Travel Costs: South Africa 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 19 days in South Africa. For the first time on this trip, we rented a car and, after nearly a week in Cape Town, drove the Garden Route out to Tsitsikamma and back to the wine country near Cape Town.
The currency in South Africa is the South African Rand (ZAR), whose exchange rate was just about 10 ZAR to $1 US as of July 2013.
Spending Breakdown:
| Activity | $190.00 |
| Food/Drink | $657.83 |
| Lodging | $321.00 |
| Misc. | $90.10 |
| Transportation | $581.13 |
| Grand Total | $1840.06 |
Our daily spending averaged $97/day for two people.
A few notes on our spending:
- Activities included two cablecar tickets up Table Mountain ($37), entrance to several museums and national parks both in Cape Town and along the Garden Route, our (discounted) Segway and canopy tours in Tsitsikamma, and more wine tastings than we should probably admit to.
- Our lodging figure is highly skewed — we used my Starwood points in Cape Town, and received discounts on our stays along the Garden Route through off-season specials and partnership on the website.
- For food and drink, we averaged $35/day. We cooked a lot of our own meals in our rental properties along the Garden Route. We also splurged on a birthday dinner for Skyler and a nice lunch in Stellenbosch. Food and grocery prices are fairly consistent with what we see back home in the US — except for the cheap wine!
- For transportation, we took a few short cab rides in Cape Town, all very cheap, split a rental car for the day with 2 fellow travelers to explore Cape Point ($14.50 for our half with fuel), and then rented a car for the two weeks we spent driving along the Garden Route ($355 for the rental, $171 for fuel, and $7.60 for tolls — petrol was about 13.50 ZAR/liter or $5.25/gallon while we were there).
- The miscellaneous category includes laundry, haircuts for myself and Skyler, a trip to CrossFit, some postcards, and a couple movie rentals.
- South Africa does not charge US citizens for a tourist visa.
- This includes only our spending in the country. It excludes our airfare here and upfront costs like immunizations, travel insurance, etc.
Prices in South Africa were more in line with what we see in Europe and the United States, but we definitely saved money by being here in the off-season.
Click here for our other budget updates.
