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3 Countries, 3 Days, 1 rule. NO Hotels & Restaurants. ONLY Priority Pass Airport Lounges.

Some people will love this, some people will think I’m an idiot. Kinda like my life to be honest. The idea is simple. Three countries, three days, three guys with one rule. I’m not allowed to stay in any hotels and I’m not allowed to buy food in any restaurants. How should we do this?

Basically, I was going to use my Priority Pass lounge pass (sign up HERE if you wanna copy me!), take cheap flights between Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, and back to Thailand. Every evening use the lounges in each airport to sleep and eat and drink and even go to the gym. Wake up, and every morning shower and breakfast in lounges and make my way to the next country. That was the gist. How did we get on? Well, it was a big success. This is how I managed the logistics and everything around it.

THE IDEA

The idea behind this crazy schedule was basically that I’m now 42 years old, all my friends are similar ages, and we all are either pushed for time or money or both. So, how can I see my friends, have an adventure that we remember, that doesn’t cost a fortune and doesn’t take weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks? And of course, being me, it has to involve a lot of travel. So what could I come up with?

I’ve been obsessed with airport lounges long before I made serious money from my travel blog and all the rest. About 10 years ago, someone introduced me to Priority Pass. And it basically changed my travel experiences. From dreading airports, I suddenly started finding myself turning up to airports early. Priority Pass, if you don’t know, is basically a membership where you pay a yearly fee, and for that fee, you get access to business class lounges in almost every airport in the world.

And normally, during my journey to every country in the world, I was flying economy because I was flying all the time. Even economy costs a fortune when you fly so often. So with all those economy flights, I got to check into all these business class lounges around the world, literally hundreds of them. Maybe even a thousand, I don’t know, but it’s a lot. That allowed me to shower. It allowed me a place to work, of course, because I work from my laptop as I travel the world. And being Irish, it allowed me to sink a few beers or glasses of wine before long-haul economy flights to help me sleep. It’s been a game-changer for me.

THE LOGISTICS

So you understand the idea. Now, I had to plan the logistics, which involved number 1 – flights. And number 2 – lounge access, and number 3 timetables.

Timetable

The timetable was the easiest thing to manage, as due to work/family/financial commitments we only had 3 days to work with. So it looks like this;

• DAY 0: Meet in Bangkok, sleep in a dingy super cheap hotel ($15!). This doesn’t really count as a day as the trip didn’t really start until tomorrow morning.
• DAY 1: Early flight from Bangkok, Thailand to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Sightsee all day in Malaysia. After sunset head back to Kuala Lumpur airport and use lounges for gym/dinner/drinks/sleep.
• DAY 2: Wake up in the lounge, use more lounges for showers and breakfast. Take a morning flight from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Singapore. Spend all day sightseeing in Singapore. After sunset, head back to Singapore airport to eat/drink/sleep at Changi Airport (officially the best airport in the world).
• DAY 3: Wake up in Singapore airport. Shower and brekkie at another lounge. Fly back to Thailand by lunch time!

The flights

Simple. I’d start in Bangkok, where I’d meet Selim and Josh, my mates who would be doing this stupid thing with me. From there we’d fly Bangkok to Malaysia, Malaysia to Singapore on the cheapest flights possible. This is what I found:

• Bangkok to Malaysia: DMK-KUL, Air Asia, FD 311, 07:05-10:15. $56.
• Malaysia to Singapore: KUL-SIN, AK701, AirAsia, 06.05-7.15. $22
• Singapore back to Thailand: SIN-DMK/BKK/CNX. Depending on where Josh, Selim or I were going there are lots of flights direct from Singapore back to Thailand. SIN-DMK(Bangkok) is cheapest at $74. I flew back further to Chiang Mai though, for $124.
• TOTAL COST OF CHEAPEST FLIGHTS: $56+$22+$74 = $151USD / £109

The lounges I planned on using

Oppph this took some planning! Here’s what I had planned for us to use. Remember, I can only use lounges that I have access to through my Priority Pass.

The actual reality was pretty close to this in practice, but not quite the same. For a blow-by-blow usage of them, check the section below about the trip itself.

