pay 1 € for a weekly subscription.  The city is bike-friendly and flat.

City Bus – 42 bus lines connect all parts of the city. Buses run from about 5am til Midnight, depending on the line. You’ll need an Urbana Card to ride.  One trip costs 1.30 € and allows you to change as many buses as you need in 90 minutes.  When you get on, you must hold your Urbana Card to the scanner. When you hear a beep, you have validated your ride.  Urbana Cards can be purchased at news stands, gas stations, tourist offices, and post offices.

There is no metro, Uber or Lyft in Slovenia.

Taxis are generally honest and cheap.  Flagfall is 1 to 1.5Euro, and then .9 to 1.1 Euro per kilometer.  Recommended companies are: Taxi Laguna, Taxi Metro, and Taxi Ljubljana.  Avoid taxis with no company name, often hanging out in front of tourist hotels.

Local Currency and how to get it:

Euros (0.90=$1 as of 2019) are available from numerous ATMs.   For more info on your cash-versus-credit card options when travelling, check out my post Should I Exchange Money Before I Travel?

Stay Connected:

Slovenia has 3 major networks that offer prepaid SIM cards for tourists:

Telekom Slovenije is the biggest operator in the country, with a 45% market share.  Their prepaid SIM card called Mobi is sold in their stores and at service stations and post offices. It’s at 8.50 € for the SIM card including 5 € credit.  You can get the following data packages:

• • 400MB 30days 3.95 
  • 1GB 30 days 7.00
  • 5GB 30 days 10.00

A1 Slovenija is the #2 operator in the country, with a 31% market share.  Their voice and data prepaid SIM is called Simpl and available at their stores at service stations, and post offices for 6 € and contains 5 € credit valid for 30 days.  You can choose between standard SIMPL plan, SIMPL Mali and SIMPL Veliki plans:

• • Simpl: is their default plan. Data stays at 0.15 per MB all the time
  • Simpl mali: with 500 units (= mins, SMS or MB) for 30 days – 5 €
  • Simpl veliki: with 5000 units (= mins, SMS or MB*) for 30 days – 7.99 €

Telemach mob is the #3 operator in the country, with a 15% market share.  Their prepaid voice & data starter package is available at their stores, and at service stations It’s called FREE2GO and sold at 3.99 € containing 2 € valid for 90 days.  They give heavy bonuses for top-ups all valid for 30 days:

• •  2 €: 20 units (MB, mins or SMS)
  • top-up 5 €: 50 units (MB, mins or SMS)
  • 10 €: unlimited on-net mins, 100 units (MB, off-net mins, SMS)
  • top-up 20 €: unlimited on-net mins, 200 units, 20 GB (EU cap: 5.5 GB)

If you have a European SIM, you are all set.  Slovenia is part of the EU, where from June 2017 new international roaming rules are enforced.  You can now ‘roam like at home’ at domestic rates rather than excessive roaming rates.  For more info on your telecom options, check out my post Get The Best International Phone Plan

Where to stay:  

The CHEAPEST Hostel – Hostel Sleeping Beauty  For $15, you get a bed in a well reviewed, central spot.

The BEST Hostel – Kva Hostel  For $25 a night, you get a bed in a squeaky clean, centrally located, friendly facility with free breakfast and bike rental available.

The BEST CHEAP Hotel – Rooms Ambrozic  For $60 a night, you get a single room with a river view close to the old town, a TV, and a private bathroom.

Most Historic Luxury Hotel – Grand Hotel Union  Open since 1905, this Art Nouveau gem has rooms for $170.  

Where to eat: 

Sarajevo 1984 was my favorite restaurant in the city.  While technically serving Bosnian food, the staples are Slovenian traditional favorites as well.  Be sure to try cevapcici (sausages) and kajmak (a tangy soft cheese), and wash it down with a Cockta (Slovenia’s favorite soda).

Ljubljana Nightlife: 

For a small city, Ljubljana punches above its weight in nightlife.  It has an excellent craft beer scene.  I enjoyed some fine microbrews at Daktari, Pop’s Place, and Sir Williams Pub.  The riverside is loaded with al fresco restaurants and primo people watching.  This is an overpriced, but atmospheric place for dinner.

