Destination: Syria

LONELY PLANET'S OFFICIAL GUIDEBOOK INFORMATION

Money & Costs

Lebanon and Syria are great value destinations. Although Lebanon’s best restaurants and hotels are comparable in price to Europe, North America or Australia, you can live it up at elegant restaurants and top-end hotels in Syria for far less. At the finest Damascene restaurants, a feast with wine for two will cost around US$30, while a night on the executive floor of the Cham Palace, the city’s best hotel, can be bargained down to US$130 in the low season. At the other extreme, a delicious shwarma and fresh fruit juice can be had for US$3 for two! You can spend as little as US$5 to US$10 at a decent sit-down restaurant.

At the lower-cost end, staying in dorms in hostels and living on shwarma, you could scrape by on US$25 per day in Lebanon, even less in Syria. A more comfortable budget – staying in hotels as opposed to pensions or hostels and eating in restaurants as opposed to street food – would be US$70 to US$80 (per person, travelling as a couple). You can live very well in either country for US$100 a day. Travel is also inexpensive, with a bus ride from Aleppo to Damascus S£150 and from Tripoli to Beirut LL2000. Once you get out of the cities in either country, prices are even lower.

HOW MUCH?

Postcard: S£30/LL500
Newspaper: S£10/LL2000
Fresh fruit-juice cocktail: S£50/LL3000
Bottle of local wine: S£100/LL10,000
Short taxi ride: S£40/LL5000
Litre of petrol: S£6.85/LL1100
Litre of bottled water: S£30/LL500
Beer – bottle of Barada/Al Maaza: S£50/LL500
Souvenir T-shirt (You’ll be lucky to find one!): LL5000
Street snack – shwarma: S£75/LL3000

Travelling to Syria?
Lonely Planet recommends World Nomads Travel insurance