MALAYSIA TRAVEL GUIDE! EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW BEFORE VISITING MALAYSIA! 🇲🇾

foreign [Music] if you're thinking about visiting  this underrated concert in Southeast Asia you're in the right spot we spend 30 days  traveling throughout this amazing concert and in this video we're going to share everything  you need to know before you visit mileage [Music] there are no special Visa or entry requirements  for houses a us or Venezuelan passport holder as a Venezuela was allowed to stay 30 days if you have  a us or EU passport you're allowed to stay up to 90 days just know tha

t you do need proof of onward  travel which means a ticket out of the country within the time frame they did ask for that ticket  when we were leaving the US so remember that [Music] we'll talk about are what type of plugs  are used in Malaysia and they use the same ones that are used in the UK so not the same as  the U.S or Western Europe so we travel with a universal adapter and it has been a lifesaver  and this is the one that we've been using since we started traveling when it comes to SIM c

ards  and used in your phone we have a data plan with T-Mobile and it gave us free data throughout our  entire State and it was pretty decent right yeah but we did buy a SIM card once and we paid about  four dollars U.S for unlimited data for one week exactly one week and the reason we use that  is because we went live for the first time on YouTube and we wanted a stronger connection  with our GoPro and our phone so we had to have a data plan yeah and they do sell these SIM cards  everywhere and

they are pretty affordable when it comes to using the internet here in Malaysia  the Wi-Fi speeds have been great and that has been true for peninsula Malaysia and also in  Borneo the only place that wasn't very good was in mabul the tiny remote Little Island there  was basically no Wi-Fi on that island that's pretty normal so we had no issues uploading videos  and also no issues face timing with our families this is a question that we get in every single  country that we visit and we are happy

to report that no you do not get overcharged as a tourist  here in Malaysia and that was the best because we went to a million night markets and a bunch of  other places that didn't have prices displayed and no one seemed to have an interest  in overcharging US everyone seems super honest and always gave us fair prices  so that is always a great feeling as a tourist yeah exactly but there are some I  guess attractions where there are Malaysian local and Foreigner prices but it's always very  tr

ansparent so it's not like a hustle it's just like Legends pay one thing and another thing  which is a great practice in our opinion and it's always yeah clear and yeah that was  very nice very honest people in Malaysia the reason why this is a relevant question and  we wanted to include it in the video is because Malaysia is a Muslim country so about 60 of the  population here in Malaysia is Muslim so they are conservative they dress super conservatively  there are no rules that tell you what t

o wear and honestly no one seemed to care I'm usually  not careful with like covering my shoulders because it's like really hot here but I was  super careful with the length of mascara than I wear a lot of pants so just keep that in  mind yeah and also if you visit religious sites you will be required to cover up and  that's true for men and women so like when you go into a mosque the men will get robes and  sometimes a little hat yeah you definitely yeah I had to cover my hair but this is also

like  a common practice in a lot of other countries and last but not least we're going to talk about  covid so nearly three years after the start of the pandemic we're still talking about coven the  good news is to enter Malaysia there are no Kobe requirements you don't have to show a negative  Kobe test nor do you have to show proof of vaccination but when you're in the country there  is still a common use of something like perhaps that people wear masks like it is required for  public transpor

tation like grab required yeah but it's all really enforced so bring your mask just  in case you need it because yeah a lot of people wear it it just really it seems like it depends  on you yeah but I think in grabs it is very common to use it especially in Peninsula Malaysia in  Borneo it seems a little bit more relaxed yeah it's time for a quick little Malaysia 101 so  in terms of geography there are two parts to Malaysia and this is something that I  actually didn't know before coming here be

fore researching Malaysia there's Peninsular  Malaysia and that's the Malaysia that I guess most people are familiar with that's where Kuala  Lumpur is and some of the other major cities and Singapore's at the bottom Thailand's at the top  but then there's also Malaysian Borneo and that is an island that Malaysia shares with Indonesia  and Brunei so Malaysia has the top third more or less and it's very beautiful and that's where  you have orangutans we spent 30 days traveling throughout Malaysia

