Our budget for the six months we spent in India

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Golden Temple, Amritsar, India

Here we present to you MagicKervan’s budget for six months spent in north India for the period June-November 2015. Numbers are average for six months for two people.

Living and traveling in India is cheap, especially traveling in an unconventional way – namely hitchhiking and sleeping in a tent. We hope that these numbers will encourage more travelers to visit this exquisite country.

 

What you need is a dream, not money!

 

This is the average budget for two people per month:

  1. Food: 110 USD (55 USD per person per month)

 

  1. Hostels and other accommodation: 6 USD (3 USD per person per month)

We have

– 10 nights in an ashram in Rishikesh where we stayed such a long time in order to immerse in the Indian spiritual practices

– 3 nights in a bungalow at Srinagar Lake in order to recuperate from the high-mountain treks in the Himalayas

  1. Transportation: 10 USD (5 USD per person per month)

We used public transport such as buses and rickshaws mainly to exit towns. Otherwise it would have taken us too much time and effort. We also used public transport to move around in big cities such as Delhi and Kolkata.

For the six months we spent in India we rode a train two times and bought sitting seats. First was to exit Kolkata and the second to cross Assam State because our visas were about to expire soon and in addition we wanted to see what is the feeling of riding a train in India. The other 16 000 km. we passed for the time being we traveled only hitchhiking.

 

  1. Others: 70 USD (35 USD per person per month)

 

Here we include all the expenses you can think of without food, beverages and transport. These are: clothes; sports equipment; medication; cosmetics and sanitary accessories; books; maps; notebooks; entrances for landmarks; Internet; electronics (USB drive, cable, batteries). We spent more money than expected in buying mountain equipment because of our prolonged stay in the Himalayas and because our tent was stolen.

 

  1. Visas: 206 USD (103 USD per person)

We spent this for our Myanmar visas and buying the special permit needed for crossing the India-Myanmar border on land.

 

Average: 190 USD per month for both of us (or 95 USD per person per month – excluding the payment for the visas)

 

We spent 1340 USD (±2%) in total for the six months we were in India

 

The balance shows that traveling could be way cheaper than living in a city. If you have this opportunity don’t think twice – pack your bags and hit the road!