Tuesday 11 June 2013

Budget for 3 Months in South America


OK, so our overall budget blew out to about double what I originally projected. For the two of us we spent $10 800 (not including expensive tours like Galapagos or Pantanal) which is about $1800/person/month and $60/person/day. Including those two expensive tours the total for us two was $16 700.Travelling South America was certainly not as cheap as I thought it would be and certain things would be just as expensive as in Australia if not more. We mostly stayed in hostels and splurged a bit on good food and some cool activities but the expensive tours aren't included in the total as they don't reflect day to day expenditure. 


Breakdown per country


Brazil
$90/person/day

We spent the 3 weeks in Brazil and spent $3785 for the two of us by far the most expensive country we visited. Transportation encompassed 57% of this as we had were booking flights relatively late.
Accommodation: $640, $15/person/night.
Transport: $2184, mostly flights and some buses. It's such a big country flying was a necessary expense.
Food: $500, $12/person/day. Cheap but not good food.
Activities: $382
Extra (not included in total): Pantanal 3 day tour, $1100 per person. Not worth the amount of money we spent on it and would have been better in the dry season.

Argentina
$50/person/day

We splurged a bit in the 10 days we spent in Buenos Aires, enjoy fantastic food and going out every day. Our quality of life was far higher than in Brazil and for much less.
Accommodation: $224, $11/person/night.
Transport: $303. Cheap public transport around the city, most of this cost was the bus ride for the both of us from Buenoas Aires to Santiago.
Food: $236, $12/person/day, awesome food for a bargain price.
Activities: $28, did lots of things like rollerblading around the park and went to a tango dance hall.

Chile
$69/person/day

We got very lucky in Chile and got free accommodation and home cooked meals with our wonderful friends so this cut down on the budget for the first half but San Pedro, Atacama desert was expensive due to the high amount of daily tours we did. The outlined budget below is just for our San Pedro portion.
Accommodation: $108, $18/person/night.
Transport: $180, bus for two from Santiago to San Pedro.
Food: $135, $22/person/day.
Activities: $213, did 4 half day tours.

Bolivia
$42/person/day
Bolivia was cheaper than other countries but e didn't find any three course meals for $1 like someone was telling us. Sadly I was really sick at this time and couldn't make it to a computer to budget properly but food and accommodation was relatively cheap.

Peru
$60/person/day

Peru was a good combination of fun and affordable. We were living it large and thought we were splashing the cash big time but the figures end up being very reasonable. 
Accommodation: $188, $12/person/night.
Transport: $429, a few bus rides a lots of cheap taxi rides - about $2-5 per trip.
Food: $381, $13/person/day. We absolutely splurged on food in Peru and went to a few fine dining places which were still cheap for what we were used to.
Activities: $427, we did a lot in Peru and bought a few things like alpaca jumpers which added to this. Still a cheap place to do fun things.
Extra (not included in total): G Adventures 5 day Inca Trail for $934 per person, worth it considering the staff they bring along to support you and the service you get.

Ecuador
$58/person/day
Relatively cheap place to travel around but honestly besides the Galapagos non of it felt like value for money after Peru.

Accommodation: $256, $16/person/night.
Transport: $104, mostly taxi rides including $25-35 taxi rides to and from Quito airport
Food: $282, $17/person/day. Cost more than Peru yet definitely nowhere near the quality. Disappointing.
Activities: $54, went to see the dolphins in El Morro and visit the middle of the Earth.
Extra: 5 day Galapagos Cruise + 1 day land tour on Isabella Island. Total for two people was $3484. Also spent an extra $436 on extras like entry fees, tips and snorkelling hire. 

1 comment:

  1. thanks Toni, this will be useful for when we go to South America. Hope ou guys are having fun!

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