Later on you can hit some more hopping bars like: Captain’s Cabin, Cutty Sark, and Parlament.

And finally, if you really stay up late, you can end up at the clubs such as Cirkus, Club K4, or Orto 

Get a guidebook:

I really liked the Rick Steves Croatia and Slovenia guidebook.  Rick knows Europe.  And he knows budget travel.  He makes very specific itinerary recommendations and isn’t afraid to tell you what stuff is worth skipping.  He helps me cut to the chase and lays out an itinerary to make the best use of your time.

What to pack:

You can wear the same clothes you’d wear anywhere in Europe.  To learn how to pack light and be prepared for anything, check out my post International Travel Packing List: All In a Carry-On!

Is Ljubljana safe?

Slovenia is very safe, one of the safest countries in Europe.  It has an annual murder rate of 0.9 per 100,000 people. That puts it on par with Iceland and Ireland, and much safer than the USA’s rate of 5.3. 

THANKS FOR READING

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“The Best Travel Sites to Save You Money” gives you a quick list of the single best websites to book the cheapest flights, the best hotels, and awesome tours.

Friends who know my crazy travel lifestyle are always asking me,  “What travel sites do YOU use for flights, hotels, tours, etc.”  I finally decided I ought to put it all in one place.

There are soooooo many travel booking websites out there it’s easy to become overwhelmed with options.  I hope this simple list can cut through all the noise.   

Why trust me?  I’ve traveled (frugally) to over 100 countries on every continent but Antarctica.  I’ve ridden in Ubers in Kenya, and I’ve stayed at AirBnB’s in Ukraine.  I’ve spent nights at hotels through Booking.com in Djibouti, and driven around Iceland using RentalCars.com.  I’ve been on bike tours in Serbia with GetYourGuide, and found the meeting point using Google Fi phone service.   After years of trial and error, I keep coming back to just the following companies/websites:

Get the best credit card to earn travel rewards:

The best personal credit card to get travel rewards is the Chase Sapphire Preferred VISA.

Why?  To start off, it has a phenomenal sign-up bonus.  When you spend $4000 over the first three months, and pay the $95 annual fee, you’ll get 60,000 Chase Ultimate Reward Points. Those points are worth $1200!   Ultimate Rewards are the universal multi-tool of travel reward points. You can transfer them at a 1-1 ratio to United Miles, Southwest Points or to 11 other travel partner airlines and hotel chains.

They can also be used like cash to book tickets with ANY airline at 1.25 cents per point.  I like this flexibility, because I don’t have miles on EVERY airline.  Sometimes I need to book a one-way flight on Air Serbia, and I can use Chase Ultimate Rewards.

You earn 2x points on any purchases related to travel or dining.  That’s a nice way to earn points quicker.  I mean, you do travel and eat, right?

You get primary rental car insurance when you use the card to book your rental car.  This means you can always decline the supplemental insurance, and Chase pays for the car if you wreck it!  This is a very valuable perk, and one that only a couple of credit cards offer.  It’s worth it to keep the Sapphire Preferred long term just for the peace of mind this provides.

You get trip delay / cancellation / interruption / baggage delay insurance.  You never know when this could come in handy.  I haven’t used it yet luckily.

It’s really the best personal travel rewards card out there.  If you sign up through my referral link here, you’ll get me a referral bonus too.  Mahalos!

The Best Travel Sites- Find the Cheapest Flights:

I generally get all my flights for free through credit card signup bonuses, so I’m seldom searching for flight deals.  Check out my post How to Fly for Free.

On the rare occasion that I can’t get where I want to go for free, I’ll check Momondo first. Momondo searches the budget airlines that some of the big search engines do not.   If that doesn’t work for me, I use Kayak.   Also, remember that Southwest Airlines refuses to let those sites sell their tickets, so if Southwest might be an option for you, you’ll have to search their website separately.

The Best Travel Sites – Find the best way to get around:

When I’m renting a car, I check two sites for the best deals, Rentalcars.com and Turo.