BANGKOK:

In Don Mueng Airport I had 2 options. I know the airport well, and there right opposite each other. I planned to use them both on the morning of Day 1.

• 1. Coral Lounge
• 2. Miracle Lounge

KUALA LUMPUR:

Kuala Lumpur KUL airport is perhaps the BEST priority pass airport in the world. I kinda already knew that, but after this expedition, I know believe it with all my heart! Gyms, capsule hotels, cocktails, landside lounges, showers, it’s immense.

• 3. Sky Suite Lounge (on arrival in KUL)
• 4. Capsule Transit Max (after sight seeing in Kuala Lumpur all day). They have a gym!
• 5. Plaza Premium Lounge (after the gym)
• 6. Capsule Transit Landside (3 hour sleep in a pod)
• 7. Capsule Transit Airside (3 hour sleep in a pod)
• 8. Travel Club Lounge (after waking up, brekkie and shower)

SINGAPORE:

• 9. Changi Lounge (an ARRIVAL lounge. No onward flight needed. Early lunch in Singapore)
• 10. Plaza Premium Lounge (drinks after sightseeing all day)
• 11. SATS Premier Lounge (shower, more drinks).
• 12. Marhaba Lounge (breakfast before flying back home to Thailand).

THE TRIP ITSELF

DAY 1: Thailand to Malaysia, Sightseeing in Kuala Lumpur, 7 LOUNGES USED!

It was time! All the lounge and flight spreadsheets were done and dusted and I found myself in Bangkok with Selim and Josh. I booked us at the ‘B Your Home Hotel Donmueang’ for $15 (!) on Day 0. Just a 15 minute WALK from the airport. Sounds great, but it was crap for the record, I wouldn’t recommend it (at least it was cheap!). But we had a flight from Bangkok to Kuala Lumpur at 7am. So that meant a 03:30 wake up.

DAY 1 MORNING

So the alarm came at 3:30, we jumped in a five-minute taxi from the Bangkok airport hotel and pulled into DMK airport around 4:30 a.m. The lounges are 24 hours in DMK airport, but the full buffet breakfast that I was expecting didn’t open until 5 a.m. And I’m not sure whether that was a blessing or a curse, because the upstairs is open all night waiting for the full buffet to open at 5. So we went to sit down to have a coffee in the Coral lounge, and just beside where I was going to sit was a lovely American guy drinking a cocktail. And I said to him “is that an espresso martini?”” And he said, “yeah, I was going to order a coffee, but I saw that these guys make these”.

Instantly Josh, right behind me, instantly has ordered two of them. And so we found ourselves drinking espresso martinis at 4:55 a.m. I had planned to visit both Coral Lounge and Miracle lounge in DMK airport but one round became two rounds of martinis, so we stayed put in the Coral!

Then the full buffet opened downstairs. We went down, I had a delicious pad thai, and we went to the gate to board our flight to Kuala Lumpur.

The flight is only about 90 minutes. So we arrived into Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (with the 1 hour time difference) around 10am.

By the time we filled in our Malaysian arrival forms, which I had obviously done wrong and got sent back, and orientated ourselves around the KUL airport, it was probably around 11 a.m. we checked in to the Sky Suite lounge’, which I’m pretty sure you can use as an arrival lounge with your boarding card that you’ve just used.

However, we were obviously flying to Singapore the next morning, like 22 hours later, so we also had the boarding card for that.

DAY 1 AFTERNOON

The SkySuite lounge was absolutely gorgeous, super luxury, big TVs, full bar, places you could sleep, actually, too. But for us, after the espresso martinis in the early start, it was coffees, fruit juice, and we used that lounge to organize our eSIMs and to plan our sightseeing itinerary for the day in Kuala Lumpur.

KL is an amazing city, really one of the coolest cities in the world, in my opinion. I have a soft spot here because I studied my master’s degree, or at least half of it before I dropped out, here at the Nottingham University campus in Malaysia. And then five years later, I lived here again while my wife got transferred to work here. She used to be a flight attendant for AirAsia, and she ended up working in Kuala Lumpur for a year. So it holds a soft spot in my heart. I was excited to show both Josh and Salim around, although I don’t know it that well.

