In the last few articles, I have talked about various aspects of visiting Kinnaur like itinerary planning, the best time to visit, and places to visit. Continuing on the same set of information, in this post I will provide information on how much a Kinnaur Valley trip cost at an average.
Budget planning without any doubt is probably the most crucial part of any journey. On top of it, when you are talking about visiting an offbeat destination like Kinnaur, it can be a little tricky to get an estimate on the total cost that you will incur.
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How much Will a Kinnaur Valley Trip Cost?
No one can tell you how much a vacation will cost you unless you were buying a package deal from a tour company. Even then, some of the personal expenses will not be included and you will not know about it until it has happened. Why? Because providing a cost estimate of a trip is not an exact science though. It will depend on several factors like how many days, mode of travel, how many people, and personal spending habits.
However, a minimum per day estimate can definitely be given which is what I would do in the article. I will first lay down a sample itinerary for the trip covering the majority of the tourist places. I will then provide a minimum and average cost per day for each day.
Please note that in this article, I will talk about only the cost factor of a Kinnaur trip. For other details like how to reach, where to stay, and what to see, please take a look at How to Plan a Trip to Kinnaur Valley?
For the sake of this article, I will assume that you are starting from Delhi. If you were however coming from a different city, then only the details for the first and last day will be different. The rest of the calculation for the remaining days will still remain to be the same.
Accommodation Cost in Kinnaur Valley
To be honest Kinnaur Valley is not really that expensive of a place. It is still an offbeat destination which means that not many tourists visit this side of Himachal. It is in fact surprising even because Shimla from here is only a few hours of journey. Hundreds of Thousands of tourists arrive in Shimla each year, all year. But only a few care to venture ahead of the capital town of Himachal.
At most, people travel until Narkanda and return from there. Not many people travel across Kinnaur and the ones who do are majorly heading towards Spiti valley. What this means is that Kinnaur is yet not touched by the tourist mania and things here are simple still. Depending on the place and your own taste, you can easily get a place to stay here for as low as Rs. 500 to Rs. 700 per day.
Don’t get me wrong, there are luxury hotels available as well if that is what you seek. The price of those will range anywhere Rs. 3500 and above. But for a budget traveler, the average accommodation cost will come out to be about Rs. 700 per day per room. If the room is shared between two people splitting the cost, then the per-head price will be Rs. 350.
Kalpa is probably the only place where you may struggle to find budget accommodation. Out here, keep a cost estimate of around Rs. 2000 in tourist season. If you want cheaper accommodation, you may have to move down a little towards Reckong Peo.
Nako can also be a little over the budget. Keep a cost estimate of Rs. 1500 for Nako.
Food Cost in Kinnaur Valley
In terms of food, it is hard to tell because apart from what you can eat, it will also depend on how much you will eat, LOL. What I can however tell is that there are small Dhabas available throughout the valley. Here, a plate of “Daal” or “Sabzi” will not cost more than Rs. 50 or Rs. 60. A “Tandoori Roti” will not cost more than Rs. 10.
So you can actually have a meal here for Rs. 100 per person easily. 2 meals per day, some tea, light breakfast, snacks and you can easily wrap it all in under Rs. 300-400 per person per day for someone who is on a strict budget.
Looking at the calculation above, I think it is safe to say that your biggest expense would be fuel if you were traveling by your own vehicle. If you however went by public transport then even this cost will come down significantly. Let me explain with help of an itinerary.
Also Read: What is an Ideal Itinerary for Traveling to Kinnaur Valley?
Kinnaur Trip Itinerary
I will suggest an itinerary for 7 days starting from Delhi to give you a per day estimate of Kinnaur valley trip cost. For people coming from other towns, only the journey for the first and the last day will differ. The rest will still apply.
- Delhi to Shimla / Narkanda – Day 1
- Shimla / Narkanda to Sarahan – Day 2
- Sarahan to Chitkul – Day 3
- Chitkul to Nako – Day 4
- Nako to Kalpa – Day 5
- Kalpa to Narkanda / Shimla / Chail – Day 6
- Narkanda / Shimla / Chail to Delhi – Day 7
This is just an example of an itinerary and the journey can of course be done in multiple other ways. The reason why I am recommending 7 days at least and this itinerary is because it covers all that there is to see in Kinnaur Valley. Your journey too will be a bit long only on the first and the last day. On the remaining days, you will not travel more than 4 to 5 hours a day.
Fuel Cost of Traveling to Kinnaur
Traveling in the manner I suggested above, the total number of kilometers you will travel from and to Delhi will be about 1500. If you were coming by your own motorcycle and assuming a minimum of 30 kilometers per liter mileage, your vehicle will consume about 50 liters of petrol in the entire duration of the trip.
Using Rs. 78 per liter as the petrol cost, your fuel expense will come out to be a total of about Rs. 4,000 (round figure number). If you were traveling with a pillion rider sharing the fuel cost, then it will be about Rs. 2,000 per head.
I am just using these figures as examples. If you were traveling by a Diesel car or the fuel price was different, you should use that for calculation.
