Total | Cost Per Day (18) | % of Total | |
Accommodation | $230.83 | $12.82 | 21.12% |
Entertainment | $378.13 | $21.01 | 34.60% |
Food | $129.40 | $7.19 | 11.84% |
Misc. | $22.51 | $1.25 | 2.06% |
Transport | $140.01 | $7.78 | 12.81% |
Visas | $192.00 | $10.67 | 17.57% |
Total | $1,092.88 | $60.72 |
Accommodation in Tajikistan was incredibly reasonable, especially compared to Uzbekistan. Granted, many places included food as part of the lodging cost, and I did my best to split up the cost in a fair manner for the purposes of this report. Granted, food costs were also pretty low: I spent just barely over $7 per day on food. I was also sick for a few days in Tajikistan, however, and I wasn’t really eating much of anything during that time.
Entertainment costs are really what did me in in Tajikistan, but it still wasn’t that bad. A friend and I elected to hire our own transport to take us through the Wakhan Valley so we would have the luxury to stop as we pleased. Yes, technically, this was an entertainment + transportation charge, but considering it would have been much less expensive to take shared transportation but we would have missed out on a lot of the “entertainment” of the region, I elected to include it only in that category. I also did a full day tour of the Song Kul lakes in the Fan Mountains.
Transportation, even shared, in Tajikistan did add up. The costs included were a shared taxi from the Uzbekistan border to Penjikent and on to Dushanbe to Khorog, Khorog to Ishkashim, and another from Murgab and across the border into Kyrgyzstan. Two of the three taxi rides were double digit hours, so once you consider that the transportation charges were actually incredible cheap.
I was in Tajikistan for 18 days all together, though my time was broken up by a few days in Afghanistan. Tajikistan does require a visa for U.S. citizens. Usually the visa costs $85 for double entry plus the costs of shipping, but my first visa application was denied, so I had to pay a second time. I also included the shipping charges in this cost.
Overall, my trip to Tajikistan was a little bit more expensive per day than I aim for (<$50), but it wasn’t out of control. Not having to apply for the visa a second time would have gotten me even closer to my $50 per day goal.
If you’re curious about the cost to travel to different countries, check out my database. It’s a work in progress, but it’s moving in the right direction!
Any tips on the visa process? Do you know why your application was denied the first time?
I used Allied Passport and Visa to apply for my visa. If you mention my blog you can save $5 on their processing fees. Steve is a ton of help and I’d highly recommend using them. It seems that my application was kind of denied on a whim. Someone else had applied the same day with the same documents and was approved, while mine was not. When I applied again, I did get a Letter of Invitation even though it *technically* shouldn’t be needed.
Thanks for posting this! I’d love to see that part of the world someday.
It’s gorgeous there! I hope you have the chance to check it out 🙂