I’m heading to Southeast Asia in February and starting to think about all the fun things I can do on this trip which will include Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand and a brief rock climbing adventure in Laos. I’ve already lined up a few peer to peer activities, and I have a growing list to research and book while I’m there. My travel style doesn’t involve planning many things in advance, but I like to do some advanced research so that I know where to find good options once I’ve reached a destination.
While sharing economy travel services are far more plentiful in Europe, Southeast Asia has a surprising number of options. Most are focused on the region but a few operate globally and have some good offerings in SE Asia. Here’s my list of companies to explore. Details on these and many more around the world can be found on my spreadsheet of Peer to peer travel websites. The category headings below correspond to categories you can filter on in that spreadsheet.
Food
- Traveling Spoon – meal experiences in Asia
- Plate Culture – meals in Asia and Australia
Transportation
- Tripda – ridesharing in Malaysia
Lodging
- BeWelcome – hospitality lodging alternative to couchsurfing
- Travelmob – rental lodging in Asia
- Note, there are plenty of other rental lodging companies that operate globally and have listings in Asia
- Work for lodging – a number of these have active listings in Asia though I won’t be in any one place long enough for this to make sense on my upcoming trip
Travel Experiences
- Withlocals – travel experiences in Asia
- I Like Local – travel experiences in SE Asia
- Localalike – Curated local experiences in Thai villages.
- Boatbay – boat rentals and trips with or without a captain in Asia, Australia and the Middle East
- Vayable – travel experiences around the world
Delivery (aka making money)
- Bistip – delivery focused in SE Asia
- Other crowdsourced shipping companies operating globally including PiggyBee, Friendshippr and Sheaply