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.