When it comes to sightseeing in Kuala Lumpur, there’s two main sites that are absolute icons of the city and the country. And that is the Batu Caves just outside the city, which is a huge Hindu gold temple and a set of stairs that go up to the cave with wild monkeys running around the place. It’s really beautiful, actually.

And then, of course, the Petronas Towers, which used to be the tallest buildings in the world and must be amongst the most beautiful buildings in the world. Actually, my favorite buildings in the world. So we would go and get some photos of those and maybe even grab a coffee in the mall below that to actually go inside the towers and have some coffee.

From there we just had plans to take our own self-guided walking tour around Kuala Lumpur. And with that, we ended up doing over 20,000 steps, which was great exercise. And also, remember the ethos behind the trip was for me to hang out with Josh and Salim on a kind of bro’s weekend. And I got to do that by walking around with them. So I absolutely loved it.

Then the secret plan after that, although my rules were no hotels and no restaurants, I did have a plan for a sunset cocktail overlooking the Twin Towers. Originally, I went to the W because it’s the best sky bar with views and it turned out it was a private function, so that was a wasted journey. Then we went to Martini’s and we were all wearing shorts, so we got rejected. And in the end, we went to the Lexus suite and they let us in. And it must have been fate because Guinness was on happy hour. So I bought a couple of rounds of Guinness for the boys and we watched the sunset on the majestic Twin Towers. And that was our sightseeing in Kuala Lumpur done. Epic day.

DAY 1 EVENING:

As soon as the sun set, I head back to KL airport. The beautiful thing about KL airport is that it is probably the best Priority Pass lounge airport in the world. Why? Because it has landside lounges as well as airside lounges. That means you don’t have to go through security or anything to get access to the lounge. Pretty crazy, to be honest, but there you go. So we got back to KL airport, and the first place I went to was the Capsule Transit Max lounge. I had been very excited when I was planning the logistics of this crazy trip, because that lounge has a gym and a steam room, and then after you use those, of course, showers, then local Malaysian food and cocktails made by a barista, all for free, all with my Priority Pass lounge access. So we did a proper workout, 45 minutes, then steam room 15 minutes, then shower, food, cocktails. Unreal.

From there, we had planned actually to go straight to the landside capsule hotel for a three-hour sleep, but after the Guinness and the cocktails, Josh was keen for one more drink, and using the Priority Pass app, he saw that there was another landside lounge right beside our gym lounge called the Plaza Premium Lounge, so we walked 50 meters, checked in, had one extra beer there.

From there then we headed down to the landside Capsule Hotel. That’s on a first-come, first-served basis, but it’s huge, so we had no problem getting all three of us checked in there. We got our three hours booked that the Priority Pass allows, but we set our alarms to leave earlier than that so we could wake up from that Capsule Hotel, go through immigration and security in anticipation of our flight from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore, but then also, there’s another Capsule Hotel airside after security and immigration where we had another three hours in another Capsule Hotel booked. And once we checked in there, we got another full three-hour sleep in that Capsule Hotel. Perfect plan.

DAY 2 MORNING:

I had booked us the 6 a.m. flight from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore, so we woke up from the capsule hotel around 4 a.m., 4:30. From there, we visited one more lounge in KUL airport. That was the Travel Club Lounge. There you could have a shower and breakfast, but I had actually had a shower in the capsule hotel lounge, so just breakfast for me.

No alcohol this time, thank God, and Josh was nowhere to be seen. He was in a zombie mode after waking up half asleep from the capsule hotel. So healthy breakfast, coffee, and we were ready to board our flight to Singapore.

Singapore is one of the most expensive cities in the world, so attempting this lounge adventure in Singapore is a great choice, saving $200 in some average hotels in city centre, and of course drinks are $20 a pop, so the free flow booze helps and as does the food.

Also, in Changi Airport, they have an arrival lounge called the Changi Lounge, and you don’t need normal boarding pass for that, really amazing. So once we landed in Singapore Airport, we went straight to the Jewel, which is home to that famous waterfall within Singapore’s airport, and right across from that is both luggage storage where we dropped our bags for our day of sightseeing in Singapore, but also the Changi Lounge, where we had proper delicious breakfast, showers, and also sleep pods, although they’re only available for a small fee.

