What a visitor's money does in Iraq: every guide rated from very cheap to very expensive, cheapest first, then the things that cost travellers money without buying anything — the ATM, the taxi, the SIM.
Iraqi Dinar (IQD) · 1 EUR = 1,500 IQD · 1 USD = 1,310 IQD
Dinar, at a stable rate, and dollars are accepted for anything large — hotels, tours, the visa fee. Change at an exchange office in the bazaar or a bank; the rate is posted. Bring new, unmarked dollar notes; old ones are refused.
Avoid: machines outside the cities and the big hotels, which are few and often empty
Use: the machines in Erbil and Sulaymaniyah malls, the big Baghdad hotels
Cash runs the country and dollars are accepted for anything large. Bring new, unmarked notes; old ones are refused.
A short ride in Erbil: 5,000–12,000 dinar across town — cheap
From the airport: From the airport to the centre 20,000–35,000 dinar, through the airport checkpoints; a guide who meets the flight is the usual answer
Taxis are plentiful and reasonable in Kurdistan if the fare is agreed first; the app fixes the price and the route, which matters more in the capital.
The best food in the region: kebabs, biryani in the Kurdish style, kuba (bulgur dumplings), and the sweet shops. The bazaar tea houses and the restaurants on Salim street; the town is known for its restaurants and its poets, in that order. A meal is 12,000 dinar.
Kurdish: tashreeb (bread soaked in lamb broth), kebabs from the bazaar grills, dolma, and tea in a small glass at Machko under the citadel, which has been serving it since 1940. The Christian quarter of Ainkawa has the bars and the wine. A meal is 15,000 dinar.
Masgouf — river carp split and grilled upright by a fire on the Tigris bank at Abu Nuwas street — is the city’s dish and an evening. Kebabs, tashreeb, and the sweets; tea at Shabandar with the poets. Cheap, and the guide knows where.
The cost rating is this site's own, for a visitor, from the guides' authors and the corrections readers send in. The general rules — the conversion prompt, shoulder season, the airport taxi — are in budget travel tips.
ErbilIraqA citadel lived in for six thousand years, a bazaar of Kurdish tea houses under it, and the capital of the Iraq that visitors actually reach
SulaymaniyahIraqThe cultural capital of Kurdistan: a prison turned museum that spares nothing, a bazaar the size of a town, and mountains with waterfalls an hour out
BaghdadIraqThe city of the caliphs on the Tigris, a book market that reopens every Friday, the Abbasid palace, and a visit that is possible again and is done with a guide