Frommer Watch: Travel In India Is Really Cheap Right Now

India has always been a cheap country to travel through, but it’s now cheaper than ever. As the galavanting guru Arthur Frommer points out in a recent blog post, the exchange rate of the Indian Rupee is at a historical low as compared to the U.S. dollar, with each greenback returning about 53 rupees.

As can be seen in the above graphic, this is a historical low for the rupee, meaning a country where a Big Mac cost you roughly $1.89 back in July (as calculated by the most recent Big Mac index), is going to allow you to stretch your budget like never before.

As another helpful tool, a little over a year ago I wrote a post estimating how many days you can travel on $1,000 in various countries. At that time, I estimated you could conservatively get by in India for about 40 days with $1,000 (I stress the word “conservatively”). With the exchange rate difference now, you can expect to add about a week to that tally now. Not bad for holding out on that trip to the sub-continent another year.

As a final note, given that India has a stubbornly high inflation rate at nearly 10% for 2011, the strength of the U.S. dollar will have been slightly tempered by the fact that everything costs measurably more than just a year ago (9.1% to be exact). One of the factors for this: a falling rupee makes imports more expensive. As one hand giveth, the other taketh.

As a really final note, it’s been a while since we’ve added to our very special segment we like to call Frommer Watch. To read our past Frommer Watch entries here, click here.

Posted on January 04, 2012 by Matt Stabile