India is definitely one of the most budget-friendly countries in the world. Independently of what you’re willing to spend, you can be sure that there’s gonna be the right option for you. Living with less than 10$/day, this including transport, food & some occasional tours, is possible.
Here follows a collection of our budget experience during our one-month roadtrip in the Indian regions of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Uttar Pradesh & Rajasthan (this one just briefly visited). We tried putting together a comprehensive guide to help you organize your trip from the start. Just choose your budget and go with it!
1# Accomodation Cost
In India you can find the right accomodation for any budget. In relationship to the rest of the world standards, it is extremely cheap !
Staying in hostels (although it could be a pretty grubby experience) can cost as low as 300 INR per night for a double room. Mid-range accomodations (e.g. b&b, guesthouse, cheap hotels) will have a broad range starting from 800INR up to 1800INR, depending on the area and on the facilities offered.
If you wanna treat yourself or your budget is a bit higher (or hostel budget for European standards), India offers many top-luxury range of hotels to relatively cheap tariffs ! The top end hotels would range from 1800INR to around 4000INR per night per double room, with extremely luxurious ones even hitting the 7000INR per night !!
Remember that room standards its gonna be completely different to your expectations and you’ll soon find out that spending a little more to have a better sleep will be well worth !
2# Food & Eating Out
Food is probably the cheapest thing here. The price for a sealed bottle of water (1L) will alway be around 30-40INR when bought from a road stand. Road-snacks such as pastry, meat skewers or different type of rice (cooked on the roadside) can get as cheap as 10INR for piece !
If you’re an adventurer and are ready enough to eat super spicy food in the several super small restaurant scattered around cities, you can end up spending no more than 100INR for a meal (bread, main plate and dessert), drinks included.
On the other hand, if you prefer mid-range restaurant (not the touristy ones) you will spend around 200-250INR per meal. This has been our most hit category (our budget was 500INR per person per day on food) as the quality-price ratio was unbeatable !
Lastly, restaurant found in big cities, fresh fish restaurants or the slightly more touristic (not essentially luxurious) ones were the more expensive with a price per meal ranging from 300INR to even 600INR per person.
Oh ! And big brands beverages (Coca Cola, 7Up etc…) and beer (usually Kingfisher) are something you might wanna drink rarely as the price would be similar to Europe prices, at around 80INR and 130INR respectively.
3# Transport & moving around
The cheapest way to move around the country is using buses. Although some legs could be pretty exhausting (6-12hrs of journey), it is the most reliable and widely spread way to travel. We calculated that a bus fare goes around the ratio of 30INR/1hr of road.
When available, trains also happened to be a quick way to cover long distances. Although being quite expensive ranging from 300-400INR/1hr in a second class (2AC) on a standard train (and constantly more or less late), sometimes we found it a comfy-blessing after a journey of exploration. Check our post on Trains in India.
Taking the plane to cover very very long distances (e.g. Kochi-New Delhi) was something we did as well. Internal flights from one part to the other of the country won’t be more expensive than 5000INR≈ 70€ for just a 3hrs flight.
Lastly, Taxis are the best option if you want to be 100% flexible and don’t really care about the money (fares around 30INR per km) depending on bargaining and driver).
Within cities the not-easy-to-use public transport (a.k.a. Delhi’s metro maze or buses) when available, should be the top choice. Otherwise, rickshaw and auto-rickshaw (tuk-tuk) are the best second-option at an affordable price 20-30INR/km (Check our post on Tuk-Tuks).
4# Tours & Day-Trips
Many of the highlights/monuments in India can be easily visited on your own, avoiding the big touristy masses traveling with huge buses. To reach most of the monuments in a city sometimes you’ll just need to rent a Tuk-tuk for a day.
Here are some examples of tours and general tariffs from our experience:
Full Day – Tuk-tuk sightseeing Jaipur/Agra (per vehicle) 500 INR
Full Day – Trekking in Munnar (pp) 700 INR
Full Day – Taxi Tour Munnar (per vehicle) 1700 INR
Half Day – Nature Walk Thekkady (pp) 400 INR
Half Day- Bamboo Rafting Thekkady (pp) 2150 INR
2-3hrs boating in Varanasi (pp) 200INR
Final Thoughts
Initially, when planning the trip to India, we budgeted around 3000INR/day but once we started travelling the country we realized that we could survive at a much lower budget. You’ll be amazed to know that in this country you can travel as low as 10$/day if you’d really like to!
During our trip, we gifted ourselves a couple of fancy hotel nights in Munnar (Check our post on Munnar | The Tea Paradise) and great tasty dinners in Jaipur (Check our post on Jaipur | The Pink City), which pushed up our budget a bit but in the end, it still ended up being lower than expected. The final budget for India was 2500INR/day for the both of us and it was broken down into the following:
Food & Eating out – 1000INR (12.65€)
Accomodation – 700INR (8.80€)
Transport & Moving Around – 700INR (8.80€)
Tours & Day Trips – 100INR (1.25€)
TOTAL – 2500INR/day (31.5€)
PLANNING A TRIP TO INDIA? CHECK MORE GUIDES BELOW!
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