Cost of Budget Travel in Bosnia & Herzegovina in 2020

Bosnia & Herzegovina (BiH for short) is a small eastern European country on the Balkan peninsula. It’s bordered by Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro. Before becoming an independent country in 1992, it was part of the former communist Replublic of Yugoslavia. I wrote a fairly detailed Introduction to Bosnia & Herzegovina while I was traveling there in December, 2020.

BiH is primarily a land-locked mountainous country with a lot of stunning & varied scenery and many cute historic towns & cities. It’s been very popular with independent travelers in recent years because of its natural beauty, outdoor adventure activities and intriquing history & towns.

During the time I’ve been traveling in this region since June, 2019, I’ve met heaps of travelers who’ve explored BiH. They’ve all raved to me about how beautiful, friendly and cheap it is. Needless to say, I’ve been very eager to go explore BiH myself.

I finally reached BiH in December, 2020, after exploring neighboring Croatia for three months. I stayed in BiH a total of five weeks.

I found that the country easily lived up to its acclaimed natural beauty and wonderful little historic towns. There are many stunning mountains, gorges, cliffs, rivers and waterfalls all over the place.

However, I was very surprised to discover that BiH is actually not so cheap. In fact, it was almost as expensive as Croatia (and Croatia is the most expensive country in this region)! Accommodation in most places in BiH and domestic transportation actually cost about the same as in Croatia.

The only thing cheap in BiH is groceries. One can eat very cheaply in Bosnia.

I was especially surprised at the high costs of accommodation in BiH, considering that I was visiting during low season (almost nobody visits Bosnia in winter) and also during the middle of the global Covid pandemic.

Under those two conditions, prior to arriving in BiH, I had generally found that accommodation prices had dropped dramatically in most other nearby countries. But that didn’t seem to be the case in Bosnia.

I’m left wondering how much more expensive accommodation is in BiH during normal times and in high tourist season.

As a perspective on costs in BiH, as soon as I returned to Turkey in late January, 2021, my weekly expenses were cut nearly in half, even though my food costs in Turkey were slightly higher. I saw an immediate, dramatic drop in my overall costs, primarily because of the much cheaper room prices in Turkey. That dropped from $12.50 US to $8.20 US per night. Over one month, or even one week, that makes a huge difference in one’s budget.

In any event, following are the details on costs of accommodation, transportation, food and other expenses that I encountered while traveling in Bosnia in Dec. 2020-Jan. 2021. Following that, I’ve reported my total and average costs to travel in Bosnia for five weeks.

Cost of private rooms in BiH during low season – 2020

In terms of accommodation, I found two destinations in BiH that were exceptions to the generally high room prices: Mostar and Sarajevo. They happen to be the most famous & popular places to visit in the country.

Sarajevo is the capital city, while Mostar is a super cute historic town with gorgeous Ottoman Turk architecture, all set on a river with waterfalls and surrounded by mountains.

In both places I was able to find private accommodation for 10 Euro per night / $12.50 US. In Mostar, that was a charming room in a family home. In Sarajevo, it was a very large private apartment set on a hillside with fantastic views over the city.

Now those are quite reasonable prices for budget travel, particularly for an entire private apartment.

Interestingly though, I had just paid the same price for a very similar apartment on luxurious Hvar Island, Croatia during November. That was way-off season at Hvar, and during Covid, so the apartment price was incredibly low. (normally that apartment costs about $60-80 US per night)

So while I loved my little room in Mostar and the luxurious apartment in Sarajevo, and I found the prices quite reasonable, I certainly wouldn’t consider them ‘cheap’ compared to neighboring countries.

For example, in Turkey I can find private rooms in small hotels for about 60 Turkish lira / $8 US. In Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Albania I generally paid $6-10 US per night for various types of accommodation throughout each country.

But as I noted above, Mostar and Sarajevo were the only two places in BiH that I was able to find such reasonably priced rooms. In all other towns around BiH, rooms were considerably more expensive.

I actually wanted to travel around the entire country to visit many gorgeous historic towns & cities I’d read about. So I searched online many times for accommodation in all those other towns.

