 This is the number one question that I received since I got back from my one-month long trip in the beautiful country of Tanzania. So today I will answer this question and I will share with you the budget to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, the budget for Istafari in Tanzania, and the budget for one week long of a relaxing vacation in the beautiful island of Zanzibar. I do have timestamps on this video so if there is any adventure that you're not interested in, you can skip ahead to the next segment. So we'll start with climbing Mount Kilimanjaro. This is the most asked question. How much do I have to budget for to climb Mount Kilimanjaro? The average cost to climb Mount Kilimanjaro range from 2000 US dollars to 6000 US dollars. I know there's a huge gap. I know the numbers sound outrageous, but let's start from the beginning and try to understand why these numbers look the way they do. First off, if you're not familiar with Mount Kilimanjaro, Mount Kilimanjaro is the highest peak in Africa, one of the seven summits and the highest or the tallest freestanding mountain in the world, which drives a lot of tourism to Tanzania and is on the bucket list of a lot of hikers and adventure travelers from all over the world. Now you might ask why do I have to pay to climb a mountain? Mount Kilimanjaro is one of these mountains that you can't climb by yourself. It's no longer possible. It is even illegal to attempt to climb Mount Kilimanjaro without a guide and without a permit. So in order for you to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and make it to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, you have to go with the tour operator and that is the largest cost that you will have to pay for to climb the mountain. Now this cost like I said ranges from 2000 dollars to 6000 dollars and there are a lot of factors that make up for this price. A lot of people will say I was able to climb the mountain with less than 2000 dollars. Sure. Many people would wait, travel to Tanzania first, go to Arusha or Moshi and then they negotiate to take the price down to lower than 2000 dollars. But I do not recommend that and I'm going to explain why. So 2000 US dollars to 6000 dollars. Why there is a huge gap? The main reason is there are two different type of tour operators and I did make a live stream that you can check up here before I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. You can refer back to that video to just hear what we have to say about what things you should be paying attention to pick a company to climb the mountain with and then why we chose the company that we choose. But usually there are two type of tour operators to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. There are tour operators that are operating in Tanzania and there are other tour operators with admin teams, sales teams and operation teams in a western country. So usually these local tour operators not only they have porters and guides who are local to Tanzania which is actually the case for both companies but even their admin team and sales team they are based in Tanzania. While the other big names like G-Adventures, Kendo Adventures, Kili Warriors, most of their teams, their sales teams, their admin teams, they are in western countries like the UK, Australia and the US and that is one of the reasons why their pricing is usually higher. So a high price doesn't always mean that it's better quality because in the past we have traveled, when we hiked the Inca Trail in Machu Picchu, we have traveled with a local company and they had a great service. So a western company does not mean a better service because a lot of local companies to Tanzania still have great service. But for the company that we chose we were climbing during the pandemic and there were a lot of uncertainties around a lot of things. We wanted to have better assurances and that is the reason we went with the western company. So when you're gonna start your research you will notice that usually local companies will have lower prices. Now there is a big important thing that you have to pay attention to and I said earlier that you don't want to pay less than $2,000. The reason being they will be companies in Tanzania who are willing to take you up the mountain for less than $2,000 but your safety might be compromised. Not only that but usually the lower price means that they are compromising on how much they are paying their porters on the mountain, their guides, their assistant guides and their chefs and the last thing that you want is to get to the top of the mountain knowing that you took advantage of people who helped you to get there. The other thing that you want to pay attention to when you are choosing a tour operator to climb with is that they are part of K-PAP, Kilimanjaro Porter Association Program. This is a non-profit organization with the program to enhance the quality of life of porters. So usually K-PAP makes sure that these porters on the mountain, they have the right gear, they are not carrying more weight than they are expected, they are being paid fairly from the companies that they are working with and their overall conditions on the mountain are to a good standard. So you want to make sure that the company is part of K-PAP and usually when you go to their website or their About Me page you will, it will state, a lot of companies will state that they are part of K-PAP program so that is a very important thing to pay attention to. This is not going to be the only cost but it's going to be the biggest chunk of your cost, the amount of money that you are paying to the tour operator. But the other thing that you should be budgeting for is tipping. When you are on the mountain there will be a lot of porters that will help you and support you and carry your supply and provisions to make sure that you have a successful climb to the summit. With our team we were eight people and between the porters, guys, assistant guys, and chefs on the mountain we were around 30 people. So