Expense Report – Season 2
Shishira and I left home on May 15, 2022 on this little adventure of full-time travel. Our first season of travel (as we like to call it) went on for 10 months. And we documented the costs we incurred along that journey in South East Asia here: Expense Report – Season 1
Before we left home to travel full-time, I often looked for similar reports of people travelling long-term. And when I did find a few, I spent many hours reading one periodic report after another! And I figured – if I like it, so could many more travel nerds who might enjoy reading this! So, we began documenting every expense (like stay, activities, etc.) and decided to publish it here.
Yes, we are (were?) accountants – so we’re going to present this in a way that makes the best sense! But if you prefer a more insightful view, let us know in the comments section below and we’ll attempt to get it right.
Hopefully, you’ll find this full-time travel expense report as interesting as I do… anyway, here goes:
SEASON 2: Central Asia and the Eurasian Caucasus
Before we get into the expenses, here’s a quick background of where we travelled in this season between May 2023 and December 2023. If you’ve been watching the travel vlogs from this season, you probably already know this.
We started our journey by flying from Bangalore (our hometown) to Mumbai and then to Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. It was our first time in this middle eastern kingdom and we arrived there in hot summer! Even at midnight, it was 35℃ and very uncomfortable with the hot-dry winds. We stayed with a couchsurfing host for two nights and explored the city with an old friend!
Then, we flew on Wizz Air for the first time, to Samarkand, Uzbekistan. We spent the next few weeks exploring the beautiful old cities and its amazing monuments and Soviet architecture! We also got to visit the legendary Aral sea which turned into a desert due to overuse of the water in what was once one of the largest inland seas in the world! Towards the end of June, we headed south-east to Tajikistan. We went on a few hikes there before signing for our most expensive tour yet – a ten day road-trip on the Pamir Highway – which is considered to be one of the greatest road-trips on the planet!
After that, we headed up north to Kyrgyzstan where we spent the next few weeks hitchhiking all around the country. This was actually the first time we hitchhiked (public transport is not so good there) – more about it in the transport expense section below! We slept in tents set up by Shepherd families in the grand Tien Shan mountains and saw wild horses running free. And then headed up into Kazakhstan for the next two weeks. We met an elderly Korean farmer couple who decided to do some sightseeing with us – and it actually turned out to be a lot of fun!
By mid August, we took a flight over the Caspian Sea to reach Baku, Azerbaijan and began our 2.5 month journey across the Caucasus. We visited the remotest village in Europe and Eurasia, visited old Soviet Towns, and enjoyed a few days of down-time before heading to Tbilisi, Georgia. We enjoyed the delicious food, met up with my friends there, and explored some amazing villages, hiked mountains and waterfalls. And as we entered Armenia, it got even better. Armenians truly are some of the nicest folks we have EVER met! We hitchhiked across the country, stayed in cozy homestays in the most beautiful towns beyond Yerevan (the beautiful capital) and enjoyed our first autumn experience – seeing that orange leafery everywhere was a big highlight!
In late October, we headed down to a country we long feared, thanks to its reputation in western media: Iran. The first three days were a nightmare! We struggled with the banking and internet restrictions and the language barrier was pretty wide. But Iranians were incredibly hospitable! We couchsurfed nearly every day and enjoyed being so close to their culture. We got to visit some cities, towns and even islands – unexpected experiences considering what we were so used to from the internet. If you’ve watched the vlogs, you probably know how crazy affordable Iran was – shows in the graphs below too!
And in December, we spent the last fortnight exploring an even more dreaded country – often labelled as the most dangerous country on Earth – Afghanistan! It was a pretty sudden decision to go there from Iran but we decided to get our visas there and go anyways. Being non-muslims, we were worried that we would be troubled – but it never happened! In fact, nearly every Afghan – from Immigration officers to bus and rickshaw drivers, the police, common folks on the streets – everyone treated us so nicely – and more so after learning that we’re a married couple from India!
We got to see the grand Hindukush mountains in a way that I will never forget – and even in the most challenging times, Afghans helped us. Sometimes, we would go to pay for our lunch, bus ticket or hotel room, and find that it was already taken care off. This broke our hearts because when you see the socio-economic conditions there, most people are struggling to live a good life. Hopefully, things get better for them in the near future!
