Check out this post — Expense Report: Pre-Trip Costs — for a better understanding of other costs associated with a RTW trip, as well as a definition of my travel style and how it impacts my budget.

My time in Egypt is so short that I feel a little silly compiling a budget report, but the numbers add up to higher than I would’ve liked, I think that’s worth investigating. Why did 24 hours in a country cost me so much? More on that in a moment.

Here’s what I spent in U.S. dollars over 1 night in Egypt:

• Accommodation = $87
• Food =  $16.40
• Groceries =  $6.50
• Coffee =  $6.80
• Activities =  $28.30
• Cell & Wifi =  $0
• Transportation =  $10.15
• Miscellaneous =  $37.26

And the grand total for 1 night in Egypt is…:

$192.41 USD

Here’s how those numbers compare with other countries I’ve traveled to:

• My daily average in Cook Islands: $157.05
• My daily average in New Zealand: $88.56
• My daily average in Australia: $83.37
• My daily average in Singapore: $78.86
• My daily average in Indonesia: $51.34
• My daily average in Malaysia: $117.09
• My daily average in Palau: $160.91
• My daily average in Philippines: $49.21
• My daily average in Japan: $89.55
• My daily average in Nepal: $75.42
• My daily average in Jordan: $68.88
• My daily average in Israel: $70.62
• My daily average in Turkey: $72.42
• My daily average in Egypt: $192.41

So why is my Egypt daily average so inflated compared to the other countries I’ve visited?

A few notes:

• It all comes down to this: the longer you stay in one place, the cheaper it is to travel. For example, I lived like a queen in Indonesia for $51 per day, but that was largely because I stayed there for over three weeks and traveled slowly. If I wanted to do the same itinerary in a shorter time span — say, 10 days — I could’ve done it by flying everywhere, but that would’ve jacked up the daily average. And on the flip side, I could’ve done the same itinerary over 5 weeks by traveling exclusively on public transportation to save even more money. The bottom line is that the slower you travel, the cheaper it costs. By boiling my Egypt itinerary down to a single day, I had to pay all of the costs associated with getting there and back plus the usual expenses of activities, food, and accommodation — and all of that adds up.
• Another major reason my daily average is so high is because I splurged on a room at the Cairo Novotel next to the airport. I got it for $87 on-line via one of the cheap travel sites — Expedia or Priceline or Hotels.com, I can’t recall which one. Normally I stay in hostels or cheap guesthouses, but given my short stay — and the fact that traffic in Cairo is notoriously bad — it made sense to book a place near the airport. I also appreciate the safety factor in booking with a well-established hotel, since I wasn’t entirely sure how safe Cairo was before my arrival. In retrospect, I wish I’d emailed the kind people at Egypt Fun Tours to ask for an accommodation recommendation. I find that local tour companies often have an ear to the ground when it comes to accommodation — sometimes they work with guesthouses, etc. to leave brochures advertising their tours. I wish I’d thought to ask.
• My single cup of Starbucks was $6.80. Yikes!
• I used xe.com in mid-December to calculate the exchange rate and at that point in time, 1 EGP (Egyptian Pound) = .145 USD.
• I received one discount in exchange for my photography services and blog coverage: a day-long tour of Cairo with Egypt Fun Tours valued at approximately $100 USD. For the record, I think that’s a very fair price to “cross the Pyramids off your list” (I hate that expression, but if I’m being honest it applies to my layover tour of Cairo).
• I did not include my flights into or out of Egypt, as those will be accounted for in a separate post documenting my international airfare budget.
• I did not purchase an Egyptian SIM card since I was only in the country for one day. But I did have wifi at my hotel, and I continue to use the Viber app to communicate for free with my friends and family back home.
• I continue to use my Charles Schwab debit card to avoid international ATM fees.
• I purchased one souvenir — papyrus art with hieroglyphics spelling my name at the Papyrus Museum — which is accounted for under the Miscellaneous slice of the budget pie.
• A few OTHER miscellaneous items include… visa on arrival ($15 USD), one postcard & stamp ($2.30)… by the way, this is the first time I’ve mailed myself a postcard from a foreign country and NOT received it. I’m bummed it got lost in the mail and hope it miraculously shows up on my doorstep in the future. (I send myself a postcard so that I have a stamp from each country I visit, plus I write the highlights of what I did so it serves as a memory keeper of sorts.)

Granted, this budget breakdown is skewed because I spent so little time in Egypt. But if you’re looking to do a similar layover tour in Cairo, I hope it’s helpful.