Expense Report – Season 3
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) in South East Asia went on for 10 months and the second season across Central Asia and the Caucasus went on for about seven months. And we documented the costs we incurred along both of those trips in Expense Report – Season 1 and Expense Report – Season 2.
This report is about Season 3 – in which we explored countries across eastern and southern Africa!
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 3: East and Southern Africa – Nairobi to Cape Town Adventure
Before we get into the expenses, here’s a quick background of where we travelled in this season between March 2024 and February 2025. If you’ve been watching the travel vlogs from this season, you probably already know this.
We began our Africa expedition in Nairobi, Kenya where we spent the first month. The first few days were filled with excitement and challenging situations – safety is a big question mark in some African capital cities, and Nairobi is unfortunately infamous in this regard. But, on the other hand, we did out first big safari in Masai Mara and also got to see herds of elephants and Mt. Kilimanjaro at Amboseli National Park too. Our days along the blue coast was a great experience too. After that, we headed west into Uganda, along lake Victoria and spent the next few weeks going further westward. We made many new friends there who were so warm and amazing – some were couchsurfing hosts and many others were from the local Indian community we ran into on the streets. We went as far as the South Sudan border on the north, hiked up mountains in the west and so much more, before crossing over to Rwanda.
Rwanda prides itself on being the safest country in Africa – and we felt that to some extent too! So we naturally enjoyed being free in the open a lot more and spent the next few weeks getting closer to nature in and around Volcanoes National Park. Thereafter, we headed south to Burundi – but as the land border was closed due to political differences, we had to take a detour via Tanzania and entered Burundi from there. Luckily Tanzanian immigration facilitated tourists to move comfortably without the need to buy multiple visas! Burundi, often called the poorest country in the world blew our mind – people there are incredibly nice and kind despite the terrible economic situation. But being a tourist there (with a camera) was pretty complicated – so we left after a week and entered Tanzania. And Tanzania was truly so fun! We hitchhiked across the country so many times stopping along Lake Victoria in Mwanza, then Arusha, Moshi (near Mt. Kilimanjaro) and then down to Dar es Salaam from where we got on a ferry to Zanzibar. After more than a month there, we headed down to Malawi. We hitchhiked from north to south along Lake Malawi – making new friends, eating delicious food and went on another safari… but this time, on a boat!
By mid September, we crossed over into Zambia. What began as a pause to get visas sorted for the next three countries quickly spiralled into a lot of stress and we were stranded. Non of the countries we applied to seemed ready to give us visas to visit them. But Zambians and Zambian-Indians who were watching our vlogs then reached out to support us! About the same time, we saw our luck change with one of the embassies we were in touch with and managed to successfully get one of those three visas. And then we hitchhiked over 1,600 kms to the remotest border we had ever seen – into Angola. And this is where we had a nightmare of a journey that really shook us – if you haven’t already, the vlog has all the footage from what went wrong here.
Our days in Angola started off badly, but it actually went very well from there! We got to see the Atlantic ocean for the first time and enjoyed Afro-Portuguese style food (although vegetarian options were limited) and made some very nice friends. And then we headed south from Luanda into the desert to enter Namibia. It was interesting to meet three different tribes in this border region – our first time seeing tribes that were not as commercial about things as was the Masai Village we went to in Kenya. And over the next four weeks, we explored the Namib desert, seeing the surreal landscapes of Deadvlei and camping under the stars – it was truly some of our best days on this trip! After another visa nightmare, we finally got to make progress towards the end of November when we hitchhiked over 1,500 kms down to Cape Town, South Africa!
Over the next months, Shish and I explored the south African coastline, starting with the Cape Town and Cape areas, then along the coast on the Garden route stopping at a few places along the way before heading towards Lesotho, the little landlocked mountain kingdom/country within South Africa. This was a very unexpected experience as we had no visa and never assumed they’d allow us to enter. But it worked and we got to spend the next few days exploring the most amazing landscapes near the Drakensberg Mountains (the highest fold mountains of Africa). And then, we returned to South Africa, spent a few days in Johannesberg and then crossed over to Botswana.
Over the two weeks in Botswana (no thanks to the unpredictable visa experience), we quickly moved across the country visiting the world’s largest inland river delta, vast salt pans (near where the world’s second largest diamond was found) and the world’s largest elephant population! It was a whirlwind experience but so worth it. By early Feb, we crossed over to Zimbabwe and headed straight to Victoria Falls, the world’s largest waterfalls. It was something else! And then we took a night bus down to Harare, the capital city where we spent the last few days catching up on some editing and admin stuff and booked our flight back home to India!
