I was planning on stealth camping but it seems a tough place in the world to do this while touring..

$5 a night hostels are plentiful in almost all of Asia in larger cities, but what about these second tier cities?

I can't seem to find them on the hostel websites or on Google maps etc..

People say there are guest houses and hotels everywhere, but how cheap are they?

I'm assuming these are all hotels and not hostels?

This is my first tour and am not in any rush so don't want to stress out about having to get up super early and bike all day just to hope to find somewhere to stay for the night..

I also don't want to spend $10+ a night either..

Who here has toured through Malaysia on a budget?

Thoughts?

The Lonely Planet guidebook served me well in Malaysia. Also, the Chinese-run hotels in Malaysia were much nicer than the Malay-run places. (about 25% of the Malaysian population is ethnic Chinese) The Chinese places were cleaner and always had ceiling fans, which I found to be extremely important for a good night's sleep in the hot & humid climate. The price was about the same for Chinese vs. Malay.

$5/nite losmen (the term for bottom rack accomodation here in Indonesia) don't have budget for advertising and PR. You find them when someone on thr road tells you there's a place up the road, or when you stumble upon them. Many are more informal home-stays that have no public sign or presence. You ride up to a place, and ask the local folks.

I have no first hand experience in Malaysia, BUT --> this is what adventure-travel-and-touring is about.

What were you paying on average per night? Was this in small medium or big cities? About how many nights total?

So I can ride into a small or medium sized town and ask them where to find them? Do they run around $5 or what is the average?

$5 stay in Malaysia?
I'm from down south of it in Singapore.

I have never considered such accommodation, but USD$5 is a bit less imo to find much available.
Probably easier to get something at about USD$10-15.

We told him already about what to expect fron $5/nite bilik (room in Malaysian Malay) on the other, earlier thread. He's already come off the idea of wild camping, so I guess we are making some progress...

He's in for a shock in Singapore re. prices and costs.

Yes...there's only so much previous planning you can do. you need to go with the flow a little. Germanic precision or Japanese predictability can be quite thin on the ground here...

Ok.. I looked at that other thread now and I think saddlesores picts should give the OP a really good idea of what $5 accommodation is like.

I too have stayed on one of those "cheap" accommodations and it looked/smelled/reminded me more of a chicken coop than accommodation.

Almost a decade later, my wife and I still talk about losmen Friendship on the eastern tip of Sumbawa island in Indonesia, just outside the port where ships to Flores island dock. The room came decorated with a toad in the 'in-suite bathroom' (bucket shower, squat toilet), a single 20-watt transparent incandescent lightbulb and a humongous arachnid on the chicken wire window netting. We paid Rp.50,000 that night, about $5.50 at the exhange rate then.

On the same trip we paid the same Rp.50,000/nite for a ramshackle bambo lean-to on the beach in Sumba island. Ferocious mosquitos at night, but oh, what a beach! The Maldives had nothing on this bit of paradise...

I plan to do both and want to have all my bases covered.

$10 a night in Singapore already found a few places..

I don't doubt that they exist ($10/nite in Singapore). That's not the issue. I lived in SG for a year plus, including a short stint in the north-central HDB heartlands. I've seen tenement-like rooms around Desker Road and Geylang. It's just not my idea of fun. YMMV, of course. Lots of foreign construction workers and sex workers in SG who save every little penny of their salary so they can send money back home. There bottom-rung lodging in Sg, no question about that...

Agree with this.

To OP, ultimately, you get what you pay for.

The standard of living in Singapore is high, but a $10 accommodation falls to the outlier of normal standards of living here.
Not that you won't find a good deal, just be prepared that it may not be.

I'm not going to dissuade you any further on this.
Just be prepared to adjust your plans accordingly to the situation and it should be fine.

It's a $20 a night place near the downtown area but you get 50% of if you're a bicycle tourer. We'll see.

i've stayed at tree-in-lodge a few times.
clean and comfortable, prolly the best $20 hostel
you'll find.

as for malaysia, just search the crazyguy site.
lotsa cycle tour logs with all the information
you could need.

I think it's actually 50% off of the advertised price of $20, so $10 a night?

Thanks been going through the guides for the past few days.

is that you, evelyn wood?
amazing! all 13,415 journals in crazyguy!
(including 8,334 journal pages referencing malaysia!)

Meant to say have been going through them.

if you stay in a hostel, wear a shower cap to bed, to help prevent getting head lice