15 days in Peninsula or  Malaysia and 15 days in Malaysian Bordeaux and we wanted to make this travel series as  diverse as possible so that's why we went to a couple of big cities we went to the beautiful  lost jungle we explore amazing beaches and we're gonna tell you exactly what we did and I'm gonna  grab the laptop so we don't leave anything out so we started our journey with 10 days in the  capital city of Kuala Lumpur and we decided to stay 10 days because we thought we were going  to be

super jetlagged But the irony is is that we weren't jet-lagged at all after our 50 hour  travel Day from the US but anyway this was the perfect introduction to Malaysia we ate so much  good food had a ton of fun rode a roller coaster indoors it's really a fantastic City then we  rode in style on a business class train from Kuala Lumpur to Penang where we spent five days  in beautiful Georgetown this is Malaysia's second biggest city and we think it is a must visit it is  super cool with all the

street art and also very different Cuisines and a huge Chinese influence  there's Chinese Shop houses and Buddhist temples and the vibe there is just very interesting they  also have a great cocktail bar reason enough to go there from Georgetown we flew to Kota Kinabalu  also known as KK which is the capital city of the state of Sabah located in Malaysian Borneo  and we had a great time in KK we went to some of the nearby Islands put our snorkels on saw the  tropical waters we also took a day t

rip to Mount Kinabalu and kinablu Park which is absolutely  beautiful and it was the first time that I ever drove on the left-hand side of the road which  was kind of terrifying but we survived from Kota Kinabalu we hopped on an eight-hour bus ride to  the famous San the gun and this is one of the most beautiful jungley spots in all of Malaysia we saw  so many orangutans it was so special monkeys we went on Jungle walks in the canopies during the  day and night we saw glow-in-the-dark scorpions

tarantulas I got to pet a frog it was a great  experience and our last stop was the tiny little island of mabul and it was absolute Paradise this  place is very special for snorkelers and divers and we had so much fun going underwater the marine  life is beautiful we saw so many people many turtles it didn't go exactly how we envisioned  or planned our visit yeah but in a way it was the perfect ending and we made videos about our entire  Journey so I'm gonna put the travel series here so you guy

s can check it out anything that you're  interested in like we made videos about basically everything also on unfortunately we missed a lot  of great places as we mentioned earlier we wanted to make the travel series as diverse as possible  so obviously we couldn't go to all the major cities all the major beach towns and islands all  the nature areas however we have shared most of our Malaysia videos already and locals have been  so nice that recommending places that basically we want to come ba

ck to on our second trip to  Malaysia exactly so these places are so Malacca I think is a very popular historic town that we  missed out on also Genting Highlands so that's I think pretty close close to KL and it's kind  of like a Las Vegas scene going on the Cameron Highlands with the tea plantations also the  islands of Langkawi I believe it's called Costa Penang and also the state of Sarawak in Borneo  where you can go into the jungle and hang out with like the former Headhunters tons of cool

spots  yes we have a lot to see when we come back 30 days in Malaysia was not enough and we can't wait  to come back and explore all these places things we really like to pick up a few words in  every country that we visit we think it's a sign of respect to locals to at least show  the effort to try to learn a few words in their language and not assume that everyone  is going to speak English however Malaysia is one of those countries where English is a  default second language so we weren't fo

rced to learn that many words but we did learn a  few and we want to share them with you hello Salam or hello and even assalamu alaikum  is also a fairly common greeting okay thank you darimakasi chicken ayam beef tagging  but this one's a little bit different I think dagging and lembu is technically beef dogging  is just kind of like red meat but sometimes it's also generically used as beef so not  chicken or fish basically yes or pork Tiga yes yes yeah no that's your Malaysian now please no th

ank you I think all of these words travel  tips and basically everything that we're talking about in this video are going to be linked  in a PDF in the description that you put your email you'll get a cute one-page printable  PDF that you can bring with you to Malaysia the currency in Malaysia is the Ringgit  and when we visited in March 2023 one dollar equaled 4.5 Ringgits it's  also a very stable currency so you don't have to worry about a lot of Foreign  Exchange fluctuations during your vaca

tion credit cards are widely accepted even for  smaller transactions but just try to stick with Visa or Mastercard American Express is  usually not a great option unless you're just going to a bigger establishment smaller  places like this won't accept Annex and when it comes to tipping you'll be relieved  to know that tipping is uncommon in Malaysia so you won't be expected to give a tip at  restaurants for taxi drivers or in general for most services like the haircut I got  although I did give

my guy a tip and you look very surprised but you did a great job  that said at some more formal restaurants you might see them add 10 never more to the bill  so there is sometimes tip included but in general the only people that you would tip in  Malaysia Are tour guides and also Hotel staff thank you when you do need cash it's easy to find ATMs  around Malaysia also the withdrawal limits are typically pretty high but we did get notified  of withdrawal fees and transaction fees when withdrawing

