Egypt - $203.04
We spent 8 ½ days in Egypt covering the major cities and monuments, at a total cost of $1,726 or just over $203 per day. This is marginally above our target daily spending of $194, but visiting such a historically rich country came with a lot of entrance tickets and activity fees. Another major expense that we hadn’t factored in before arriving was tips. Tips are incredibly common in Egypt, and expected from tourists for small things like opening your car door, to large things like opening a special room in a tomb (although they may be roped off for tips), or a driver taking you between monuments in a day. Of course there is no obligation to tip, but we erred on the generous side as we were visiting in the low season and could tell that many people were hurting from a lack of tourists. Additionally, people can be aggressively persistent and may even be slightly angry if they already went ahead with their service. We spent $161 on flights while in Egypt, which all came from our flight into the country from Jordan. Our visas to enter Jordan were $25 each, which can be paid for with either foreign currency or credit card at a bank within the immigration hall at Cairo airport. Our only $0.00 expense category in Egypt was rental cars, as we relied on trains, Ubers, and hired drivers to take us around.
Our largest category of expense in Egypt was Activities, at almost $64 per day. This was mainly made up of about 20 entry tickets for each of us to monuments like the Pyramids of Giza or Abu Simbel Temple, and hired drivers to get us to these monuments like our driver from Aswan to the temples in Abu Simbel. Most entry tickets are priced very fairly in Egypt, ranging from $2 for some tombs in the Valley of the Nobles, to $12 for three tombs in the Valley of the Kings. However, there are a few spots where they charge a significantly higher entry fee, particularly in the Valley of the Kings where a ticket to enter the tomb of Seti I will set you back 1,400 Egyptian Pounds, about $28 at time of writing. However, with the value of Egypt’s currency continuing to fall, these prices are changing frequently and may be higher within a few months. When it comes to hiring a driver, it sounds fancier and more expensive than it actually is, plus is a welcome mode of transport in the sweltering heat.
Our second largest category of expenses in Egypt was Other Transportation at just over $300. Most of this cost came from two long-distance train trips we took moving between major cities. We spent $190 on a private cabin on the overnight train from Cairo to Aswan, which was both our accommodation for one night and a convenient way to travel between the cities. We also took a train between Aswan and Luxor, as this is the most cost-effective and convenient way to travel between these cities. One note about Egyptian trains: the traveling experience is not the same standard as travelers may be used to in their home country or even in places like Southeast Asia. The Egyptian government has signaled their desire to invest in the nation’s train transport, but for now many of the train carriages and facilities remain old and dilapidated, often leading to delays.
We only spent about $275 on Lodging while in Egypt, or about $32 per night. This is considerably lower than in many of our other destinations but we still loved where we stayed, especially our most affordable stay; Villa Rebecca in Luxor. Knowing that we would be spending a lot of our budget on Activities and Transportation we actively searched for low-cost, unique places to stay. This approach took us to some places we wouldn’t typically have stayed, but ended up being some of our most memorable of the entire trip.
We only spent about $28 per day on food while in Egypt, one of our lowest daily food expenditures around the world. We found that the typical meal out cost us between only $5.00 and $15.00, while still being everything we wanted and more. Similar to other Middle Eastern countries, most meals are intended to share and come with larger portions, which helps in keeping the cost of meals down.
Our final large category of spending was Miscellaneous, which ate up about $18 of our daily budget. Most of this was cash that seemingly vanished from our wallets each time we got assistance from a local or needed to pay the foreigner tax to use the restroom. These small costs never seemed that large in the moment, generally costing between $0.20 and $2.00, but have added up over time.