And finally, after nearly seven months on the road, Shish and I decided to head back homeward before Christmas and NYE. It was quite a challenging journey back home – and one that I personally will never forget. I call it the miracle journey – it truly felt like one – and thats what the vlog is named on the channel too!
This chart shows how much time we spent in each country on this journey – from May 27, 2023 to December 19, 2023.
This pie chart shows how much we spent across each category over the duration of our trip:
Here’s a more detailed breakdown of the categories. If you’re more interested to know the grand total, just scroll down the page to skip the details.
✈️ Flight: INR 82,418 / USD 999
In this season, we flew on 5 flights! Thats a 67% decrease when compared to how many flights we took in season one!
Nearly all the flights we flew on this trip were on low-cost carriers – but because baggage cost adds up quickly on these flights, the prices did go over what was typically advertised. Still, it was cheaper than a regular airline ticket. It was also our first time flying on WizzAir (from Abu Dhabi to Samarkand) where we got a first hand experience of RyanAir / ULCC ways of cutting costs and benefits! On the other hand, the most expensive flight ticket was for the one we flew from Tashkent to Delhi. About INR 27,000 / USD 330 for the both of us a couple of days before Christmas.
We usually book flights online by first searching on tools like Skyscanner or 12goAsia depending on where we’re getting the best deals!
⛺️ Stay: INR 154,670 / USD 1,875
The prices of accommodation in Central Asia are a lot higher than in South East Asia. I’d say, they are somewhat similar to the prices in India. So we did not have any complaints. In the Caucasus, it got a bit more pricey and stays on the remote Pamir Highway were most expensive going up to USD 20 a night. Georgia, which we found otherwise quite expensive, actually had a big variety of affordable stays!
We also spent a few nights here and there on transport (like a red-eye flight, overnight buses, etc.) and also couchsurfed quite a bit – a few nights in the UAE (it helped soo much!), Uzbekistan, Armenia and most days Iran – making up over 16% of our days. We also collaborated with a couple of accommodations to feature them in our vlogs, in exchange for a discount or a free stay.
The cheapest room we stayed in was in Afghanistan near the Bamyan Buddha – it cost us only INR 300 (USD 3.6) per night, just outisde the town centre and within walking distance to the Buddha statues. Another cheap homestay we found was at Kobuleti, on the Black Sea coast in Georgia – cost us about INR 450 (USD 5.5) per night – which was incredible for the location! Stays on the remote Pamir Highway typically costed us USD 15 to 20 a night. These were all typically homestays and Yurt camps (like the one we stayed at in Kyrgyzstan). The homestays were often very basic. Some of them had a hole in the ground inside the toilets. You can’t complain when you’re a few hundred kilometres away from the nearest big towns or cities!
But Shish says, the best room we stayed in was at a beautiful homestay in Bukhara, Uzbekistan where the host family repeatedly fed us yummy food! A close second was the Shepherd’s Life Yurt we stayed in at Songkul Lake!
A hotel we stayed at in Kunduz near the Afghan-Tajik border was the worst one we stayed in. It was not clean, but in the peak of a snowstorm, we had no choice but to spend a few hours there at night before crossing the remote border in the mountains the next day.
You’ll find these stays in our vlogs from those places. We’ve mostly used Booking and Agoda to find stays in both Central Asia and the Caucasus region. For Iran, we used a local app called Snapp. Another popular website is AirBnB – many a times, you might find the same accommodation listed across all these websites.
🍕 Food: INR 109,464 / USD 1,327
Breakfast (sometimes), lunch, snacks and dinner; includes water too. Typically we ate two meals and a day and shared our food to cut costs. As a result, most meals costed less than INR 300 or USD 3.5.
Just like in season one, we ate more street food and at small cafes than at popular restaurants. We aimed to keep our food bills under INR 700/day. We did struggle a bit to find vegetarian food in some places, but it was not impossible. I enjoyed the lentil soups and doner sandwiches in Azerbaijan and the Kachapuri (boat shaped bread with beans and cheese) in Georgia the most! Iranian food was surprisingly sweeter than we expected and Afghan food was very similar to Indian – we ate a lot of spicy bean curries with naan. Another highlight was Kurutob, the vegetarian national dish of Tajikistan – made with Yogurt balls and Fatir bread – we ate a lot of it in Dushanbe, the capital city.
Indian food was available in nearly every capital city – and as usual, it was overpriced! But when you need a taste of home, you gotta do what you gotta do!
