Slovenia Travel Budget: Is Slovenia Expensive?

Planning a trip to Slovenia and wondering how much to set aside for your Slovenia travel budget–or, in other words, wondering if Slovenia is expensive?

We’ve been there!

We weren’t quite sure what to expect when it came to planning our first Slovenia travel budget.

On the one hand, we knew that the Balkan countries tend to be less expensive to visit than places like France or Italy, but we also knew that Slovenia was one of the more expensive Balkan countries to travel in–and, to jump the price up higher, we planned to rent a car for a week while there.

The Slovenia travel budget outlined here reflects our exact expenses during a 2 week trip to Slovenia in late June and early July–in other words, some of the most expensive times to visit the country.

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These expenses represent our time spent backpacking the country on what we would consider a flashpacker budget. Basically, no to dorm rooms, yes to a/c, and no to major luxuries.

We spent 12 full days in the country, averaging a total Slovenia travel budget of $109.24/day for two people, or $54.62 per person, per day. This added up to a total cost of $1310.86 for our nearly 2-week trip.

Our time spent backpacking Slovenia took us to Piran, Ljubljana, Bled, Triglav National Park, Lake Bohinj, and several other short stops along the way, such as Vintgar Gorge and the Skocjan Caves.

All expenses are listed in USD unless otherwise noted, and, as usual for our travel budget roundups, we don’t include the costs of entering or leaving the country here, as those expenses can vary so dramatically depending on your starting point (in our case, this Slovenia road trip was part of our planned 6 month round the world trip).

Our General Impression of Slovenia Travel Expenses

In retrospect, we needn’t have worried about the cost of traveling in Slovenia.

As if Slovenia needed anything other than its incredible hiking, lakes, mountains, waterfalls, towns like Bled, and cities like Ljubljana to make it one of our favorite countries to date, its low price tag helped add a cherry on top.

Slovenia is not an expensive destination by European travel standards, and our travel budget for Slovenia reflected that: groceries and most restaurant meals were less expensive than in the USA, though the prices predictably jumped in destinations that see a lot of tourists.

Lots of simple outdoor activities kept the cost low during most of our exploring, as well.

Our Lodging Costs in Slovenia

Total: $565.43 for 13 nights

At an average of $43.49/night, lodging didn’t break our Slovenia travel budget.

The most expensive lodging was in Piran–we paid $67.66/night for a private room (and apparently the advertised air conditioning only worked in the hallway… it was a long three nights).

The cheapest was our private Airbnb apartment in Triglav National Park–$32.72/night was a bargain in our opinion, and the fantastic views and amazing hosts made it even better.

Our Transportation Budget in Slovenia

Total: $393.21

The largest portion of this (okay, basically all of it) was the rental car.

We rented the car for seven days, and the daily rate was very low (around $15/day). We raised that price significantly by adding on $0 deductible/excess insurance, which is possibly overkill but was a safety blanket that we wanted.

Gas was expensive, but not unbearable–what did sting was the $37.80 fee that we paid to Hertz for forgetting to top off the tank upon returning the car. Oops.

Our Restaurant Expenses in Slovenia

Total: $173.21 

I don’t even want to know how much of that total is gelato–I’m guessing maybe $15 worth? However expensive Slovenia gelato was (and it felt very affordable), it was worth it.

The most memorable restaurant meal, surprisingly, was at a place called Pop’s Place Burger Bar on the river in Ljubljana.

We weren’t expecting anything but a mediocre and overpriced taste of home, but what we got instead was the most delicious cheeseburger that I can ever remember eating.

The service was just as incredible–our waiter felt so bad about forgetting the ketchup that we asked for (and didn’t end up needing: it would have been an insult to the burger) that he brought us out a free slice of cheesecake.

It was an incredibly kind and unnecessary gesture, and the cheesecake was almost as good as the burger itself–and that’s really saying something.

At $32.72 out the door (including Jeremy’s beer), it was our most expensive meal in Slovenia, but the only thing wrong with the price tag was that we didn’t go back and have dinner there again.

Our Grocery Expenses in Slovenia

Total: $66.69

Groceries were inexpensive in Slovenia–this amount fed us almost all of our meals for a full week when staying in Triglav National Park, plus some snacks that made it to Ljubljana with us after.

We tried to avoid “American” brands like Pringles, which are popular but extremely overpriced compared to the local stuff and shopped for the cheapest available produce to keep the prices down even further.

Our Tour + Excursion Travel Budget for Slovenia

Total: $76.71

A full $35.58 of this is made up of our memorable visit to Skocjan Caves, which was worth every penny.

Miscellaneous Trip to Slovenia Costs

Total: $35.61

We only had one miscellaneous cost factored into our Slovenia travel budget: a trip to the camera store.

During the first month of our trip, we managed to lose one of our lens caps and were using a sock to keep the lens that we weren’t using at the moment safe (we carry two lenses with us).

Obviously, this was not a long-term solution.

Our camera was also a bit sandy in some of its creases from its time in the Sahara Desert and generally bouncing around in our backpack, so we picked up a lens cloth and some basic cleaning supplies as well.

So, is Slovenia expensive? Based on our experiences, we didn’t think so–though there’s no doubt that Sarajevo, the nearby capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is cheaper to explore than Slovenia’s capital of Ljubljana!

Our cost of travel in Slovenia is a great example of utilizing our moderate budget style.

Sure, we could have done this country much more inexpensively by refusing to rent a car, but we got so much more out of backpacking Slovenia by investing the money into getting one, and we fully believe that the tradeoff was worth it.

After crunching the numbers for our Slovenia travel budget, we’re completely satisfied with what we ended up spending, and on our next trip to Slovenia (because there will definitely be a next trip!), we think it would be easy enough to stick to this budget again if necessary.