Rentalcars.com is the best international rental car booking site.  They are the world’s biggest car rental booking service, with local rental companies in 167 countries, and over 50,000 locations.  They generally match or beat any other booking engine’s prices.

If I’m not happy with the price of rental cars in a given city, maybe due to a shortage of cars, or high taxes, I’ll check out what is available on Turo.  Turo is sort of the AirBnB of cars.  People rent out their own personal cars.  I’ve had only good experiences with it so far.  One of the best was when I really needed a pickup truck to haul lumber to my cabin in Maine.  Rental car companies wanted $89 a day. I found a guy on Turo who rented me his truck for $30 a day!  

If I’m not renting a car, like in a big city where parking is outrageous, or in a developing country, where I don’t feel comfortable behind the wheel, my #1 go-to choice is Uber.  Uber is cheaper than taxis.  You don’t need cash or credit cards, just your phone.  It’s especially useful in developing countries where there might be a language barrier to explain where you want to go, or a hassle factor in getting ripped off by taxi drivers.  I have recently used Uber successfully in such places as Kenya, South Africa, Belarus and Ukraine.   If you’ve never used Uber, sign up for an account here, and you’ll get $5 off your first ride, and I’ll get $5 credit too.  Thanks!

The Best Travel Sites – Find the Best Deals on Hotel, Hostel, Apartment, and Home Rentals:

I use two sites when I am searching for lodging, Booking.com and AirBnB.

Booking.com is the best place to search for hotels and hostels.  This is the best site to find the cheapest deals, no matter where on Earth you are going.  There is no reason to use any other search site. Booking.com is by far the biggest, and it’s getting bigger and acquiring more companies each year.   You can find everything from thousand dollar Paris suites, to $10 a night guesthouses in Asia.  One great feature is that many of the properties offer free cancellation within a certain window.  If you are staying in popular destination, you can book a room way ahead of your trip, and then cancel later if plans change.

I also always check AirBnB to search for private home and apartment rentals.  I find myself choosing AirBnB’s over hotels more and more each year.  They are especially convenient when traveling with my family and needing 4 beds and more space then a hotel room.  AirBnB’s also seem to be proliferating in cities where hotels rooms are unreasonably expensive.   In a place like Iceland, tourism has exploded, and they can’t build new hotels fast enough.  But people are entrepreneurial, and AirBnB’s have filled the gaps.  Just be aware that not all AirBnB’s are created equal, so there are specific steps you should take to get the smoothest experience possible.  If you’ve never used it before, sign up for Airbnb here, and you’ll get $40 off your first stay, and I’ll get $20 too.  Everybody wins!

Pro Tip:  The reviews on Booking.com and AirBnB are all REAL reviews, by actual people who stayed at the property.  You can trust them.  TripAdvisor reviews are increasingly fabricated both positively and negatively by property owners…  And don’t even get me started on the corrupt business practices of Yelp.

The Best Travel Sites – Find the Best Tour Deals:

I only use one site when looking for tours in a new city: GetYourGuide

GetYourGuide is the best source to find tours at the best prices wherever you are going.  They are a tour consolidator, so they provide a one-stop-shop for booking with local tour companies.  You can read real reviews (not faked like on Tripadvisor) by people who actually purchased the tour. The tour prices are always the same lowest price, just as if you booked directly with the local tour company.  And you can cancel any tour more than 24 hours ahead of time for a full refund.  

I am mostly an independent traveler, and not interested in multi-day group bus tours, but I do love guided city walking tours, bike tours, and pub crawls. GetYourGuide is where I go to book those for every trip.

 Get the Best Travel Guidebooks:

My favorite travel guide depends on the destination. 

For most of Europe, I go with Rick Steves.  I really like the way he plans out an itinerary based on the number of days you have.  He cuts through the crap, and gives you honest opinions on what is worth seeing, and what is skip-able.  Rick has been doing the travel gig for over 40 years now, but he’s still got it.

For many of the off-the-beaten-path locations like Africa and parts of Asia, you can’t beat Bradt Guides.  They are really well researched, and cover history and culture extensively.  Bradt takes on countries where no one else is even attempting guidebooks.  They could just mail it in, and still make sales as the only game in town, but instead they put out an in-depth quality product.

