Budget Synopsis: Dubai

Days in country: 5

Food: $148.93

Lodging: $0.00 (all 5 nights free due to Couchsurfing)

Transport: $53.57 (taxis, buses, metro)

Souvenirs: $16.86

Entrance fees: $130.29 (Burj Khalifa, aquarium)

Other: $24.29 (toiletries, postage)           

TOTAL: $373.94= $74.79/day for 2 people

We knew Dubai was going to be a necessary splurge, but we also could have tightened our purse strings a lot more than we did. Entrance fees alone were pretty steep, but there was no way we were skipping the Burj, and the aquarium was well worth it as well. And you should know by now that food will always be high on our priority list, so while could have eaten cheaply, when we saw some favorite foods from home we went a bit nuts. However, our accommodation was entirely free thanks to CS and would have otherwise added easily $300 more to our total expenditures here. However, all things considered we still came out pretty well here.

NOTE: While I'm not including airfares between countries in our individual country budgets (it would drastically skew the numbers), we paid $414.60 for two tickets on Gulf Air to fly from Dubai, UAE to Istanbul, Turkey (via Bahrain).