Argentina Asia Australasia Bolivia Brazil Chile Easter Island Hong Kong Japan New Zealand North America Peru

Expenses: Asia, NZ, South America

Well, we are back in Canada! Can you believe that a year went by so fast? I certainly can’t. Over the next week or two we are going to have a series of posts with lots of statistics about our trip – including the $64,000 question. This post is the third of three posts about daily costs around the world. This post includes: Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand and several countries in South America. It doesn’t include Australia because of the nature of the family vacation we took there. If you need some help understanding this post, please see my Expenses: Europe and the Middle East post! If you are looking for info about Africa, click here.

Hong Kong, Japan, New Zealand

Hong Kong (5 days) $76 PPPD
Accommodation $334 $84
Transport $106 $11
Shipping Stuff $34
Food & Incidentals $288 $29

We spent two nights in a hotel and three nights at Jon’s friend’s place, this is why the per person per day rate is really high. You can stay in hostels in HK, we just had bad bad luck with bedbugs a few years ago and didn’t want to risk it. The shipping stuff category refers to sending an 8kg box full of our tent and curios.

Japan (19 days) $79 PPPD
Accommodation $994 $26
Transport $992 $26
Sights $169 $4
Sumo $54
Food & Incidentals $783 $21

While the average we spent on accommodation was $26 pppd, if you take out the four nights we spent on busses we actually spent $33 pppd. Japan was one of the most expensive countries on our trip, but it was so worth it!

NZ (25 days) $67 PPPD
Accommodation $149 $25
Transport $2022 $40
Sights $218 $4
Jon skydiving $258
New camera (#3) $220
Food & Incidentals $809 $16

We only stayed in hostels 3 nights in New Zealand – the $25 pppd takes this into account. Our transport row includes the van rental (our bed for 3 weeks), any campsite or parking fees, and gas (a total of $314 to get around the whole country). Food was actually pretty cheap and pretty good in NZ!

South America

South American countries are listed in order of least to most expensive.

Bolivia (6 days) $30 PPPD
Accommodation $100 $4
Transport $115 $4
Sights $87 $3
Shopping $6
Salar Tour $368 $46
Food & Incidentals $288 $9

Bolivia now officially wins the award as cheapest country we visited on our trip! $30 pppd. That’s amazing. I only divided the Salar de Uyuni tour by 4 days in order to give a better idea of how much this trip costs per day. If I divide it by the 16 days we were there total, it averages out to $9 pppd. Accordingly I also only divided the accommodation row by the 13 nights we actually stayed in hostels.

Argentina (19 days) $45 PPPD
Accommodation $489 $14
Transport $446 $12
Sights $204 $6
Shopping $43
Food & Incidentals $435 $12

I am really surprised that Argentina was our second cheapest country in South America, at $45 pppd it is an excellent value.

Chile (13 days) $57 PPPD
Reciprocity Fee $338
Accommodation $498 $19
Transport $161 $6
Sights $59 $2
Shopping $8
Jon Dive $63
Food & Incidentals $346 $13

We spent a week in Santiago and the coast and a week in Easter Island, a world class touristy island with high prices. A killer in Chile is the reciprocity fee, levied to Canadians, Americans, Australians and Albanias but only if you fly into Santiago. It was $132 pp for Canadians. Yikes. If it wasn’t for the fee, Chile would have cost $44 pppd and slid in under Argentina. You can avoid the fee by coming into Chile overland. Sadly, Argentina has legislated a reciprocity fee as well so it is going to be expensive to get in there too.

Brazil (14 days) $68 PPPD
Visas $190
Accommodation $541 $19
Transport $307 $11
Sights $271 $10
Shopping $135 $5
Robbery $14
Food & Incidentals $447 $16

Brazil was expensive. Full on western prices. However, Rio was a beautiful city and the beaches to the south are awesome. Sadly, in Brazil you need to include a robbery column.

Peru (26 days) $70 PPPD
Accommodation $319 $9
Flights to Jungle $490
Transport $236 $5
Tours $1917 $37
Shopping $46
Sights $135 $3
New glasses (Jon) $81
Food & Incidentals $431 $8

It is incredible to think a country as inexpensive as Peru (food & accommodation) was the most expensive country that we visited in South America. This is because of the tours and the high amounts charged for tourist attractions. Even just our flights to the jungle cost $490, this averages out to $9 pppd. We spent 8 days in Peru on tours: the Inca Trail, and the Amazon. They were great, but they were expensive.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is our spending for our trip! Don’t worry, we’ll answer the big question soon!

One comment

  1. welcome home!! man, i can’t believe it’s been a year already. not sure how quickly you two are getting back into the swing of things, but i imagine there will be weeks and maybe even months of processing everything that just took place in the last 12 months :-)

    as always, looking forward to hearing more!

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