Financial Update: Eastern Africa

It's time once again for what may be our most boring blog entry for regular readers, our Financial Update. Boring, but very useful to anyone who is thinking about traveling for a long time. As a reminder, prices are the total for both of us for everything that we need while there. It does not include general trip expenses such as insurance. So, here we go.

Tanzania- $163 per day over 18.5 days. Visas were $100 each at the border (these are much cheaper if you are not American). This is an expensive one. Without my $1100 climb of Kilimanjaro or our $400 safari, the average is only $97 per day. Then again, why go to Tanzania if you aren't going to do anything interesting? Hotels and food are not very expensive if you go to the places that locals go (and locals often stay in rather nice hotels in Tanzania, it seems), but anything even remotely connected to tourism will cost a fortune. National Parks often charge $50 for entrance.

Rwanda- $223 per day over 6 days. No visa required for Americans, but many nationalities need a visa before entry. Entirely because we paid $500 each to see the gorillas. Of course, that is essentially all there is to do in the country other than look at the beautiful countryside or read more about the depressing genocide. Without gorillas, it was only $46 per day. Hotels are a bit more expensive in Rwanda and transport is more expensive than surrounding countries, but not bad.

Uganda- $149 per day over 6 days. Visas were $50 each at the border. Another expensive one. We took an expensive three day organized tour to Murchison Falls that accounts for most of the expense. Outside of Kampala, life is cheap. If you had more time and did everything yourself, it would be much cheaper.

Kenya- $71 per day over 5 days. Visas were $25 each at the border. This is actually made cheaper because we only visited one national park and we stayed with a family in Nairobi. We did the safari part in Tanzania. If you wanted to do a safari in Kenya, the price for Tanzania above is probably more realistic.

Ethiopia- $89 per day over 16.5 days. Visas were $20 each at the airport. Ethiopia is both dirt poor and dirt cheap. We include the entire cost of our flights ($300 each) in this average because Ethiopia refuses to issue overland visas, forcing us to fly. Without that, the average would be closer to $50 per day. Food is especially cheap (and good).

Egypt- $77 per day over 13.5 days. Visas were $15 each at the airport. Everything in Egypt is cheap except entry to all the ruins. Probably a third of our budget was spent on entry fees. Hotels, food, and transport are all cheap and have a high standard.

That's it. Hope you found it helpful. Feel free to contact us with any questions.