Also Read: Bus Service in Kinnaur Valley
If you were traveling in your own car, then this expense would go up. Depending on which car you have, you can do a similar calculation based on its engine type & size (petrol or diesel) and fuel efficiency. Assuming a minimum of 10 kilometers per liter of mileage and Rs. 73 per liter as Diesel cost, the total cost would be around Rs. 10,000.
The numbers above will depend on which vehicle you have and how good of fuel efficiency you get. To be on a safer side though, plan your budget keeping Rs. 4000 aside for petrol if traveling by Bike. If you were coming by car, you should assume Rs. 8000 to Rs. 10,000 as fuel cost irrespective of which vehicle you have.
You also need to factor in the fact that your vehicle’s mileage will be lower than regular in the hills.
Traveling by Private Taxi
If you hired a private taxi for the trip above, then it would cost you between Rs. 3000 to Rs. 4000 per day, depending upon your negotiation skills. These rates are however from Shimla. A taxi from Delhi to Shimla will be a very costly affair, one that even I will not recommend. This will significantly increase your total Kinnaur valley trip cost.
Also Read: An Ideal Winter Itinerary for Kinnaur Valley
As an alternate, traveling from Delhi, I will recommend that you board an overnight Volvo for Shimla; fare of which will vary between Rs. 700 to Rs. 1200 per person. Then from Shimla, you can rent a private cab for the journey ahead and then catch a bus back from Shimla to Delhi.
So the overall cost this way will be about Rs. 20,000 for taxi charges plus your journey from and to Delhi. Depending on how many people were traveling, you can then split this cost to get a per-person cost.
Traveling by Public Transport
This will be the best choice of commute for someone on a tight budget. Traveling by public transport, you can first board an HRTC bus for Shimla from IBST Kashmere Gate in Delhi. The total fare by this bus is around Rs. 500 per person. For the return journey too, you can use the same bus from Shimla to Delhi. So that is Rs. 1,000 for traveling between Delhi and Shimla.
In Kinnaur, you will be spending about Rs. 200 – Rs. 250 per day traveling locally by HRTC Buses and shared taxis. For a 7 days trip, this will come out to be another Rs. 1500 approximately. So the overall cost of public transport will be around Rs. 2500 per person.
Hotel Cost in Kinnaur Valley
Now let us talk about how much you will be paying at the hotels as per the itinerary above. I will just mention here the minimum cost you can expect to incur. There are luxury hotels available as well in Kinnaur but if you were planning to stay there then you won’t be reading this article anyway. If you are on this page then I assume you are a budget traveler like me and want to know the minimum or average fare of budget hotels en route.
In Shimla, Sarahan, Chitkul, and Chail, you can hope to get budget accommodation for an average price of about Rs. 700 – 1000. In Narkanda and Nako, it will cost you about Rs. 1500 – 2000 per room and in Kalpa, it will cost about Rs. 2000 – 2500.
If you were on a strict budget then I will recommend that you skip Narkanda and stay at Shimla, both whiles going to Kinnaur and on your way back. If hotels in Kalpa were out of budget, look for accommodation in Reckong Peo.
So per the calculation above, your total hotel expense for 7 days will come out to be about Rs. 5000 total. Keep Rs. 1000 as a buffer for a ‘just in case’ situation and assume a number of Rs. 6000 for accommodation. This is the total cost. If you were traveling with a friend who will share the expenditure, then it will come down to Rs. 3000 per person.
Also Read: How to Make a Budget Trip to Kinnaur Valley?
Other Miscellaneous Expenditure
For food, as I explained above in the article, you can easily cap it under Rs. 300 per person for someone on a strict budget. So for a 7 days trip, we are looking at an expense of about Rs. 2,000 – 2,500 per person at most. Other expenses will entirely depend on your personal spending habits (cigarettes, liquor, shopping, etc) and you should calculate that accordingly.
There are no permits needed for the above-mentioned places and there will be no cost added for that unless you are a foreign national. Foreigners need to obtain an Inner Line permit for traveling on the route between Reckogn Peo to Kalpa. For more details on the process to get the permit and costs involved, please read How to get an Inner Line Permit for Spiti.
Total Cost of Traveling to Kinnaur Valley
Now in order to summarize all of the information above,
- Rs. 4,000 as total fuel cost if traveling by motorcycle
- Rs. 8,000 to Rs. 10,000 as total fuel cost if traveling by Car
- Rs. 20,000 as total commute cost if traveling by private taxi
- Rs. 2,500 as per person fare if traveling by Bus
- Rs. 5,000 total for accommodation
- Rs. 2,500 as per-person food expenditure
Kinnaur Valley Trip Cost – Conclusion
You can take these values, divide by the total number of people traveling, and add any other personal expenditure to it in order to get a total cost estimate of the trip. I hope the information above on the Kinnaur Valley trip cost was of help. If you have any other questions or need any further details, please feel free to ask in the comments section below, or at our Community Forum, and I will be glad to answer.
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