We spent a total of 31 days in Chile and we spent most of that time in Santiago. For a list of the best things to do in Santiago, check out all of our posts where we share our favorite things we did during our month-long trip.
We kept our Airbnb for the entire month even while we were in Patagonia for a week and Valapariso for New Year’s Eve weekend. In this post, I’ll share how much we spent specifically in Santiago. In the upcoming days, I’ll be adding our costs for Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil. Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter to get notified when those posts are live.
Note that the following prices are all in USD but if you need a conversion app, the best one we use while traveling is XE Converter.
Spending Overview:
We spent a total of $2,088.66 for the 19 days in Santiago although we booked accommodation for the entire month. If we take the total over the time we were physically in Santiago, we spent $109.93 per day or $54.96 per person per day.
This number is a little higher than I first thought. Although if you haven’t read the book, How to Travel the World for $50 a Day, I highly recommend it. We use that as a guide for our travel budget for the entire year. We use the book as proof that traveling doesn’t have to be expensive.
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Our Travel Style:
Our costs really depend on our travel style. Of course, you could travel to Santiago and spend significantly more or less than us. I consider us to be value-based travelers. Although we are on a budget, we splurge if we think it is worth it. For example, we like to try local dishes and restaurants but we could save by cooking at our Airbnb.
Accommodation:
We rented an Airbnb for 31 days for $1,022.50 which included a 25% long term stay discount. Most hosts give a weekly or monthly long term stay discount. Because we spent a week (or 25% of the month) in Patagonia, we felt this was worth it since we needed a place to store our laptops and extra equipment.
We prefer Airbnb’s opposed to hostels and hotels. Hostels are shared accommodation where the price is per person. The cost of hostels is slightly less than Airbnbs for two people. This is the Airbnb we stayed at for all December 2019. It is located perfectly near restaurants and a mall; however, it is loud from street noise. If you haven’t used Airbnb before, use this link to sign up to receive $55 off your first stay.
Restaurants (and food not at home)
Although the food in Chile isn’t my favorite, we spent $637.58 total on restaurants, fast food, and snacks. This includes all food except for food at the grocery store.
Groceries and Household items
Because we were in Santiago during Christmas 2019, we did cook at the Airbnb. We spent $241.94 on groceries and household items for Airbnb which include toilet paper paper towels and cleaning supplies. This is rather high for the number of times we cooked but we splurged during the holiday season.
RideSharing and Public Transportation
Santiago has a good subway system and Uber is available. We spend 119.62 on transportation around the city this includes the subway and rideshares. Uber is legal in Santiago although there is tension between Uber drivers and taxi drivers. The only time we used taxies was from the airport since we were unable to get Uber. This accounted for most of the costs in this section.
Activities
We spent $67.02 on activities around the city. This includes our walking tour or entrances to different attractions. We spent most of this money on going to the movies. At home, we had the AMC movie pass and went to the movies at least 3 times per week. In our first month of traveling, we went to the movie 4 times and that number has since decreased.
Non-Local Transportation
We paid for our flight Atlanta to Santiago with delta SkyMiles points so it is not included in the calculation. Flights can drastically change depending on so many factors. I’ve seen prices for the same route change overnight. When we purchase flights, I will include them although they aren’t particularly helpful. I don’t include our long-distance travel costs because I don’t think that is relevant if you are planning a trip to Santiago. If you want to see all of our costs including long-distance travel to the other areas, leave me a comment below and let me know.
Bonus: Check out our other posts on Chile
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