To get a better understanding of how much money we’re spending on the road, Lisa created a spreadsheet, breaking out our daily expenses. We’re aiming for $100 (US) a day, ($50/person), which is very doable, especially in some countries like Bolivia & Peru. However, there will be other countries, like Argentina & Chile, that will be more challenging if we’re not careful. We know that at times we’ll be over budget & other times under, so things should even themselves out in the end.
We knew before entering Argentina that it would be one of the most expensive countries on our itinerary & it doesn’t help that we were there for almost 3 months!
Daily Accommodation Average: $20 per day
It’d be nice to say that we stayed exclusively in hostels during our time in Argentina. However, Corey still had a few crappy days in Cordoba, so we did spend 4 nights in a hotel. I realize that doesn’t sound like a lot of time, but at $94 per night, that’s a pretty big hit to the accommodation expenses, especially considering that the average cost per night in northern AR is about $24 per bed. Luckily, we saved a ton during our stay in San Rafael, since we received free accommodation in exchange for our help. Six weeks of no fees for room & board was no doubt one of the main contributors to remaining under budget.
Daily Food Average: $38 per day
Food is expensive in Argentina! It was very shocking to go from the cheap street food in Bolivia to the pricey menus of Argentina. Granted, you can find “menu del dias” all over the place, but you do have to be choosy, as some just aren’t very tasty. I think we’ve had 4 meals of the day that were actually good. Usually though, it’s pretty gross & you’d be better off going grocery shopping & cooking your own meals. Which, we finally started doing in Bariloche, the first Patagonian city in Argentina. Patagonia is just too touristy to eat out every breakfast, lunch & dinner.
I attempted to wake up for the free breakfasts wherever we happened to be staying & we got into a habit of pricing out all eateries if we did decide to eat out. That being said, we did regress & fall back into eating out often by the time we ended up in El Calafate!
Daily Transportation Average: $15 per day
Another pricey thing in this country is transportation. Fifteen bucks a day doesn’t sound too bad for transportation, but when you compare the cost for long distance bus tickets in Bolivia versus Argentina, you’ll see that the fares are outrageous!
18 hour bus ride in Bolivia = $24 per ticket
18 hour bus ride in Argentina = $140 per ticket
The most expensive bus ticket was from Esquel to El Calafate, a 26 hour bus ride that cost us a total of $322! We learned very early on that taxis aren’t much better. Like most cities in the States, you’re better off taking a city bus. You might have to ride around for a bit longer, but you’ll be saving a decent chunk of cash.
Daily Entertainment Average: $12 per day
There’s so much to see & do in every part of this beautiful country. We didn’t even come close to scrapping the surface in terms of site seeing. There were a lot of things that we missed out on because you have to go through a tour company in order to experience some of the fun touristy activities.
We’re very happy that we spent money on the Glacier tour & white water rafting in San Rafael. However, there were times, like the Cachi tour, where it seemed like a waste of money. Had we gone in with 2 other travelers & rented a car, we could’ve done the same thing on our own, saved some money & still gotten some great pictures!
In the end, we were in Argentina for 78 days & spent a total of $7,296, which averaged out to $94 per day. It’s great to know that we came in just under budget, but we know now that we could’ve spent even less had we cooked more often. Hopefully, we learned enough in AR to improve our Chile budget!
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