cash from the different ATMs  here so we definitely recommend getting this Charles Schwab International debit card  which reimburses you for the international fees so if you can't get it we recommend it if you  are new around here let us quickly introduce ourselves my name is imara and I'm Gordon  and we are ways of the world we're a slow traveling couple and we love to take our time  exploring countries so we can get to know the people the culture the food everything and  we love to share our

adventures with you so far we have done six travel series the  first one was in Turkey then we went to Mexico then Albania Romania Portugal and now  we are in beautiful Malaysia so make sure to subscribe to follow the rest of our adventures  because we have an amazing 2023 plan and sorry for the sweaty intro we're in Borneo we're in  Borneo so we're in the jungle oh we're sweaty thankfully we say this after each travel  series but if our experience Malaysia is a very safe place to visit locals d

id warn  us about back snatchers and pickpockets but we never heard about experience so  all in all Malaysia is super super safe now we're going to talk about how much we  spent during our 30 days here in Malaysia and we're going to cover accommodation  food activities and transportation I have the file here for airbnbs we averaged  39 a night which is our lowest average ever so we were very happy about that and we also  stayed in really nice and comfortable places with a working space some of t

hem had gyms pools  kitchens kitchens very spacious very nice always very clean ironically the more rustic one that  we stated was the most expensive and that one was 73 dollars and it was in mabul but I mean  we were in Paradise a very remote start yeah but other than that like your money goes a long  way right yeah so I think this place right now is 22 dollars in the middle of chaos yes yeah and  it's very nice for food we're comparing grocery stores versus restaurants and we quickly realized 

that eating at home healthy meals was going to be more expensive than eating street food so believe  it or not you probably won't believe it 90 of our meals are home-cooked meals at home very clean  very very healthy so this is how much we spent um in each I guess during the 30 days so in  grocery stores we spent 348 dollars and on restaurants which includes alcohol but we didn't  drink more than once a week it was 389 dollars so this makes an average of 12 dollars a day per  person which I thi

nk it's really good but it can be a lot cheaper if you're only here on vacation  please just enjoy all the street food because it's so cheap it's so delicious we're gonna cover food  later in the video but and one thing to add they also have wet markets where you can buy fruits  and vegetables and meats and it's a lot cheaper yeah Supermarket but we just don't have time to  shop at a wet Market frankly yeah but if you do want to cook for yourself and you have time to  go to a wet Market yeah sav

e a lot more money for transportation this is how much we spent so  we took two buses only in Borneo and one cost ten dollars and the other one was nine dollars  these are prices per person for trains we only took the train once from kl to Penang and we paid  forty dollars per person but that was business class the regular ticket is twenty dollars so you  don't have to spend 40 even though it was worth it and it was awesome we flew once and we paid 131  dollars per person and that included our l

uggage fees but this can be a lot cheaper if you're  only traveling with a small backpack there's a lot of cheap flights connecting different parts of  Malaysia grep which is like uber has been our main form of transportation because it's affordable  it's faster it's very convenient so we have taken 37 rides and the average has been three dollars  which again the train and public transportation in the bigger city especially it's a lot cheaper  but we're always running Against Time and three doll

ars is not bad for an average yes we get some  more expensive trips and for car rentals we only rented a car once and it was 37 a day and we spend  nine dollars in gas yeah so gas is subsidized here in Malaysia Malaysia so it's very important prices  for activities in Malaysia are very reasonable and super cheap if you compare them to the US so a lot  of the religious sites are free but for reference I'm going to give you a few of the things that we  paid for we paid it entrance to a mosque once

and it was two dollars Park entrances range from five  dollars to eleven dollars we took an island boat ride in Kota Kinabalu and it was twenty dollars  per person uh an amusement park where you did the roller coaster was 17 in total we spent 353  dollars in activities but half of this amount is eight Dives four per person each dive was  like twenty two dollars otherwise that amount very affordable diving yes so the activities are  very reasonable yeah the only other thing I can think of is tha

t in sandagan they have a lot  of jungle tours and it was cheaper to book in sandagan than it is online so just wait take your  time okay book there it's more affordable [Music] Malaysian food is so amazing that it's reason  enough to visit this country and there's so many awesome influences to the cuisine here so you have  local Malay Chinese Indian all adding their spices and flavor to the dishes here but in general you  can think of a lot of spiced and spicy slash nutty curries mixed with coc

