Peru - $192.85
We spent just over $4,600 across 24 days in Peru, coming in just under our daily target budget of $194. Our highest category of spending in Peru was Food & Groceries at $1,620, followed closely by Lodging at $1,206. We also spent more than normal on Flights, Other Transportation and Activities here, but that was to be expected given our primary reason for visiting Peru was to explore the grounds of the ancient Incan and Nazca civilizations. During our stay in Peru we had two $0 expense categories of Visas and Rental Cars. While it would be possible to drive in Peru, and we had planned on renting a car, the roads turned out to be incredibly chaotic and existing transportation was a useful option once we wrapped our heads around the system.
Food and Groceries cost us nearly $70 per day during our stay in Peru, not because they needed to, but because we knew we were doing well with our budget and decided to treat ourselves to tasty meals several times. You could easily spend half of what we did on food while in Peru and still have a great trip, as there are plenty of very cheap local options, especially outside of Lima. However, we really wanted to get an understanding of the local cuisine over breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Plus, we treated ourselves to one or two coffees each per day, which quickly added another $5 to $20 per day, depending on where we were getting them from.
Lodging was our second largest category of expense, but at just over $50 per day, we found the costs here to be quite reasonable. We were able to stay at unique Airbnbs in Arequipa, Lima, Cusco, and on Lake Titicaca, as well as decent hotels and hostels in the rest of the country. Each town we looked at for our stays had several good options under $40 and many great options under $60, perhaps with the exception of Nazca where the choices were a little more limited. Again, if we were traveling on a lower budget we could have spent half of this amount and still stayed comfortably, if not as uniquely as we actually did. In some towns like Arequipa, we saw beds advertised for as low as S/15 per night, or about $4.
Other Transportation was our third largest category of spending, totaling more than $25 per day from a combination of bus fares, uber rides, trains to and from Machu Picchu, and a few cheap colectivo journeys. We decided to travel comfortably between cities by taking bus journeys with Cruz Del Sur, and the train to and from Machu Picchu, but again it would be possible to lower this if you were willing to take more complex schedules or travel with less touristy companies. Taking colectivos and local buses within towns would also be a great way to reduce costs, but we’d recommend being comfortable in Spanish and having a basic understanding of the system before attempting to use it.
Activities took up a larger than normal share of our budget at just under $18 per day, though we were able to visit a large number of archeological and historic sites. Our entrance tickets to Machu Picchu were by far the most expensive single activity at nearly $50 per person for Route 2, but they were well worth it for the views and experience. Our other large activity expense came from our 10-day Sacred Valley tickets which cost $35 per person, but covered over a dozen sites and museums throughout Cusco and the Sacred Valley. Each site would cost about $15 on its own, so this combination ticket was a great deal, allowing us to see the valley at our own pace, as well as visit some small museums in Cusco that we probably would have gone under our radar if we had to pay entry individually.
We spent over $21 per day on Flights while in Peru, stemming from our arrival flight from Chile, and one short flight within the country from Lima to Cusco. Finally, we spent just under $10 on Miscellaneous items, primarily cash, which we used for a large number of smaller purchases throughout the country – some small pharmacy purchases, eSims, and two rounds of very affordable laundry services.