Hi, I'm heading to Iran soon for a few weeks and I've heard conflicting things about how expensive it is. The consensus seems to be that it's cheap but some more detail would be great. I'm planning to stay in guesthouses and home stays and take buses from place to place (with maybe one internal flight). Is $50 U.S. a day a realistic budget or is it likely to cost more/less than that? Thanks
Hi
Guest house, you should consider about 10-20 dollars per person.
Food per meal around 5 dollars.
Buses inside city are really cheap. 10 times ride 1 dollar.
Buses between cities around 5-10-15-20 dollars.
Visiting museum 3-4 dollars per each one.
Internal flights, for example between Tehran to Shiraz is around 50 dollars, one way.
So it means, you can manage with your 50 dollars per day. If you don't visit more than 4-5 historical and museums per day.
If you need any help, just let me know.
Best Hopes
SaeedFromIran

Just left Iran after staying for close to a month. Did the math and it came out that I spent exactly 50 US per day. I stayed in budget hotels and a few times in a mosaferkhaneh (they are cheap (400k, 500k fetches a single room with shower, toilet), budget hotels can go up to 800k, 900k (especially in places like Tehran, Esfahan, Shiraz and Yazd). Travelled mostly by bus, mainly VIP (example, 13h night bus from Kermanshah to Orumiyeh 450k; or savari-hopping from Andimeshk to Kermanshah for about 350k). Another example: private taxi for Shushtar, Choqzanbil and Shush sightseeing took me 1,2 Mio. Mostly I took a private taxi from the bus stations to the hotels (anything between 50k to 100k). Shared taxis (or metro in Tehran) are very cheap.
Entry for most (more important) things is 150k (except places like the Golestan Palace and Saabad Palace in Tehran - if you want to enter all of the "rooms", museum-parts it costs close to a million), sometimes 200k (Holy Defense museum Tehran, sometimes 100k (f.e. watermills in Shushtar).
I ate almost always fast food (kebab with rice and coke around 150k, burger with coke less than 100k, half a grilled chicken 100k, sausage-sandwich with drink 50k, tea 5k).
Cigarettes are cheap (20k), I did not buy souvenirs.

We found the food to be very cheap in Iran. For just over $US5 you can get a buffet dinner in an upmarket hotel. But if you are eating in the trendy areas, you will pay more. Our best deal - 3x cheese and tomato sandwiches for $US1 in a café. If you are on a budget, seek out the local falafel joints where you will get a massive sandwich (enough for two people - if there are two of you ask them to cut it in half) for $US1.
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