What the Numbers Look Like
A food budget is not one number. It is a range, and the range is wider than most people expect.
Start with the low end. In Cambodia, meals run $2 to $4. Dorms run $3 to $6 and private rooms $15 to $25, so the food sits comfortably under the bed. A 3-day pass to Angkor Wat costs $62, which may be your single biggest expense on the whole trip. Kampot, the beaches of Koh Rong and Battambang round out one of the world’s great shoestring circuits. In Nepal, budget-conscious trekkers might plan for NPR 800 to 1,200 per day on food. That converts to roughly $6 to $9. But enforced meal rules on the teahouse routes can push the actual cost to NPR 1,800 to 3,500 per day, about $13 to $26. That gap is $100 to $200 over a typical two-week trek. The rule is the cost. You eat where you sleep, and the price is set for you.
In Spain, the almuerzo or menu del dia is the whole strategy. As of March 2026, set lunches at local restaurants are typically $2 to $5 and include soup, a main course, a drink and often dessert. That is a full midday meal for less than a coffee and a pastry in most US cities.
The Middle of the Range
Portugal sits at $15 to $25 per day. A pastel de nata is $1.50, a lunch menu is $8 to $12, dinner is $10 to $18. Those are restaurant prices, not grocery prices, and they still land inside the daily figure.
One traveller in Kotor spent €62.20, which is about $67, on food over a stretch that included coffee a few times and cocktails in the Old Town twice. The host’s restaurant recommendations did the work. That is the pattern: local knowledge beats a discount.
In Sri Lanka, a local beer typically costs around 1,000 LKR, about $3.30, in a restaurant or bar. In a supermarket it is around half that.
Another traveller averaged a food cost of $8.89 per person, per day, restaurant food included. Some hostels provide breakfast, which changes the arithmetic on any given morning.
The High End
Luxury resorts on the beach and high-end restaurants can be expensive. Budget guesthouses and local warungs are still very affordable. You can easily spend less than the figures above. You can also easily spend 10 times more. Both are true in the same town, sometimes on the same street.
Tours follow the same split. A half-day group cruise starts around $50. A full-day or overnight cruise with meals and kayaking runs $100 to $150.
What Actually Moves the Total
Cooking 50% of meals saves roughly $30 to $50 per day per person. On a 7-day trip that is $210 to $350. For real.
A monthly figure from one long-stay traveller: 1,400 CAD, or $1,050, per month on food, a mix of groceries and eating out, with drinks taken at meals counted in the same category.
Watch the tax. Many tourists do not know that restaurants add a Goods and Services Tax of 5% to 12% on top of the menu price. A $10 dish can be $11.20 before you tip. Factor it into the total, not after.
The spread across these destinations is roughly $3 a day in Cambodia to $25 a day in Portugal, with Nepal’s trekking routes capable of doubling their own estimate once you are on the trail. Pick your country, then pick your meals, then add the tax.
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