onut rice also a lot of  dry noodle dishes and also their iconic soups getting around Malaysia by bus is the most  common and also generally the cheapest way to get from place to place we only took two  buses both in Malaysia and Borneo and they weren't the luxury bus experience that you can  get from Kuala Lumpur to Georgetown but it did the job we used the site easybook.com to buy our  bus tickets in advance and we can recommend them also one more important thing to note is  that it is good to

buy your bus tickets in advance especially if you're traveling around  public holidays because tickets do sell out so getting around Malaysia by train is a great  option depending on your route so let me explain south of Kuala Lumpur on Peninsula Malaysia the  train lines kind of split into a v so as long as you're going up the coast on either side of the  peninsula you're probably in okay shape as long as you're going to the major cities but you  can't really crisscross across the peninsula fo

r that you're gonna have to take the bus  also in Malaysian Borneo there's only one passenger train line in the state of Sabah and  it goes from Kota Kinabalu the general area to somewhere more in the center of the island so  not very useful for tourists but anyway we'll put more details on the different train routes  in the PDF that you can find in the description there are a good amount of airports in Malaysia  that make it super easy to move around the country by plane and if you visit in bot

h Peninsula or  Malaysia as well as Malaysian Borneo you will have no choice but to hop on a flight just keep in  mind that you might have a layover in KL depending on your route flights between popular places like  KL and Georgetown are incredibly cheap but also please consider looking into options by train or  bus because they're more environmentally friendly we only rented a car once during our 30 days in  Malaysia and we had a pretty good experience so this beauty behind me cost us only abou

t  30 dollars per day an automatic car great experience all around and also it's good  to note that the petrol here in Malaysia is subsidized so gasoline or petrol only costs  about two dollars per gallon also very nice to know that the driving in Malaysia is not  super aggressive like no one honks on their horn no one's like riding your butt too  much just be very aware of motorcycles on each side because that's a little bit new  and also what was new to me and actually a very first time was th

at they drive on  the left side of the road this was a first also the cars are a bit small any ones we  can't afford the ones we can afford time to go you found that the easiest way to get  around the cities in Malaysia is by using grab which is basically the Malaysia's  version of uber the rides were also pretty affordable between 1.50 and seven dollars to  get around the city and also to some places on the outskirts of certain cities just a  heads up though in Kuala Lumpur sometimes the pickup

times would take up to 20 minutes  and also here in Georgetown they canceled a bunch of times to take us to the airport  because the fares were too low so plan ahead so every time we make one of these everything  you need to know travel guides we always like to include things that we didn't like about  a particular country because no country is perfect but honestly we have to Rack our brains  pretty hard to figure out things we didn't like about Malaysia but one of them is the trash  problem pa

rticularly in the waterways the river systems and beaches and this is a little  bit more evident in Borneo yeah and obviously this is a multi-layered issue that doesn't have  an easy kind of solution like there's education infrastructure the tides from different countries  a ton of things but that's one thing we noticed uh and the second thing is that there's also a  lot of deforestation in Malaysia so there's the palm oil industry which is taken over and they've  taken over it's again a little

bit more evident in Borneo but you can also see it around KL and  Justin yeah Malaysia yeah and that's very sad because they're killing a lot of like habitat  that orangutans live in and monkeys and a lot of local species so yeah so those are the two  things that didn't like about Malaysia [Music] well the time has come and we have to leave  Malaysia we want to thank everyone that we met that we interacted with you guys are so nice  and kind and welcoming and everyone who also watch our videos a

nd left Rex and comments  and everything thank you so so much yeah our channel has grown so much over this period  when we started posting in Malaysia and you guys have been awesome in the comments giving local  recommendations and tips of where to visit and just being very kind and welcoming again  so yeah thank you for all the support we learn so much thanks to you so really thank  you we could not be more grateful and please don't stop following along we have so many  cool Adventures planned

that we can't wait to share with you and also we're gonna totally  come back because we love this country so much and what's next for us later today we are flying  to Sri Lanka that is our next travel series and we're super pumped because we're doing things  a little bit differently it's going to be our biggest adventure ever a little bit crazy a little  bit risky but if not now then when exactly anyways there's a PDF don't forget about that one in the  description so you can download it and you

can find all the great recommendations travel tips  in one clean spot yes free to download enjoy it once again Malaysia thank you thank you for the  special memories you made us feel at home and I want to read this comment that someone left on  our YouTube videos and it says once you touch your feet in Malaysia you are Malaysian welcome  home and I feel like it's true like that's how it feels this place feels like home and it  was so special so thank you so so much and yeah we will see you on a

travel day to wish we  like that in Malaysia see you later we love you kidding for women to Malaysia