Travel Economics: Food

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A continuation from the post Travel Economics: The Big Picture.

In our travel spreadsheet we had three categories for food:
  • Groceries/Water
  • Street Food/Snacks
  • Restaurant
The first category is fairly straight forward - any non prepared food or water. The second and third categories overlapped a bit. Here are a couple of examples:

Street Snack: Vendor cart full of sesame seed buns - Istanbul, Turkey
Restaurant: Indoor seating, menu, non-disposable cutlery - Jalgaon, India
Street Food: Sold from a cart, no seating - Hyderabad, India
The gray area: A couple of picnic tables next to a grocery store, no menu - Yakalla, Sri Lanka
Now, that that's been cleared up here's the graph you've been waiting for:
* Average does not include China **As I was solo in China, I doubled my food expenses for comparison

The fallibility of bar graphs is that they fail to relate extenuating circumstances. Here are a few considerations:
  • Greece: Mostly stationary and had ready access to kitchen facilities
  • Georgia: Mostly stationary; Most food was provided by host family
  • Sri Lanka: Mostly stationary; Most food was provided by DDC
  • Vietnam: Stationary for two out of four weeks; Low cost meals provided by Friendship Village

In the other countries we led a more general backpacker/tourist lifestyle, usually moving on every three or four days. We also spent from two weeks to over a month in each country.

I really found food spending ratio shift interesting. In Greece we purchased mostly groceries. In Turkey, street food/snacks overtook groceries and both overshadowed restaurant spending. After Turkey, as we eased through the developing world, the ratios all fell into a similar pattern with restaurants forming the bulk of food spending. Jean and I quickly discovered that as a foreigner in India and southeast Asia, it seemed more economical (and appealing to the palate) to have someone else make our food.

I attribute the spike in Cambodia to a Mexican food restaurant in Siem Reap that we visited seven days in row. Bills here including drinks, starters and desserts would sometimes push close the $20 mark. It was quite shocking at the time but even so we considered it well worth it. 

Comments

sly said…
Ah, Mexican food. When your dad and I were first married (1971), we lived in Pennsylvania with NO Mexican restaurants and ingredients for mexican fare were limited. In 2000, we visited New England again and had fajitas in MAINE!!
5 April 2011 at 08:23
Jean said…
As the resident statistician I would just like to make a point.... only joking!

But do also note that groceries also includes, soap, shampoo etc.
7 April 2011 at 03:39
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