Cost of Living in Kuala Lumpur. Prices Updated Dec 2020.

"Ни разу не упасть — не самая большая заслуга в жизни. Главное каждый раз подниматься." Нельсон Мандела

I spent last month in KL and it was ok – Bukit Bintang area. 26. Jan > 01. Mar.

I also came from Thailand like @Riennn , oh man what a depression hit me when I entered a room in a thing they call 3 star hotel. My God!


Be sure to always check room size!


I spent 2 days looking for another suitable hotel, as from what I could see it was difficult for me to find decent place up to 30$ US/day.


Either the room is to small or there is no window.

Second thing about hotels – cleanness could be issue, I have read trough dosens of comments while I was looking for another place to stay, and I did it for same hotel on couple of websites: booking, agoda and hotels. Lots of people complaining about that.


Most of the Hotels look very poor from outside and I just got a feel that they don’t care about it.


So take a good look of what you get if you are booking hotel – daily housekeeping!


I was in 2 hotels, they don’t clean room unless you ask, I don’t know is it just me but have that in mind.

After finding suitable place to stay the other part

What I found as a good thing about KL is that when you walk into any coffee shop, there is always at least 2-3 people with laptops working something. Meaning you can sit in any of these places couple of hours without any problem and do your work.

I used prepaid Maxis (Hotlink) 4G with 2+2Gb data plan for 36RM/Month then I just buy addons of 1,5Gb for 12RM when I spend that (I spend ~ 10-12Gb/month). Download app.


Wifi in Starbucks did not satisfy my need for speed, and other coffee shops when there is lots of people with laptops can get overcrowded so it’s always good to be independent.

The weather was so-so, sunny with showers, sometimes to hot when there is to much clouds, but you can always hide in air conditioned space or mall, there are lots of mall’s there.

To go out, Changkat is a street where you can find bars, usually they have happy hour after 10pm. While bars in malls have happy hours until 8pm.


Eg. Guinness pint ~ 20RM, or when non-happpy hour then ~ 30RM.


Coke is cheap ~ 5RM, Caffe Latte in SB ~ 13RM.


Always check small letters to see if prices are subject to service 10% and GST 6%.

Zouk is a popular night club, entrence 45RM+ (depending on program) before midnight including a drink, and they don’t allow short pants.

There are couple of coworking places, but I didn’t visit them, I just kind of like more to spend same money in a nice coffee shop, and then change couple of them trough days.

For a travel guide about what to do/see etc, I checked: http://www.kuala-lumpur.ws


There is lots of things to explore.


I did go to see both towers, Petronas and KL Tower, I don’t know… I always climb these things even the ticket is expensive. I did KL during day and Petronas night, for Petronas you need to buy ticket day in advanced and you can do it online.


Petrosains is a must see, I really liked and recommend that. Just a tip, maybe it would be good to avoid weekend and try to get there in a time when there will not be to many children or adolescents, you can spend hours there.

Food is good, I had no problem with that. Usually regarding the food/bars I check 4sq/tripadvisor app.


They don’t have pork that much because it’s a muslim country so if you want to eat pork, then google for pork

Overall experience was very good for me, it’s a nice city, very good connected to everywhere around. You can find everything you need there, just take a good look when/if you book a hotel.


I just missed DN meetup in KL, as usual I saw it on twitter the other day, darn!

I’ve been through KL a few times and get the impression that there isn’t much choice in mid-range hotels. It’s either budget guesthouses or luxury hotels. I’m going back next week and have an Airbnb, $AUD50 for the week for a studio with a decent sized balcony + all the usual facilities like gym, pool.

I guess it depends on whether you need the daily housekeeping or not.

I spent three months living and working out of Penang (the second largest city in Malaysia). I did a little write up on Medium with all the keys infos about Penang. It’s in my view the much better alternative to KL, especially since they’ve opened a new co-working space there. https://medium.com/@AlexLielacher/penang-a-new-hub-for-digital-nomads-7404907faacf#.ku3l4vng4



"Когда ты родился, ты плакал, а мир улыбался. Так проживи жизнь так, чтобы умирая, ты улыбался, а мир плакал… Тупак Шакур"

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