When you hear the word Dubai, The first things that comes to mind is ‘Luxury’ and of course, you know, Burj Khalifa! Dubai is notoriously famous for being a place for the riches and you have seen plenty of posts and videos with the title “rich kids of Dubai” or something like that. Definitely, Dubai is a far more developed place than any of it’s nearby countries and standards comparable to those of the USA even. People have rich taste there and this what Instagram dreams are made of, but that doesn’t mean it is necessarily expensive for everyone travelling there.
Just stay with me through the post and you will realize that not only it’s possible but also rather easy to travel to Dubai on a budget! I speak from experience as I went on a Dubai holiday in July 2017 and I covered most of the famous attractions there and also took a day trip to Abu Dhabi but that story is for some other day…. or post… whatever, you know what I mean, right!
In this post, I will only be breaking down all my expenses while I was in Dubai. First a little explanation about the nature of our trip.
OK, so I went there with my family. Yes, it was a family trip but can easily be related to a holiday with friends by including a few parties every other night or so. We were a group of 6 and were there for 4 nights and 5 days. The days were jam-packed and can easily be relaxed by adding a couple of more days to the trip. As we are from India, we had to get our e-visas before arrival which was a pretty straightforward task and will be explained in details here.
The total amount spent by the 6 of us for the whole trip including flights, visa, souvenirs and any pre-trip expenses was,
₹3,24,000 ~ $5,100
Per person expense : ₹54,000 ~ $850
Per Person Per Day Expense: ₹10,800 ~ $170
Don’t close your browser just yet dismissing it as a click bait post because it is not. I know I sprang the numbers a bit too suddenly on you and the number seems a bit exorbitant but let’s break them down and you will see why it’s actually really cheap and at the level of backpacking in central Europe.
EXPENSES BREAKDOWN:
On Per Person basis for the whole trip,
Visa: $5500 ~ $85
Flights (including insurance) : ₹19,000 ~ $300
Hotel Apartment: ₹5,500 ~ $85
Food: ₹2000 ~ $30 – will be explained in a later post
Transportation: ₹3800 ~ $60
Dhow Cruise: ₹2000 ~ $30
Desert Safari: ₹2500 ~ $40
The ENTERTAINER: ₹800 ~ $13 (cost of the book was ₹4800/$78 but split among 6)
At The Top Burj Khalifa: ₹2200 ~ $35
Ferrari world + Yas Water World combo: ₹2850 ~ $45
Others (souvenirs, little expenses here and there): ₹7,500 ~ $115
total : ₹53,650 ~ $842
Now you see that the trip cost, as I said, includes my flights, visa, gifts etc and if we cut down on all these expenses we come down to a rough figure of about
₹4,330 ~ $68 per Day!
Now that looks a really good figure considering staying in a good hotel in Bur Dubai (Golden Sands 10), Mostly commuting via taxi’s (with a bit of help from careem’s taxi app) and a direct flight with meals and checked baggage!
Now I won’t go on to explain all these things in a single post otherwise it will become an enormous post and most people won’t read it, at least that’s what I will do on immensely long posts.
So, I will break it down into a series of posts so that one can easily access them according to ones need. Hope you enjoyed and make sure to drop down a like below and subscribe to stay updated on all the other posts I publish for you guys!
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