This trip was much longer than both season 1 and 2, but also very different from what we had experienced previously. We saw a very different side of this travel-life here – kindness of people who unconditionally tried to help us across the continent – whether it was hosting us, inviting us for meals and safaris, treating us and even gifting us so many things… it was such an unexpected experience. And the best part was, race never mattered – everyone played a role whether they were black, brown or white! And at the same time, travelling in Africa took a LOT more mental effort to navigate – so even though we thoroughly enjoyed it, we’ll probably wait to return in the future.
This chart shows how much time we spent in each country on this journey – from March 13, 2024 to February 22, 2025.
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 72,256 / USD 860
In this season, we flew on only two routes:
The first one was from India to Africa (Bangalore to Mumbai and then Mumbai to Nairobi, Kenya) which was only about INR 13,000 per person on Indigo. The second one was the return flight from Africa to India (Harare, Zimbabwe to Kampala, Uganda and then onwards to Mumbai). We flew Uganda Airlines which did a fantastic job of hosting us in a very nice hotel with meals on the 21 hour transit.
So yeah – just four flights! Long story short, internal flights in Africa are very expensive. Thats why we avoided flying and chose to cross borders overland.
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 53,040 / USD 631
I know we couchsurfed A LOT on this trip, but I did not expect the stay cost came down this much from last time! In season two, we couchsurfed about 16% of the duration of the trip. This time, we stayed in a hotel for only 16% of the duration of the trip! On average, we spent about USD 10 per night for hotel rooms that we stayed in. They were cheaper in East Africa and got considerable more expensive in the Southern region.
Couchsurfing immensely helped bring down the costs – but that was only a side-benefit of what was a more wholesome cultural exchange we had with so many incredible people and their warm families! We haven’t quite considered all the gifts we gave them or meals we cooked after buying our own groceries here in this category.
We also spent a few nights here and there with new friends we made on the journey, so although it was like Couchsurfing, we did not meet them on the app/network.
The cheapest room we stayed in was at Gitega, the capital of Burundi – it cost us only INR 216 (USD 2.5) per night and it was located in a lovely neighbourhood just outside the city centre, walking distance to everything! The most expensive one was at Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe where we spent USD 30 for a night in a ten-bed shared dorm room with AC and a pool. We also collaborated with a couple of accommodations to feature them in our vlogs, in exchange for a discount or a free stay.
Shish says, the best room we stayed in was at a beautiful, traditional homestay in Stone Town, Zanzibar. We were paying less than USD 20 for an airconditioned room in an old house with antique furniture and excellent access – its was just a couple of alleys behind the main touristy section of Stone Town. She also enjoyed the lovely private room in a Backpackers hostel in Swakopmund and the over-water villa on Lake Malawi.
You’ll find these stays in our vlogs from those places. We’ve mostly used Booking and Agoda to find stays in Africa. Another popular website is AirBnB – many a times, you might find the same accommodation listed across all these websites.
🍕 Food: INR 98,738 / USD 1,175
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. Whenever we stayed with our couchsurfing hosts, we nearly always had good meals.
Street food in Africa is generally unhealthy due to the bad oil. We never got food poisoning from it but the saturated fats have definitely made it through – someteding we learnt from a full body blood test after returning home.
Tanzania had the best food though – a great mix of African, Arab and Indian flavours that made every meal delicious! And food was also most affordable there. Even giant avocados were incredibly cheap. Fresh fruits costed under ten rupees or twelve cents US. So we did feast on a lot of those! Some of our favourites include Gatsby sandwiches (South Africa), Chips masala (Kenya, Uganda), Urojo and Azam ice creams (Tanzania) and mashed maizemeal called Ugali / Posho / Pap / Sadza / Nshima / Sima in most of these countries. Also enjoyed Matoke (mashed banana) with relish.
Finding vegetarian food was not a problem at all… neither was finding Indian restaurants – you see, Africa is home to a LOT of Indians, who make up one of the largest immigrant communities from as early as the 1800s when the former colonialists brought them there. Naturally, it was very easy to find Indian food in nearly every big city and town… and prices ranged from reasonable to crazy. When we couchsurfed with Indian hosts, we got to enjoy delicious home cooked meals too – that made a huge difference to our mental wellness. Shishira also cooked many more times on this trip, both for us and our amazing hosts!
