How expensive is Tromsø now really? How much budget should you count on for transportation, accommodations, excursions and food and drinks?
We did the maths from our week in Norway, hopefully it will help you make your own budget. We also give you some tips to save money in this beautiful part of Lapland!
Converting from NOK to EUR is very easy. Currently, 1 NOK is 0.097 euros. If something costs 197 NOK, for example, I move the comma to the left and arrive at €19.70. In reality it is € 19.12, a difference of 58 cents – we can live with that.
How expensive is Tromsø?
Seeing the Northern Lights is on many a bucket list, and for that you have to go all the way north, also known as Lapland.
The northernmost parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia are also called Lapland. Beautiful destinations, but also all super expensive.
If you’re researching what such a trip would cost, you’ve come to the right place. We made our dream trip reality and made a cost estimate in advance, so we knew how much to put aside. While travelling, we also kept most of the receipts, so we can give you a good idea of the costs.
Hopefully it will help make your dream trip a reality too! In this blog we will tell you about prices of airfare, accommodation, food and drinks, excursions, and other costs that may be added.
What do airline tickets cost?
For the airfare, we paid €251.50 per person. This included hold luggage of up to 23 kg and 2 pieces of hand luggage of 8 kg.
We flew from Amsterdam Schiphol Airport with SAS. For that, we had to make a stopover in Oslo. Both flights took 1 hour and 50 minutes.
How do you fly to Tromsø?
From Belgium: Brussels Airlines or Scandinavian Airlines
From the Netherlands: Transavia or Scandinavian Airlines
From Tromsø airport to the city centre
From the airport, we took the bus to downtown Tromsø to save cab costs. There is a direct bus (e.g., bus line 40), you can check the times and departure location via Google Maps. A bus ticket costs 70 NOK.
Want to save money? Fly without checked baggage and, above all, don’t wait too long to book because airline tickets are more likely to rise in price.
AIRFARE & AIRPORT TRANSPORTATION COSTS
€251.50 in air tickets and €7 in bus tickets per person.
What does a rental car cost?
We rented an SUV for two days. This cost us a total of €235.41, this includes full insurance through Sunnycars. We chose an SUV because, originally, we were going with four people. Going as a couple? Then you can take a cheaper model.
Save money? Book as soon as possible! When we wanted to change our car last minute, the cheapest, small car turned out to be more expensive than our SUV. Through Sunnycars , you can always cancel up to 24 hours in advance for free if you need to.
CAR RENTAL COSTS
€ 126.71 per day
How much does accommodation cost?
Due to circumstances, we had to change our travel dates fairly shortly in advance.
As a result, we paid the main price for accommodation.
For €786.47 we stayed five nights in an Airbnb just outside the city center.
Then we went for two nights to the island of Kvaløya, where we chose a slightly more luxurious and beautiful stay (see photo): €401 for two nights.
Save money? In general, the longer you book in advance, the cheaper the accommodation. We are talking about 3 to 6 months in advance. Also, a hotel can be cheaper than a flat, but then you always have to eat out, which is often more expensive. Basically, you can find a flat in Tromsø around €130 per night if you book early.
ACCOMMODATION COSTS
On average € 169 per night
The cost of excursions
The excursions took a big bite out of our budget. But since we weren’t sure if we would book another holiday to the cold, we wanted to have done all the fun activities.
- Aurora Chasing Tour: €93.64 per person
- Sami & reindeer, including 10-minute sled and lunch: €130.37 per person
- Dog sled including lunch: €199.45 per person
- Snowmobiling including lunch: €198 per person
Then we also took a ride on the cable car, which cost €33.48 per person.
An hour and a half in the accommodation’s Jacuzzi was €50 for two people.
For all activities, early or late booking has no difference on the price. However, it is true that the excursions are booked up quite quickly.
That is why we always book as soon as possible via GetYourGuide. The big advantage of this is that you can always cancel or change the date free of charge up to 24 hours in advance.
👉 All about our experiences with the above excursions, you can read in this article.
Saving money? Don’t do that 😉 If there’s one thing you shouldn’t save money on in Tromsø, it’s the excursions. After all, these are all cool once-in-a-lifetime experiences.
Pick the ones you like and include them in your budget!
Does it really not fit into your budget? Hiking costs you nothing and nature is beautiful. And if we NEED to choose to skip one excursion, we would skip the reindeer experience. Don’t skip the other ones!
EXCURSION COSTS
€ 679.94 per person for 4 excursions and 2 activities
Food and drinks: what does this cost on average?
Here we give you some examples of what we paid for in Tromsø:
- Beer (33cl): €8 to €12
- Hot chocolate: €4.80
- Cola: €4.50
- Reindeer hot dog: €5
- Premium burger with fries: €23
- Burger King menu including drinks: €15 to €20
For a fancier restaurant, you quickly spend €40 for a main course.
We didn’t keep all the receipts, so unfortunately I don’t remember the prices of the supermarkets. It was by all means cheaper, but still quite pricey.
Because the holiday was so expensive, we did decide to eat often in the flat, or at Burger King 😉 We also took care of breakfast ourselves in the flat.
Save money? Take care of your own meals in your flat. KIWI and Rema 1000 are the cheapest supermarkets in Tromsø. Keep in mind that almost all supermarkets are closed on Sundays – those that are open are also immediately a lot more expensive. On other days they are usually open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.
Do you like to drink wine in the evening? You can save quite a bit of money by bringing your own alcoholic beverages. Alcohol is insanely expensive in Norway. So we brought our own wine, through this app you can calculate how much is allowed in your suitcase. This was ideal for ending the day in the flat with a glass of wine – on holiday we would normally do that in a bar, but this trip was really expensive enough!
