Guatemala Recap Video + Expenses

All photos by Josh Meister Photo.

Watch our recap video below and read about our three weeks there as well as our experiences taking Guatemalan Spanish lessons and living with a local family.

COSTS

• Flights from Bogota to Guatemala City: $138 + 25,000 United miles
• Airbnbs/hotels (19 nights): $536 + 30,000 IHG points ($28.21/night)
• Transit (rental car, transport vans, chicken buses): $296
• Food/drinks/groceries: $767, which comes out to $19 pp per day
• Spanish school (1 week of one-on-one classes 4hrs/day): $288
• Extras (tours, museums, hikes, kayaking, etc.): $224

TOTAL: $2,249

Budget self grade: A-

Guatemala surprised us in how not-inexpensive it was. Prices weren’t crazy, they just weren’t as cheap as we expected. Granted, we really only spent time in tourist-friendly areas (this was probably the country we’ve overall felt the least safe in), which always have inflated costs. There also seems to be a large lack of decent Airbnb options, and the guesthouses and hotels seemed to jump from crazy cheap and extremely bare bones for maybe $15/day to about $40/night for anything decent with hot water. There wasn’t really an in between. Even with the lodging challenges, we would have succeeded in keeping our spending to $100/day if we didn’t sign up for Spanish lessons. One week of one-on-one classes put us over budget, but was so worth it! Always invest in your education, right?

All images TM & © 2017 Josh Meister Photo and Shari Margolin (unless otherwise stated). Please don’t steal or “borrow” – just be cool, be cool.