it takes a village to make it happen. You will need a lot of support from these porters who are doing a tremendous job on the mountain. So for you are expected to pay every single day for the porters on the mountain, the guides, assistant guides, and chefs. You don't have to pay every single day. Usually the way it works towards the end of the climb there will be a tip-in ceremony either on the mountain or at the hotel where they will be dropping you off and then you will be getting together with the team or the people that you climb the mountain with to split that money and put it in envelopes for guides, assistant guides, chefs, and porters. The company that we climbed with, they gave us a document with some guideline about how much you should be paying these porters on the mountain. So you can follow that guideline and you can pay more than what's suggested by the company. The majority of these guides and porters on the mountain, they do rely heavily on tips. This is how they make their living. Whether they work with local companies or with Western companies, they're not getting paid a huge amount of money. So the majority of their income is coming from tips. So you have to be considerate and you have to put a lot of thoughts into making sure that you are being fair and you are paying these porters and these guides on the mountains what they really deserve. Make sure that you budget for that and make sure that you sit with yourself. You look at the guideline ahead of time and you plan accordingly. On top of how much you're paying the tour operator for and how much you are budgeting for tipping, you will obviously have to plan for your flight to get to Tanzania or to get to Kilimanjaro International Airport. This is going to be variable depending on where you are flying from and usually the company that you're going to be climbing the mountain with, they would accommodate you the day before the climb and the day after the climb but it's a good idea to ask and check and make sure that you are going to be covered. Otherwise you will have to budget for a day before the climb and a day after the climb. So this is generally speaking the budget to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. You also have to consider gear that you will need for the mountain whether it's gear that you are renting from the company or gear that you have to buy for yourself and again this is going to be different from one person to the other but this is generally the budget that you will have to think about in order to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. If you have any questions about Mount Kilimanjaro do let me know in a comment and I will have a lot of videos coming in the future to talk about the gear that you will need to climb Kilimanjaro. Tips for a successful climb on Mount Kilimanjaro so make sure that you are subscribed to the channel to get on notification once these videos are out and with that we'll move to the next step and talk about the budget for a beautiful safari in Tanzania. A trip to Tanzania is not complete if you don't go for a safari to at least one or some of the beautiful national parks in Tanzania. Now what is the average cost for a safari in Tanzania? On average a Tanzania safari costs 200 us dollars per person per day mid-range price is from 350 us dollars per person per day and the luxury safari price is from 600 us dollars per person per day. There are so many factors that can make this price either a lot more expensive or a lot cheaper starting with how many days do you want to spend on this safari usually for someone who is going for a safari for the first time you don't have a lot of time to spare you would go for three four days safari or even five days during these four days you can see a lot of beautiful national parks usually people would go for central Serengeti national park the Serengeti national park is a huge national park the wildlife is so very diverse we spend time in the north Serengeti the north Serengeti is where you can see and witness the great wildebeest migration when it's the right season and then you would be able to see the water crossing of the wildebeest just crossing the Mara river it is a wonderful experience but it's a lot further out if you are going for a short safari so instead you could go and enjoy the central Serengeti with that you can also go to Ngorongoro crater conservation area you can see Lake Manara this is the famous lake where you can see a lot of flamingo and Tarangiri national park all of these national parks they have a lot of wildlife you will be able to see lions you will be able to see giraffes elephants crocodiles and so many more animals so you don't really have to go and visit every single national park in order for you to see all of the animals and by the end of the day there is no guarantee that you will see all of the animals because it's not a zoo it is the wild plains of the Serengeti or whatever national park that you are going to we were hoping that we can see all of the big five the big five are the big five games that you want to see when you are going for a safari for the first time and that includes lion leopard buffalo elephant and rhino we saw four of them we were not able to see the rhino because the population of rhino is reduced in year after year and we were told that we'll probably have higher chances to see a rhino in Ngorongoro crater but we didn't see it and then the second thing that will determine how much money you will be spending on the safari is the type of safari you are going for which i did not know before traveling to Tanzania apparently there are a lot of different types of safaris there is the vehicle safaris and even within the category of vehicle safaris there are different types of vehicles so a vehicle safari is what we went for and that is usually you sitting in a vehicle with your guide who is also your driver and then they drive you around from one national park to the other and they usually have an open roof in some national parks because