After my previous post on Trek to KheerGanga lot of people asked me how much did the trip cost. I should have added the expense details in the original post but i realised that there is enough content for a new post ☺

Firstly, I don’t like planning upfront! It is stupid to book hotel in advance, checking out weather etc. If you do all that you are leaving no room for errors. You are expecting the weather to be perfect, the hotel to look as it looks in the pictures! And if anything goes against “The Plan” then the trip is a mess. So try to be spontaneous and see how life takes you.

Trust me you will enjoy nature much more if you plan less.

Now coming to the point, how much did my trip cost —

1. Travel:

850 * 2 = 1700 Rs (To and fro bus from Delhi to Kullu) (This was the main contributor in the total expense, we could have taken a cheaper bus but we didn’t want our backs broken by the end of the trip)

I generally prefer the over night bus, so that you reach the destination fresh in the morning and start exploring.

Another 650 Rs was spent in local travel which included cab from kullu to the base and then back to kullu.

Total — 2350 Rs

2. Food:

I stay in Gurgaon where average meal costs above 250/- . When you are visiting a small place the food costs go down drastically and it comes down to 100-150/- a meal on an average.

In this trip we spent very little amount on food. We packed some food from home and most of the time we were trekking so we had to survive on stuff like Nutri Bars, biscuits etc.

Totally we spent around 700. You will be surprised that 700 is for 10 meals! (If you consider 3 meals per day)

The other factor which forced us to spend less on food was we forgot to withdraw cash assuming that there will be “Atms” in the himalayas.

Forget Atms, there was no electricity, so we had very limited cash and we had to survive in that. (Which was 1500 Rs for 2 days for 2 people)

Total — 700 Rs

3. Lodging:

If you want to cut down on lodging costs then travel in the night. We saved up a lot because of that.

In Himachal room rent are pretty cheap. The Max that we paid was 400 Rs per day ☺

Two night we spent on travelling and 2 nights we stayed in small cottages so totally it was 700 Rs which is shared by 2 so only 350/-

Total — 350 Rs

And miscellaneous costs would be some 300-400 which included water bottles, chocolates etc.

If you add up all the expenses then it will be around 3800 per head for a 4 day trip.

Now if i consider the scenario in which i did not travel, thinking that it will cost me a bomb. I would have still gone out for dinner, enjoyed with friends and surely ended up spending 2k over the weekend.

So the actual trip cost was ~2000 Rs but the memories of the mountains along with inner peace is priceless.