In most BiH towns the cheapest rooms I could find were about $20 US per night! That’s actually the costs of budget accommodation in neighboring Croatia, the most expensive country in the region.

I consider that to really be on the expensive side for such a small, little-known, supposedly cheap country like BiH. Especially in off season and in the midst of the pandemic. I was actually shocked at those prices, particularly during December and January.

As a result of the high prices, I sadly skipped traveling around Bosnia, instead spending one month at my plush apartment in Sarajevo.

After so many travelers had told me how cheap Bosnia is, and knowing the travel costs in neighboring countries, I was really surprised at Bosnia’s not especially cheap rooms.

Prices of Public Transportation in BiH

Prices of local city buses are quite reasonable, usually costing about $1 US, give or take, for a one-way trip. On the other hand, intercity buses are actually quite expensive in BiH. In fact, they cost about the same or more as buses in expensive Croatia.

I only took two overland buses in BiH, specifically because they were so expensive. First, I traveled from Split, Croatia to Mostar, a 4-hour trip. That bus cost about $21 US, plus another 1 Euro for each piece of luggage. From Mostar I took a bus to Sarajevo, another 4-hour trip. That cost about $14 US, plus the luggage fees.

Since I was initially planning to explore BiH rather extensively, I checked prices for buses between several different towns and cities around the country. Buses from Sarajevo to several different towns about 3-4 hours away all cost about $20 US. The travel route I wanted to take to explore Bosnia for 2-3 weeks would have cost me about $100 US just in bus fares!

Those are very expensive bus prices for that region of the world, on par with bus prices in Croatia. Bus fares are much cheaper in all the other neighboring countries I’ve visited, including Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia, Kosovo, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and Turkey.

In fact, I’d say fares in all those countries are only 1/3 to ½ the prices in BiH. A similar trip in Turkey costs about $5 US, just ¼ the price of buses in BiH.

As a result, during my five weeks in BiH, I only got to visit Mostar and Sarajevo.

Costs of Eating in Bosnia & Herzegovina

Food is the one thing I found to be quite cheap in BiH. at least for buying groceries and cooking for oneself. I was able to eat on about $4.50-5.50 US per day, which is cheap even for my travels. And for those prices, I was not skimping on meals either. I ate hearty breakfasts, a lot of chicken and beef, some seafood, lots of fresh fruits, vegetables and freshly-baked bakery breads.

In comparison, in most countries in the region I’ve found I can eat for about $6-7 US per day or, in more expensive countries, for about $7-8 US per day.

Entry Fees in BiH

BiH has many excellent & interesting museums as well as famous historic homes, monasteries, mosques and archaeological sites. Most towns have a good selection of such places to visit.

Happily, most of them have very minimal entry fees, while many are free. So this gives budget travelers lots of affordable things to do while exploring the country. The places I visited in Mostar and Sarajevo with entry fees cost about $2-5 US each.

In addition, visiting most natural places, such as waterfalls, rivers, mountain hikes and other nature walks are free.

My total costs to visit BiH for 36 days

Following are my costs to visit BiH for five weeks, staying only in Mostar and Sarajevo and taking only two overland buses. If I had explored the country more extensively, as I’d wanted to, all these costs would have been significantly higher.

Total cost for 36 days = $778 US

Average total daily cost = $22.25

(that works out to $667 US for 30 days/ aka one month)

Average daily room cost = $12.50 US

Average daily food cost = $5.48 US

Other expenses = $117 US (included in above total costs)

(transportation, gourmet coffee & chocolate, toiletries, entry fees, misc daily expenses)

Summary

In the end, BiH worked out to be a moderately-priced country for budget travel. Total expenses of $667 for one full month isn’t too bad. However, I generally manage to spend under $600 US per month in most countries in this region.

On the other hand, Croatia is considerably more expensive, at about $900 US per month. And that was during off-season and during the Covid pandemic, when prices for rooms were often slashed to rates you’ll generally never see anywhere in Croatia. Normally it’s even more expensive. Thus, I don’t actually consider Croatia a budget destination.

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