some national park will allow you to open the roof and some of them want so you will have an open roof the majority of the time where you can see the wildlife around you take pictures and take videos and that is a vehicle type of safari there are other type of vehicles where the whole vehicle is open again these open vehicles are not allowed in all of the national parks and conservation areas but that's a different pricing there are walking safaris and usually with walking safaris you can walk outside with a park ranger which with the vehicle safari you are not allowed to walk outside unless you want to use the bathroom then you go just behind the vehicle with the walking safaris it's a whole different experience and it's a whole different pricing and then there are hunting safaris for people who are into hunting and tracking animals it's a great experience I know that I have a lot of people who are passionate about hunting on this youtube channel so it's something to consider if you are planning a trip to Tanzania I know that there are a lot of rules and regulations when it comes to what animals you can hunt and how many of them you can hunt I know for example that the masai giraffe is not an animal that you can hunt in Tanzania at all because it is the national animal of the country but that is a conversation for a different time the third thing that will determine how much money you're spending on your safari is accommodation and the type of accommodation that you want to go for there are a lot of people who join group safaris where you are just joining a group of people random people in the vehicle and that will make the price a lot more cheaper there are a lot of people who choose their type of accommodation to be tense where you are kind of backcountry camping it's primitive camping you are sleeping in a tent and a lot of people enjoy it and it's usually a lot cheaper there are luxurious lodges and hotels there are bush camps and usually the company that you are going to to talk to or to choose to go on this safari way they will give you a range of choices to pick from ranging from the lowest price to the highest price and then based on what you choose from that is going to make the sum of your pricing towards the end so it's up to you i love how the industry of safaris in Tanzania they can accommodate all type of travelers if you're traveling on a budget you can still go for a safari if you are a luxurious traveler you can still do that and then obviously if you are going on a private safari the price is going to be a little bit higher but that is going to allow you to customize the whole experience you can even add things to your safari if you are spending an extended amount of time you can say i want to go and see this tribe i want to go and hang out with this tribe there is a particular thing that i want to learn about or there are particular cooking classes that i want to go for or something like that i'm just throwing random examples but if you go with a private safari that is going to open the world for you to be more flexible and probably experience things that you know are not just open and accessible for everyone and i will be making a lot of videos in the future to talk about how to prepare for safari what to wear for a safari what are some of the things that you need to pay attention to so be sure to subscribe to the channel to get a notification once these videos are up with that let's move on to talk about the beautiful island of Danzibar the average price of the seven-day trip to Zanzibar is 2386 us dollars for a solo traveler 4285 us dollars for a couple and 8034 us dollars for a family of four Zanzibar hotels range from 38 us dollars to 217 us dollars per night with an average of 60 for us dollars and i totally agree with these numbers because they are aligned with how much money we spend in Zanzibar now if you choose hotels that are off the beaten pack you stay away from stone town you stay away from Nungwi you can find very good deals we ended up staying in Kigo Mani and the hotel was 130 us dollars per night with direct access to the beach which made our experience a lot more enjoyable but we ended up paying zero dollars for seven days stay in Zanzibar and if it's something that you want to learn about you can check this video up here in which i talk about how you can travel for cheap and sometimes for free other than accommodation in Zanzibar for seven days we ended up spending 1500 us dollars for two people and that included transportation getting to and from places in the island including a scooter rental we rented a scooter for two days just to explore the island on our own that also included food sometimes eating in the hotel sometimes eating outside of the hotel knowing that all of the breakfasts were included and usually the breakfasts are open until 11 a.m so sometimes we would even snack from there so that covered a lot of food that we ate in in Zanzibar that also included snorkeling it included a sunset cruise on a sailboat just for the two of us each included a day trip to stone town a tour in stone town and a trip to prison island as well as tipping all of the people who either helped us with the tours or helped us get to and from places so 1500 us dollars for two people seven days on the beautiful island of Zanzibar now there are so many things that you can do in Zanzibar if you add more activities to the list and you will be spending more money but for us we spent the majority of the time relaxing by the beach or in the pool hanging out at the hotel the hotel was really nice so we loved spending time in the hotel itself so this is the budget for the beautiful island of Zanzibar and that is the full budget for one month of travel in the beautiful country of Tanzania if you guys found this to be useful please give this video a thumbs up subscribe to our channel for more videos about Tanzania safari climbing Mount Kilimanjaro and a lot more my name is Habiba this is trekking pals and I will see you very soon on a new adventure