Budget in Kuala Lumpur
Part of the Kuala Lumpur travel guide — see every topic in All Kuala Lumpur Guides.
Kuala Lumpur delivers a great deal for very little. Hawker meals are 8–15 ringgit, the rail network charges 2–5 a journey, a cross-city Grab is under 25, and a genuinely good hotel room is 200–400. A backpacker lives well on 100–150 ringgit a day and a comfortable trip with a mid-range hotel, taxis and restaurant meals runs 350–600. The one thing that is expensive is alcohol, which carries heavy excise duty and can double an evening's spend without much to show for it.
Accommodation and food
A hostel dorm is 40–70 ringgit, a private room in a budget hotel 90–150, a good four-star 200–400, and an international five-star 400–900. Food: a hawker plate 8–15, a mamak meal with a drink under 15, banana-leaf rice 12–20, a mall food court 15–25, and a mid-range restaurant main 35–70. A tasting menu at a top kitchen is 400–800. Eating exclusively at hawker stalls and kopitiams — which is what most people here do — costs 30–50 ringgit for a full day.
Transport
Rail journeys are 2–5 ringgit with a Touch 'n Go card, and the GOKL city buses are free. A cross-city Grab is 10–25 ringgit. From the airport: KLIA Ekspres is around 55 ringgit and twenty-eight minutes; the bus is 12–15 and about an hour; a Grab is 80–120. Intercity travel is cheap — a bus to Malacca is around 15 ringgit and to Penang 40–60, and the ETS train to Ipoh or Butterworth is comfortable and reasonably priced. A car with driver for a day trip is 400–600.
Attractions and drinks
Museums are 5–25 ringgit and several are free, including the excellent Ilham Gallery and the National Art Gallery. The Petronas skybridge and Merdeka 118 decks are the significant paid attractions and both are meaningfully expensive by local standards. Batu Caves, KL Forest Eco Park and the parks are free. Drinks are the outlier: a beer is 20–35 ringgit in a bar and 10–15 in a shop, a cocktail 45–80. This is excise duty rather than markup, and it is why locals drink less and eat more.
Saving without effort
Eat at hawker centres and kopitiams, which is where the best food is anyway. Use the rail and the free GOKL buses. Take the airport bus rather than the express if you are not in a hurry. Visit the free museums and galleries. Choose one observation deck rather than three. Drink at a hawker centre or a Chinatown bar rather than a rooftop, or accept the rooftop as a one-off. Malls have excellent air conditioning and cost nothing to walk through, which is a genuine budget tactic in this climate.
Budget at a glance
| Backpacker day | RM 100–150 |
|---|---|
| Comfortable day | RM 350–600 |
| Hawker plate | RM 8–15 |
| Rail journey | RM 2–5; GOKL city buses free |
| Cross-city Grab | RM 10–25 |
| The expensive thing | Alcohol — beer RM 20–35 in a bar |