Coast to Coast 2011 – The Cost of Walking

I’m sure, like many things, walking the Coast to Coast can be done much more cheaply than I’m actually doing it. But at the end of the day you get what you pay for, so it’s probably worth spending as much as you can afford and actually enjoy the experience. That’s the philosophy I’ve adopted when doing these long walks anyway.

The major cost of the trip is of course, accommodation. The C2C is becoming very popular, ridiculously popular in fact and at peak times along the route (May and September) there are very few available beds to be had even several months in advance. Supply and Demand economics means this inevitably leads to price rises and I’ve seen an increase in just the 5 years since I first walked the route.

I’ve booked 14 rooms this year, one for each days walking (including the last) and one at the beginning in order to be able to depart at a reasonable time. The total bill for accommodation is £521. That’s an average nightly cost of £37.18. That’s £5 a night more than the Pennine Way last year. In fact the whole C2C route is only £35 less than the Pennine Way and I needed 17 nights accommodation on that route.

The most expensive stop is in Grasmere, where my single occupancy of a double room is costing me £55. The cheapest night is in the Lion Inn at Blakey and my single room there is costing a rather worrying £22. Other notable stops are Reeth, Keld and Kirkby Stephen where I’m paying £40 or more each night.

Then I need to factor in food and drink along the route. An evening meal costs around £15 for two courses and you need to add about £6 if you want a couple of drinks with that. Factor in lunch and allow £5 for that too and you’re looking at £26 per day. For 13 days walking that’s a total of £338.

The baggage transfer is a cost I’m more than happy to pay, but there is a surcharge for walking East to West, against the usual flow of traffic as I guess the drivers need to do some backtracking. I’ve still not booked this yet but I’m expecting to have to pay about £12 a day, for 14 days that’s a total of £156.

So; Accommodation (£521) + Food and Drink (£338) + Baggage (£156) = £1,015

This doesn’t include the cost of any kit you will need to buy for the trip – fortunately I think I’m fairly well covered in that regard now and I don’t expect to spend much on that.

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