🤿 Sightseeing and activities: INR 72,271 / USD 860
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.
The biggest sightseeing expense in Africa was National Park tickets. Being international visitors, we got charged the highest fees everywhere. We managed to collaborate with a few companies to offset the cost of the sadaris, but the park tickets were always on us!
Some other special sights included:
- Kenya: Safaris in Masai Mara and Amboseli National Park (USD 100 per day just for the entry tickets), snorkelling at Diani Beach, Mombasa old town
- Uganda: Sipi waterfalls, source of the Nile river in Jinja and hiking around Lake Bunyioni (Kabale)
- Rwanda: Hiking to Diane Fossey’s grave deep inside Volcanoes National Park (USD 75)
- Tanzania: Waterfalls in Arusha and hot springs at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro (and the blue beaches of Zanzibar ofcourse!)
- Malawi: Lake Malawi, hiking up Mount Mulanje and Zomba plateau, and the boat safari in Liwonde National Park (USD 55)
- Zambia: Safari in Lusaka National Park (where a subscriber turned friend invited us – thank you again!)
- Angola: Meeting the Mumwila and Mucubal tribes in the Namibe desert, driving across the Great Plains of the eastern Moxico province
- Namibia: Driving across the vast Namib and Kalahari deserts to see the Deadvlei petrified trees, the orange sand dunes of Sossusvlei, the point where the dunes meets the sea at Sandwich Harbour (USD 120), Swakopmund old town and meeting the Himba tribe in the north.
- South Africa: Hiking along Table Mountain and Lion’s Head, swimming with penguins (USD 25), cage diving with wild sharks (USD 100) and exploring nature in and around the Cape
- Lesotho: Waterfalls and valleys – we drove with our hosts who became the new friends we made there!
- Botswana: boating in the Okavango Delta and safari in Chobe National Park (elephant capital of the world)
- Zimbabwe: Victoria Falls (USD 50)
As you can see from that list, most of them were free natural attractions. But the safaris and national park tickets were very expensive. Thanks to a few collaborations, we were able to do these with lesser mental stress. I regret that we did not do some more activities in South Africa!
🚌 Transport: INR 99,942 / USD 1,190
We rode on the local city bus, rickshaws, interstate buses on some routes – even while crossing land borders. But a majority of the journey was by hitchhiking – I’d say about 70% or more. This was nearly always due to the kindness of people who did not seek any money but just friendly company! We hitchhiked in family cars, the back of pickup trucks and even inside large 18 wheeler trucks. On two occasions, the very respectful drivers even invited us to camp with them overnight on what was a 1,000 km journey across Tanzania and South Africa. Many of these truckers would also treat us with snacks inside the cabin!
We also took the train a few times in Kenya, Angola and India (returning home from Mumbai on the last day). But nothing came close to the joy of driving our own 4×4 overland SUV while camping under the stars of the Namib desert sky – it was probably one of the best life experiences we’ve had. It was beyond our typical budget – renting at USD 100 per day (and extra for fuel) – but we had our own wheels with a small kitchen and the open country to explore!
On some other occasions, people we met on the road when we were hitchhiking or were invited to stay with, helped us with a few transport tickets, out of their own interest. That was so warm of them to do. Similarly, a few collaborations definitiely helped along the way too.
We’ve documented all of these journeys on our vlogs!
And before I forget, local bike taxis were omnipresent in most countries – they were cheap and easy to access. Taxi apps were reliable in some capital cities – like Bolt, Uber and Yango!
🔖 Visa: INR 77,163 / USD 919
Visa anxiety is real. Especially 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. And some African borders are more corrupt than others – either pay or talk smoothly out of it. Due to our strict budget, we had to do more of the latter. And for the most part, the officers were quite nice to us – so zero bribes anywhere!
Thankfully, most of the countries in East Africa were super welcoming and the visa process was relatively easy – either on arrival or online! The fees were also much higher than in Asia.
The visas became harder to get as headed further south – Namibia, South Africa, Lesotho and Botswana. The stress from these was incredibly high – especially South Africa. But some immigration officers went the extra mile to help us after learning about our journey! So we’re grateful for that.
