Travel Costs: India Budget Update
We’re continuing to post our spending numbers as a resource for other travelers. Here is a breakdown of what we spent for two people over 41 days in India. We did a lot of moving around in 6 weeks — starting in Calcutta, heading north to Darjeeling and Sikkim, west to Varanasi, Agra, and Udaipur, back north to Dharmsala/McLeod Ganj, west to Amritsar, and finally south to Mumbai.
The currency in India is the Indian Rupee (INR), whose exchange rate fell from 54 to a near record low 58 INR per US Dollar over the course of our time here. Our calculations use an exchange rate of 55 INR to 1 US Dollar.
Spending Breakdown:
| Activity | $150.77 |
| Food/Drink | $504.21 |
| Immigration | $158.50 |
| Lodging | $730.00 |
| Misc. | $53.33 |
| Transportation | $485.67 |
| Grand Total | $2,082.49 |
Our daily spending averaged $47/day for two people, adding in the pre-arranged visa costs of $158.50, this totals about $51/day.
A few notes on our spending habits:
- Activities included small entrance fees to museums and local attractions, a few yoga classes, a day tour of Delhi, and tickets to a cricket match and Bollywood film. Most were fairly nominal, the one exception being the Taj Mahal at 750 INR (about $14) per person — still a great value, in our opinion. At all cultural sights in India, foreigners pay much higher prices than residents. Indians pay only 20 INR to see the Taj, for example!
- We averaged $18/night for lodging. This even includes a 2-night splurge ($85/night) at a fancy hotel for our wedding anniversary. If you exclude that and the nights we spent on trains and busses, we spent about $20/night on guesthouses. This got us a private, air-conditioned (except in the mountains) room with ensuite bathroom. In the big cities, accommodations are more expensive and of lower quality.
- We averaged $12/day for food and drink. Food was very cheap here, not quite as appealing to us as the food in SE Asia, and we each got sick a few times, keeping this number pretty low. I always leave India 5 pounds lighter.
- The transportation figure includes 6 overnight trains (mostly in 3AC class), 1 daytime train, 1 overnight bus, 1 daytime bus, 2 shared jeep trips in Sikkim, and numerous rickshaw/taxi rides. We spent nearly 25% of our money in India on transportation. Fewer stops on your itinerary would keep this cost lower, as would traveling in non-AC train coaches, which are dirt cheap.
- The miscellaneous category includes laundry, new toiletries, a haircut, and some new clothes for Skyler.
- We paid $158.50 for 2 six-month multiple-entry tourist visas, obtained at the Indian Embassy in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Indian visas require a lot of paperwork, have to be arranged in advance, take about a week to process, and are active as of their date of issue. The price varies widely depending on your country of residence.
- This includes only our visa costs and spending in the country. It excludes our airfare here and upfront costs like immunizations, travel insurance, etc.
Despite all the moving around we did, India will likely be our least expensive destination of the entire trip! With Africa and Europe ahead, this likely concludes the portion of the trip where we come in way under budget.
Click here for our other budget updates.