Also, we cooked some lovely south Indian dishes for nearly all of our couchsurfing hosts as a thank you! Nearly all of them enjoyed it – even if some of them were crying because of how spicy it was!
🤿 Sightseeing and activities: INR 13,928 / USD 169
Its very easy to find paid attractions and spend lots of money on tickets. We realised pretty early on that spending money on every paid attraction would not be sustainable – so we chose to do a combination of the free stuff and classic ticketed attractions too.
But I was just as surprised as you probably were reading this number. We spent less than two hundred dollars to sight see over a nearly seven month trip?! The thing is, most attractions in this region were very cheap to enter or were completely free. Museums tickets were very affordable (loved the one in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan) while multi-kilometre ropeways in Kazakhstan where also under USD 20 – that Korean uncle I mentioned earlier paid for our tickets very (very) insistently!
Some other memorable sights included:
- UAE: The Grand Mosque and the Marina
- Uzbekistan: The Registan Ensemble, Khiva Old Town and Aral Sea Graveyard of the Ships
- Tajikistan: The Pamir Highway hands down! It is moon-like, remote, some parts are lush green and the landscapes are soo amazing!
- Kyrgyzstan: Skazka canyon and Issykkul lake, an eagle hunting experience in Bokonbayevo and the incredible Songkul Lake*!
- Kazakhstan: Shymbulak mountain
- Azerbaijan: Icheriseher Old Town, Baku boulevard (along the Caspian Sea coastline), the flame towers (really cool after sunset!) and lush mountains of Xinaliq
- Georgia: Kazbegi and Ushguli mountains (so incredible!), the old town areas of Tbilisi and Kutaisi, Prometheus cave and waterfalls around the Martvili canyon. Cannot forget that evening visit to the Holy Trinity Cathedral and the Stalin Printing Museum in Tbilisi either!
- Armenia: Day trips* to Garni and Geghard and Khor Viraap monasteries, the entire Republic Square (we did a Redbus tour too!*) and the Yerevan Cascade. We also enjoyed our visit to Lake Sevan and ealking around Gyumri Cathedral and the little forest hikes in Dilijan!
- Iran: Naqsh-e-Jahan square in Isfahan, the old city of Kashan, Stars Valley in Qeshm.. and many more. Hormuz Island was sooo awesome!
- Afghanistan: Herat old town, Band-e-Amir Lake, Kabul Gun Market (because it felt so strangely interesting to see!) and the Kashan Pass in the Hindukush mountains
As you can see from that list, most of them were free natural attractions. It was just a lot easier to keep this budget largely unspent. We should’ve probably done a bit more!
* We collaborated with a few tour companies to feature their tours and camps on our vlog in exchange for the experiences! It helped keep the cost down, but in all fairness the amount was not much even if we’d have paid for it.
🚌 Transport: INR 113,543 / USD 1,376
We rode on the local city bus, rickshaws, interstate bus mostly – even while crossing land borders. We also took the train a few times in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Georgia and Armenia and again in India (from Delhi to Bangalore) – which was also super fun! We also rode a few inter-island ferries in Iran. We’ve documented all of these journeys on our vlogs! The metro in some ‘Stans and Iran were also very efficient.
We also rented a motorbike in Hormuz Island. Nowhere else though, since its uncommon to own or ride bikes in the whole region. Local taxi apps were also super useful – like Bolt, Uber and Yandex! But Snapp taxis in Iran were shockingly cheap – like two dollars for a one hour journey! Even a 1,500 km overnight VIP bus journey did not cost more than four or five dollars – about INR 750 for both of us!
And in Afghanistan, the bus tickets were gifted to us by the seller! He would not take any money from us at all. Thank you Ghalam bhai!
Georgia on the other hand was not economical. Even inter-town buses were crazy expensive!
🔖 Visa: INR 74,375 / USD 902
Visa anxiety is soo real, but was not too bad on this trip except for Georgia. Especially relatable if you own a weak passport – like ours. There’s always a lot of paperwork and uncertaininty around being able to visit a country. These days, visas don’t guarantee an entry either – its all at the descretion of the immigration officers.
Thankfully, most of the countries on this trip were super welcoming and the visa process was relatively easy! The fees were also reasonable. But Georgian immigration was very strict and they interviewed us for nearly an hour before allowing us to enter. We’ve explained how nasty the experience was on our border-crossing vlog from there.