- Kenya ETA for 30 days: USD 35 or INR 2,900
- Uganda eVISA for 90 days: USD 50 or INR 4,200
- Rwanda visa-free for 90 days
- Burundi “entry” visa-on-arrival for 3 days: USD 40 or INR 3,300. We had to then seek an extension for another five days at USD 10 or INR 840
- Tanzania visa-on-arrival for 90 days: USD 50 or INR 4,200
- Malawi eVISA for 90 days: USD 50 or INR 4,200
- Zambia eVISA for 90 days: USD 25 or INR 2,100
- Angola visa-free for 30 days
- Namibia sticker visa for 30 days: USD 70 or INR 5,800 (after the evisa delay in approval – the online one was far cheaper)
- South Africa sticker visa (after evisa applications did not go through) – fees exempt for Indian passports
- Lesotho stamp visa upon arrival, for 30 days: USD 55 or INR 4,700 (special consideration at the border)
- Botswana visa-on-arrival for 14 days: USD 30 or INR 2,500. This was after our eVISA applications were rejected three months prior (where also, we had paid USD 30 but for 30 days’ stay)
- Zimbabwe visa-on-arrival for 30 days: USD 30 or INR 2,500
(on average the USD to INR exchange rate was around 1:84 until the Rupee weakened significantly after Dec 2024 to 1:87)
🧾 Insurance: INR 11,814 / USD 141
We are a bit old fashioned about this. 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. You’ll notice that this has remained somewhat steady across the two prior seasons too.
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 23,827 / USD 284
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 (LTE/4g) got more expensive as we headed south but Rwanda had the cheapest internet packs.
By the way, we only bought local sim cards and not those app based eSIMs because we’d found them 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 make the switch.
As far as medication goes, we only fell sick once in Zomba, Malawi after drinking what we think was a bad batch of packaged milk from a supermarket. However, Shish did get an x-ray for her right index finger which we initially thought was broken (but it wasn’t).
Shish bought a couple of clothes but not as much as she had shopped in season 1 and 2. I also got a few haircuts here and there – some Indian barbers would not take our money though!
We also bought souvenirs from the countries we were visiting for the first time which was not cheap!
And we also bought Postcards for our Postcard Club members and sent them across internationally!
🎁 Gifts: INR 56,873 / USD 677
This was a new and unexpected category that we began to “experience” in Africa. Although in Seasons 1 and 2, people we met along the journey expressed their kindness by gifting us something small, in Africa, this amount turned out to be a lot more. In fact, this is after turning down more than a thousand dollars from some.
A majority of those who gave us these gifts were Indian, but there are a few Africans who did that too! And this was all in cash – mostly in Angola, Namibia, South Africa and Botswana. If we had to quantify the transport cost for the distance covered in countless hitchhikes, stay cost saved due to couchsurfing and lunch invitations that made a difference to our budget, it would cross well over a few thousand dollars!
We could have skipped talking about this – but its a very heartwarming side of travel that we experienced so much of with people contributing to support this adventure and live vicariously through us!
So you can imagine how grateful we are to those watching our Youtube videos, commenting and liking, supporting us through our BuyMeACoffee page and Postcard Club. If you are one of those amazing souls reading this – we appreciate it so much!
Here’s a quick summary of how much we spent in each country on this journey:
I want to clarify that the costs for Kenya and Zimbabwe look pretty steep compared to the others and thats mainly because of the international flights into and out of Africa. Namibia was expenive on account of visas, the 4×4 overlander costs, and it was a pricey country in general. Surprising thought that South Africa (despite being similarly expensive as Namibia) was a lot cheaper even though we stayed there twice as long.
If I disregard the flight expenses, Kenya (due to the safaris), Zimbabwe (due to the Dollar economy) and Namibia (like I explained above) continue to be the most expenive in our records. South Africa (on account of the slow travel pace), Uganda, Rwanda and Malawi were definitely the more affordable ones on a cost/day basis!
The expenses we’ve incurred in India include a train journey from Mumbai to Bangalore upon return, and our Insurance costs.
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 nearly a year across East and Southern Africa.
INR 452,178 or USD 5,383 (for 347 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 under the budget a LOT – it worked out to USD 16 / INR 1,303 per day – which is absolutely crazy! In hindsight, I would probably loosen the purse strings a little bit to do more sightseeing in some of the countries where we cheaped out. I’m still thankful that we could do it in this amount, which, by the way, includes the offset on account of gifts that people gave us in cash!
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!
If you found this interesting and entertaining, and want to encourage us to keep going – please visit our BuyMeACoffee page!