Destination: Armenia

To be honest, this Armenia trip wasn’t really decided until we finally booked the ticket. Months before the actual trip, we had just decided to go some place to celebrate Adrian’s birthday. We have been religiously looking through the cheapest flights coming from Dubai since we have thought of the idea and after deliberate discussion we have arrived at our decision. So we had lay out our criteria for that country we could go to for a quick escape.

First, it should be off the beaten path, not known to most tourists. Second, it should be no more than 5 hours away from Dubai via plane (this is for convenience just in case call of of duty arises). Third, it shouldn’t require visa application prior to arrival. And last but definitely not the least and I think the most important criteria, it should be INEXPENSIVE.

We’ve heard about Armenia through Dubai travel agencies usually offering 3 days and 2 nights tour of Yerevan and nearby provinces but we have not really paid attention to the advertisements we see. Just before researching about it personally, We have no idea about where Armenia is and how interesting this small nation stands. So imagine our surprise when we have found out that it fits exactly what we’re looking for.

Armenia is a nation smacked in the middle of 4 different countries. Azerbaijan on the East, Turkey on the West, Georgia on the North and Iran on the South. Who would’ve thought that there’s a small independent nation somewhere in between those countries? This makes Armenia a perfect location for being at off the beaten path. The travel from Dubai to Armenia is only 3 hours away from Dubai so that’s another check on our list. Also, as we found out, as Philippine passport holders, we are entitled for visa-on-arrival to the country! Yay! that’s almost 3 out 4 criteria that was aced by Armenia. But the big question still lies, is it worth the money? Moreover, is it inexpensive? We have scanned through the world wide web in search of reliable answers and we thought, why not check the latest cost of living over there? So we checked on our favorite site for checking the cost of living per country and search for Armenia including the capital city of Yerevan and this made us go crazy:

Cheapest wine in the world? A dollar for food and drinks? Who who would say no?

You can check and compare cost of living for each countries and your home country through these websites: 

NUMBEO

http://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/city_result.jsp country=Armenia&city=Yerevan&displayCurrency=USD

EXPATISTAN

https://www.expatistan.com/cost-of-living/yerevan?currency=USD

We personally recommend NUMBEO as it is collaborative and it encourages people who had been on those places or are currently living on those places to contribute to generating the statistics. It’s also updated monthly so, thumbs up to that!

Taking the top spot in the world ranking for having one of the cheapest cost of living in the world, it is no question that Armenia is the perfect choice for our trip. After further research we also found out that Armenia’s culture is rich in history and wasn’t identified until its independence in 1991 from the former Soviet Republic. So you have an ethnic tradition combined with soviet republic influence, do not tell me it does not tickle your wanderlust genes already!

Travel essentials. All set!

So we booked our flights courtesy of the low cost airline of the UAE, FlyDubai https://www.flydubai.com/en/ which not only offer cheap flights to various destinations, but also offers various service options while traveling and that includes in-flight wifi! For only 1553 dirhams (423 USD) we have return tickets from Dubai to Yerevan flying from Dubai International Airport Terminal 2. Cheap yet world class, yes to that!

After we have finalized everything, we still didn’t have any concrete plans on what to do once we set foot in Armenia so we literally have lots of adventures and misadventures during our trip that we will share on our 6 part blog series entitled Destination: Armenia!