It is difficult to calculate the total cost for food & drinks, since we did not keep all the receipts – we will do it next time ;-). In any case, we saved a lot of money by eating mainly in the flat for diner, and also having breakfast there every day. Lunch was often already included in the excursions.
To calculate how much you will spend on food & drinks, I would assume an average of at least €40 per person per day.
You can always save money locally by cooking more often in the cottage.
FOOD & DRINK COSTS
At least €40 per day per person (if you do not cook your own meals)
Cost determinant: how long will you stay in Tromsø?
How expensive your Tromsø trip ends up, depends on how many days you stay there. How many excursions do you want to do?
And what is your maximum budget?
We stayed in the city for five days and did an excursion or activity every day. Then we rented a car and went to the island of Kvaløya for two nights to enjoy pure peace and nature. It was quite a tight schedule, but we really wouldn’t have wanted to miss anything.
We would have liked to stay longer to explore on our own, though. But budget-wise, staying longer was not really an option.
A week’s stay is ideal, also for spotting the Northern Lights. After all, that one can really be seen at least once a week.
In one week you can do several excursions as well as see something of the surroundings. Longer is always better of course, if you are a nature lover you certainly won’t get bored. If your budget allows it, I would definitely stay longer!
Sample itinerary: 1 week in Tromsø
Wondering what such a week in Tromsø might look like?
This is what our itinerary looked like:
Day 1
Arrival + shopping
Northern Lights search at Telegrafbukta
Day 2
City explore + Aurora Chasing tour
Day 3
Husky sled excursion
Northern Lights search at Lake Prestvannet
Day 4
Snowmobile excursion + arctic beer tasting at Ølhallen
Day 5
Reindeer sleigh excursion + Fjellheisen cable car + Arctic Cathedral
Day 6
Car rental + explore Kvaløya
Day 7
Explore Sommarøy
Day 8
Check out + fly back
Additional cost: winter clothing
We had quite a lot of trepidation about the cold, so we prepared well. Do you have ski gear at home?
Then you can just bring it with you. If you don’t have this, then there are additional costs involved.
This was on our packing list:
Clothing
- Waterproof snow boots
- Crampons / snow chains boots
- Merino wool socks
- Merino wool underwear (thermo)
- Warm, waterproof winter coat
- Fleece or wool sweaters
- Gloves (liner + mitten)
- Winter hat
- Buff or good scarf
- Ski pants
Other
- Hand and foot warmers
- Headlamp
- Labello
- Powerbanks
- Camera + extra batteries
- Silica gel against condensation in the camera
- Tripod
Insta36O - Drone (but don’t fly on Tromsø Island itself, the airport is too close)
Much of the gear we purchased new, and some we were fortunate enough to borrow from friends.
The gloves and warmers we ordered from the Heat Company. Especially these gloves were a good purchase, these are really the ideal photography gloves and I can also use them perfectly in the Belgian winters.
We went in March and found the cold to be very good. We had to agree with the Norwegians: “There’s no such thing as bad weather in Norway, only bad clothing!”. Layers are important, so we could even lie in the snow for hours without being cold.
We barely used the hand and foot warmers, only when we were out in the snow waiting for the Northern Lights. These warmers are also great for your batteries when it’s freezing. The cold makes your batteries run down faster, and the warmers help keep them full.
Conclusion: what does a trip to Tromsø cost?
The total price of your trip to Tromsø depends very much on the amount of excursions you do, as they take up a large part of the budget.
If you add up all the above, you easily come out to €3,500 for one week (7 nights) in Tromsø with two people. That’s €250 per person per day. This does NOT include extra costs for buying clothes. It does include the flights, 4 organized excursions, food and drinks, accommodation and the rental car. We have to add that we bought 90% of our meals in the supermarket, so we were definitely not at €40 per person per day.
Going just for the Northern Lights and don’t need the other excursions? Then you’ll easily save €500 per person.
Will you settle for a dormitory or a room with shared bathroom? Then, you can save a lot of money.
So a week in Tromsø may seem expensive, but it really doesn’t have to be that expensive. The mountains in Tromsø are perfect to hike and insanely beautiful, so except for maybe snowshoes, you can have fun like this for days, without spending a lot of money.
TOTAL BUDGET
€ 250 per person per day or € 3,500 for two people for a week Tromsø
Our week in Tromsø cost a lot of money, if you think about it you could travel in Southeast Asia for two or three weeks with that budget.
But this was a bucket list trip, we knew how much it would cost and had saved for it. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience we didn’t want to miss. Of course, we were pretty zany in excursions, so it was a very busy schedule. We only saved on alcohol and food.
The biggest tip we can give you is, book everything well in advance, it can save a lot of money. The advantage of Booking.com is that you can usually cancel for free if your plans change. The excursions don’t change in price, but they do fill up quickly. We always book our excursions through GetYourGuide, here you can change your date up to 24 hours in advance or cancel for free.
So, now we have done our maths and if all goes well, you can do yours now. Planning everything well in advance can save you a lot of money, and think carefully about which excursions you want to do or not. And after that: enjoy, enjoy, and enjoy again. Tromsø is really insanely beautiful and those memories are worth every euro!
Do you have any questions or additions? Let us know in the comments!
Want to track your travel expenses?
TravelSpend makes it easy! Use it for free, or unlock premium features with the code 'KILADERA', and get 50% off a yearly subscription.