If neither Rick Steves or a Bradt Guide are available for my travel destination, I choose Rough Guides.  They have great maps, are up-to-date, and are enjoyable to read.  Their guides seem to run about 50% larger than Lonely Planet for any given destination.  They put a lot of info and hard work into every guide, and I’m always happy to tear into one before my trip.

My 4th choice for a guidebook is Lonely Planet.  Their content has gone downhill for years, it’s thin, often out-of-date, and their maps are terrible.  Nevertheless, they make a guidebook for almost every country, so they are sometimes the only option.  The quality varies massively between destinations.  Some guides are very good.  Some are just recycled bad info from the previous edition 5 years ago.  

I never buy any of the other guides like Fodors, Frommers, Insight Guides, DK Eyewitness, or Lets Go.  Fodors and Frommers seem to be written for 70 year olds.  Insight and DK are just glossy picture books with not enough real information.  I’m actually not sure if Let’s Go even exists anymore?  They were huge in 1990.

 Get the Best International Phone Plan:

Google Fi has the best international phone plan. 

Google Fi is so incredibly convenient, every frequent international traveler should switch to it.  It allows you to use your same data plan, at the same domestic usage price,  in 164 countries! 

It offers two plans;  With UNLIMITED you get unlimited data use, in 164 countries, as well as unlimited voice and texting for just $70 a month plus taxes. After 22GB of data use, your data is slowed, but who uses 22GB a month??  You also get Google One membership with 100GB of storage in the cloud.   

With the FLEXIBLE plan, you pay $20 a month plus taxes, and $10 per GB of data used, with data above 6GB FREE.  Basically, if you go over 6GB a month, your bill is $80 plus taxes, and you would have been better off choosing UNLIMITED.  For people who are always under 6GB a month FLEXIBLE is the right option.

With both plans, you CAN also use your phone as a hotspot tether.  There is NO contract, you can cancel at the end of every month.    When traveling, you get data at whatever the top speed the local cell towers can offer, which is always at least 3G, and usually 4G/LTE.  International voice calling rates are reasonable too, usually not more than 21 cents a minute, and free over wi-fi.

I was with AT&T for years, but their international plan is massively overpriced, so I switched to T-Mobile.  I had heard T-Mobile had “free” data in 200 countries.  Well, that’s technically true, but its 2G data.  Does anyone even know what 2G is anymore?  Well, let me tell you, it’s like using that AOL dial-up CD your dad got in the mail in 1993.  Not much fun.  I spent 20 minutes trying to upload one picture to Facebook in Belize.  This year I switched to Fi, and it has made traveling sooo much easier.  I used to have to scramble to buy a new SIM card in the airport of every new country.  Now I just use my phone normally.

If you sign up through my referral HERE, you’ll get $20 off your first bill, and I’ll get $20 off my next bill. Whoo-hoo! Everybody wins!

The Best Travel Sites – Get the Best Travel Insurance

I only use one company for my travel insurance; World Nomads

Travel Insurance is a must for every trip.  You wouldn’t go without health insurance in America and risk a six-figure emergency room visit would you?  Likewise, you don’t want to be hurt or sick or robbed abroad, with no help available. World Nomads provides comprehensive insurance, at reasonable rates, with excellent customer service, and a sparkling reputation in the travel community.  

For example; in 2017 my wife and I spent three weeks in Africa, including a risky activity of climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro.  We were able to get an extremely comprehensive policy that covered just about every possible disaster, even emergency evacuation costing $500,000, for just $7.66 per person per day.  It’s well worth it.

Recap of The Best Travel Sites I use:

Credit Card: Chase Sapphire Preferred VISA.

Flights:  Momondo and Kayak

Ground Transport:  Rentalcars.com  or Turo and Uber

Lodging:  Booking.com and AirBnB

Tours: GetYourGuide

Guidebooks:  Start with Rick Steves

International Phone Service: Google Fi

Travel Insurance: World Nomads

THANKS FOR READING

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