Budget Report: Peru
December 14, 2016
Since the beginning of the trip, we’ve been attempting to track every expense to get a better picture of where our money is going and if we’re on track to make it last. After each country, we’re planning on posting our resulting budget to give a better idea of how much it actually costs to travel in each place. Next up: Peru! We were in Peru for a total of 29 days, including our 5-day trek to Machu Picchu. Here’s our latest country overview, separated by category as usual. Peru’s currency is the Peruvian Nuevo Sol (PEN); there are about 3.4 PEN to 1 USD.
| Category | Amount | Amount/Day | Amount/Day/Person |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lodging | 1,091.00 PEN ($321.35 USD) | 37.62 PEN ($11.08 USD) | 18.81 PEN ($5.54 USD) |
| Transportation | 1,040.00 PEN ($306.33 USD) | 35.86 PEN ($10.56 USD) | 17.93 PEN ($5.28 USD) |
| Meals | 926.10 PEN ($272.78 USD) | 31.93 PEN ($9.40 USD) | 15.97 PEN ($4.70 USD) |
| Soft Drinks | 205.00 PEN ($60.38 USD) | 7.07 PEN ($2.08 USD) | 3.53 PEN ($1.04 USD) |
| Groceries | 162.60 PEN ($47.89 USD) | 5.61 PEN ($1.65 USD) | 2.80 PEN ($0.83 USD) |
| Alcohol | 846.00 PEN ($249.19 USD) | 29.17 PEN ($8.59 USD) | 14.59 PEN ($4.30 USD) |
| Sightseeing | 2,121.00 PEN ($624.74 USD) | 73.14 PEN ($21.54 USD) | 36.57 PEN ($10.77 USD) |
| Necessities | 575.90 PEN ($169.63 USD) | 19.86 PEN ($5.85 USD) | 9.93 PEN ($2.92 USD) |
| Miscellaneous | 159.50 PEN ($46.98 USD) | 5.50 PEN ($1.62 USD) | 2.75 PEN ($0.81 USD) |
| Total | 7,127.10 PEN ($2,099.29 USD) | 245.76 PEN ($72.39 USD) | 122.88 PEN ($36.19 USD) |
Some observations:
- The Sightseeing category was disproportionately high for Peru mostly thanks to our 5-day Salkantay trek to Machu Picchu. This cost us a total of $187 USD apiece, including the guides, food, lodging, and transportation on both ends. For what you get, and what you get to see, it’s easily worth the money (especially comparing this 5-day excursion’s price to our Galapagos cruise in Ecuador!)
- Due to the all-inclusive nature of our trek, the Lodging and Meals/Groceries budgets may be slightly lower than they would have been otherwise, since the cost of the trek went under Sightseeing but included all our food and lodging for those five days.
- The Necessities category included an external hard drive that we needed to pick up to hold our ever-growing library of photos and videos; the laptop we brought doesn’t have much storage space so we needed somewhere to dump the extra files. This category would have been about half the amount had we planned ahead and brought a hard drive from home.
- We sprung for a few nice buses in Peru due to the long distances and the fact that we each got sick a few times. Having the nice lie-flat seats on an 18-hour overnight bus was worth the extra 15-20 dollars to us, but if you wanted to keep your costs down on a similar trip you could always go for the standard seats.
- We were slightly better about cooking our meals with groceries in the hostel in Peru, but we were still moving fairly quickly so it was hard to do it consistently. We’re hoping to start expanding our hostel meal repertoire as we slow down a bit in Chile and Argentina, especially since those countries are more expensive overall in many other areas.