- UAE multiple entry long term tourist visa (5 years): AED 803 (INR 18,000 or USD 110) but we decided to split the cost over two visits considering we primarily got this to be able to transit in the country. So in this trip’s report, only half the amount has been considered.
- Uzbekistan eVISA for 30 days: USD 35 or INR 2,900 (double entry)
- Tajikistan eVISA for 30 days: USD 30 or INR 2,500
- Kyrgyzstan eVISA for 30 days: USD 50 or INR 4,150 (and invitation letter worth another USD 50 needed)
- Kazakhstan visa-free for 14 days
- Azerbaijan eVISA for 30 days: USD 25 or INR 2,100
- Georgia eVISA for 30 days: USD 36 or INR 3,000
- Armenia eVISA for 21 days: USD 7.5 or INR 600
- Iran paper VISA for 30 days: EUR 90 or INR 7,800 (and invitation letter worth another EUR 50 needed). Surprisingly, extending the visa for another 30 days costs just over EUR 1
- Afghanistan sticker VISA for 30 days: Free at the time for Indian passport holders
🧾 Insurance: INR 11,584 / USD 140
We are a bit old fashioned about this. Just like in season one, we got ourselves USD 100,000 worth of international medical and travel insurance coverage because we know how crazy expensive healthcare is outside our homecountry. We typically buy the maximum insurance coverage for six months before leaving home and extend the policy while out there for upto an additional six months. This policy would cover both of us as a family and hence that USD 100,000 is shared coverage.
We recently found SafetyWing which provides new policies/coverage even after departure from your home country (our previous Indian insurer would only offer coverage starting from when in India, before departing).
💊 Others: INR 18,067 / USD 219
Misc. items like photocopies, soap, laundry, medicines and more. And Sim cards – we typically buy atleast one sim card in each country (sometimes two) and share internet via hotspot between ourselves. Data was reasonably priced almost everywhere on this trip. Interestingly, Afghanistan was the only country with mandatory eSIMs only! By the way, we only buy local sim cards and not those app based eSIMs because we’ve found those to be far more expensive. However, we are yet to try them out – if the convenience outweighs the hassle of getting a physical sim, the higher cost would be acceptable – so we’ll try it in one of our next trips and let you know if we made the switch.
We thankfully did not fall sick anywhere except in Shiraz, Iran where I ate some undercooked beans. Our Couchsurfing host Hesam was very kind about letting us extend our stay there until I got better.
Shish also picked up a bunch of European clothes in a few underground thrift stores in Tbilisi, Georgia as autumn was ending. I got myself a couple of new clothes too as we were starting to wear out the summer clothes we’d packed at the start of the trip.
We also bought souvenirs from the countries which was not cheap! And we got a few haircuts too.
Here’s a quick summary of how much we spent in each country on this journey:
Tajikistan was pricey mainly because of the Pamir Highway road-trip (just the two seats in a shared Landcrusier tour make up half the total expense for the country. Uzbekistan appears quite pricey because the flights from UAE to Samarkand and back home to Delhi are included here. And we did spend more money in Azerbaijan (stays) and Georgia (transport and food) that drove up the cost.
Both Iran and Afganistan were the cheapest on this list. Iran is very affordable (except for the visa) while Afghan hospitality and kindness occassionally made it impossible to pay for some expenses.
The expenses we’ve incurred in India include the first domestic flight from Bangalore to Mumbai, a train journey from Delhi to Bangalore upon return, and our Insurance cost.
THE GRAND TOTAL
Now that you’ve read every expense head in full detail, here’s the final total of how much money we spent travelling full-time for seven months across Central Asia and the Caucasus.
INR 578,049 or USD 7,007 (for 207 days)
This is what we spent across all the categories mentioned above, for both Shish and me. Our original budget was to keep our expenses under USD 30 / INR 2,500 per day. But we did go over the budget a bit – it worked out to USD 34 / INR 2,793 per day. Still, not too bad considering we did not restrict our spending as much as we could have (to meet the budget). The biggest single expense was obviously the Pamir Highway roadtrip – but the main reason we did that was to celebrate a milestone birthday – else, the average per day cost would go under USD 31.
I’m curious to know what you think – was it a lot more than you expected? Or not too bad for travelling with a tiny budget? And if you want to read the expense reports from our future travels, you can subscribe to our newsletter called the “Sunday Memo” and I’ll send it over to your inbox when I write the next one!
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