So we used the arrival lounge to get some rest and eat and get fresh and plan our day sightseeing in Singapore.

DAY 2 AFTERNOON:

Singapore is famously small, so getting into the city is easy, and from there, as long as you’re willing to sweat a little bit, you can do most of it by foot. We got dropped in Chinatown, which I think is the coolest place as a tourist in Singapore. We wandered around all the little Chinatown streets, that old-school colonial architecture meets Southeast Asia. Beautiful. Some ancient temples, both Hindu and Chinese. And it was great for Saleem and Josh to experience that for the first time. Also for me, I hadn’t been here for 10 years, so we had a great time wandering around, getting lost.

I also wanted to meet some good friends, Owen and Amanda, who both live in Singapore. Owen ended up meeting us just down by the Merlion, opposite the Marina Bay Sands Hotel, and we wandered around there together. Got the most expensive Starbucks in my life. Spent 40 bucks or something for four coffees for the boys!

We just wandered around the beautiful skyline of Singapore, where old meets new. I actually had a little side quest. I went and bought a new Oura ring from Harvey Norman’s there, and after that we walked all the way from there to Marina Bay Sands Gardens by the Bay, which are those famous upside-down trees inspired by the Socotra dragon blood trees. To be honest, to visit that part it’s more beautiful at night, but we had plans for cocktails overlooking Singapore’s skyline with Amanda by night, so we had to do it in the daytime. That’s better than nothing. And it was a wonderful day in Singapore for everyone.

DAY 2 EVENING:

Amanda’s a very good friend of ours, and if there’s one girl who would know the best spots to go drinking in Singapore, it’s her. She’s always up for a good time, so she brought us to a rooftop bar overlooking Marina Bay Sands, and we spent an hour or two up there sinking a few cocktails and reminiscing about old times, Amanda, Josh, Celine, and myself. Great to see her, and there’s no better vantage point to catch up on old stories than looking over the marina bay at night. Absolutely gorgeous.

And from there we head back to Changi Airport.

DAY 3 MORNING:

Sadly, Singapore Airport doesn’t have any sleep pods or capsule hotels the way Kuala Lumpur Airport did that are available through Priority Pass, but they do have some great lounges (and they have ‘almost’ lay flat rest areas in each Terminal too!).

We went to the Plaza Premium Lounge, Josh, Selim, and myself, where they have showers and really good food and some great booze options, and we spent two or three hours there.

We didn’t get to the airport because of the drinking with Amanda until around midnight. So we spent midnight until about 3am there. Big comfy chairs. So we had a nap there. Actually, we had planned to go to another lounge that morning after we woke up, but because the chairs were so comfortable in the Plaza Premium Lounge, we ended up not doing that.

The original plan had been to go to the SATS lounge for showers and breakfast, but Josh had disappeared for an earlier flight, so it’s lame, and then I was off flying to Chiang Mai.

And with that, we all went our separate directions. 3 days, 3 countries, one rule – no hotels or restaurants. We did it! Knackered but so much fun. And actually 3 countries became 4 and 5 as JOsh flew to Indonesia and Selim home to Turkiye.

Life’s too short to sit on the sofa. We’ll remember this stupid adventure forever. Now though, I needed some proper sleep. And a little detox from the free flow booze!

TOTAL COST OF THE TRIP?

Let’s tally it up. Both the cheapest option, and what I actually spent:

FLIGHTS;

• The 3 flights, as mentioned above, would be $74 if I flew back to Bangkok.
• (I flew back to CNX, so my actual cost was $124)
• PROVISIONAL TOTAL: $74
• MY ACTUAL TOTAL: $124

TRANSPORT:

• Transfer to Bangkok airport ($4). You could walk in 15 mins for free ($0).
• Kuala Lumpur Airport to Batu Caves ($23), Batu Caves to Petronas Towers ($5), Petronas Towers back to Airport ($21). You can do this by bus/train for peanuts for $4.
• Singapore airport to China Town ($19). Transfer back to Airport ($29). You can do this by bus/train for $2 each way!.
• PROVISIONAL TOTAL ON TRANSPORT: $20 via public transport
• MY ACTUAL TOTAL ON TRANSPORT: $101 because I used taxis

SIGHT-SEEING + ACTIVITIES:

• MALAYSIA: Batu Caves (free). Petronas Towers (free). Temples/little india etc (all free).
• SINGAPORE: Chinatown (free), rooftop bar access (free), Gardens by the Bay (free).
• TOTAL: $0!

FOOD/BOOZE:

• We could have spent nothing to be honest! But we had coffees at Petronas Towers ($10), Guinness overloooking the towers ($25). Starbucks in Singapore ($38). Coconut and Guinness at Gardens by the bay ($27) . Cocktails in Singapore ($150).
• PROVISIONAL TOTAL ON FOOD/BOOZE: $15 maybe for some coffees/waters?
• MY ACTUAL TOTAL ON FOOD/BOOZE: $240

PROVISIONAL TOTAL (and my actual total cost): $110/$465*

*But I paid all the bills for the boys, as I invited them. If we include all their flights then the total for 3 people doing 3 countries in 3 days would be $465 + $74 + $74 = $613. Or $200 per person. $600 for ALL this?! For 3 people?! Now that is money well spent for an epic few days with some of my closest friends! And you could do it as cheap as $74+$74+$74 +$110 = $332. $111 each. Mental.

REFLECTIONS ON THE TRIP

I actually had cooked this plan up years and years ago when I started to become obsessed with all these airport lounges. I love the free food. I love being able to work on my laptop with internet connection and power supply everywhere I go. I love being able to take showers all the time and sometimes even with the sleep pods you can actually sleep. All for free with the lounge access. So I wanted to put it together for a long time.

And then as I got older, as I said, with the time constraints and money constraints of people with different problems, to do this with Salim, one of my best mates, and Josh, one of my best mates, it was an absolute privilege to be able to do this. Adventures to last a lifetime.

Would I advise it? Absolutely. If you want to go on an adventure, for sure do it. Just know that although you do get sleep, it is quite tiring, which is why three days is perfect. You can battle through. I’m glad we were in Singapore. Two great destinations to choose.

I would love to do this again. Dubai has good lounges. Oman has good lounges. Qatar has good lounges. I might put it together again if I can get some cheap flights from Southeast Asia to the Middle East. Let me see. I’ll think about it. But all in all, it was just a massive success.

I’m just so grateful to be able to live a life like this and have shared these experiences with my mates. It’s something we will never forget. Salim also is the beautiful reason why I have a TV show and he filmed this whole thing. So there’s a short little video coming in hot hopefully next week. And then the end, of course, all of this is made possible by Priority Pass, who are a partner of mine. Hence why I was living in these lounges. What an adventure. Okay, thanks for reading, folks. This was a lot longer than I planned it to be, but I had such a good time. I want this to be written down for all my memories in the years to come. See you.

FAQs on the trip

How does Priority Pass work?

You sign up for a membership HERE. You choose how many passes you want per year,or if you want unlimited (that’s what I do). Then you have a list of lounges you can access. The app is great, you simply type the airport you’re going to and it lists all the lounges you can use.

How can you use lounges without a boarding pass on this trip?

2 things. Some airports have arrival lounges (like Singapore). And some airports have ‘landside’ lounges that allow you to enter with the boarding pass you arrived on.

Also, on this adventure, I always had another ticket the next day (within 24 hours). For example, when I landed in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia I had a ticket from Malaysia to Singapore the following morning, 22 hours later. Because I had no checked luggage, I checked in online, so i could use all the lounges anytime!

Is there a 3 hour time limit on each lounge?

There is, but they’re not strict. Apart from the capsule hotels. They’re strict on their 3 hours. BUT you can go out, and re-check-in for 3 more hours if you have the unlimited pass and there are capsules available.

Can you bring guests?

If you get your Priority Pass with your premium credit card (like the UK amex platinum) you can bring one guest. It depends on your package. So there isn’t a simple answer to that really.