Bordeaux is one of the most famous wine regions in the world. If you’re looking for a laid-back weekend getaway with good food and drinks, Bordeaux is definitely a great choice. In this post you’ll see a breakdown of how much money you need for a weekend in Bordeaux!
GENERAL COMMENTS
Costs are per person
The costs I have listed below are the cost per person (aka, what I personally paid for my part of the trip). However, it is important to mention that I was travelling with my partner. There are some costs, e.g., renting a car, that usually end up being a lot cheaper if you are not travelling alone. Hence, if you are travelling solo or in a bigger group, some of the costs I mention below might differ for you.
Travel style
I would describe this weekend trip as “budget conscious but still comfortable”. What does this mean exactly? For example, we wanted our accommodation to be in the city center and within walking distance of the main sights. However, we chose the cheapest available option that fit that criterion. We wanted to rent a car, but here again we chose the cheapest available option. We ate out for all meals, but tried to find reasonably priced restaurants. I think you get the point…
HERE’S THE COST BREAKDOWN
Overall, everything included, a weekend in Bordeaux cost me 596 CHF. Excluding flights (in this case 138 CHF), which is of course very origin dependent, the weekend cost be 458 CHF. This averages out to approx. 230 CHF per day.
Here’s a detailed view of how these costs are split between different categories:
| CATEGORY | TOTAL COST | COST / DAY |
|---|---|---|
| Activities | 25 | 13 |
| Food | 137 | 62 |
| Hotel | 195 | 65 |
| Flight | 138 | 69 |
| Transport | 101 | 101 |
| Total | 596 | 298 |
| Total excl. flight | 458 | 229 |
I’d like to mention at this point, that the Swiss franc (CHF) is roughly on par with the Euro and the USD. Hence, if you’re looking for a rough estimate in either EUR or USD, just take the mentioned costs as is and you’ll be very close to the true value.
Ground transportation
Besides air transportation, you’ll of course also need to get around once you arrive in Bordeaux. Let me be clear, if you “only” want to stay within the city center, you won’t need a lot of extra transportation. The city is very walkable, and most sights can be reached by just walking around.
If you get tired of walking (or for getting from the airport to the city center), there is also a really well working tram network. Each ride only costs 1.8 euros, which is really not a bad price.
However, if you want to venture beyond the city limits, you’ll most likely want to rent a car. I’m not sure if it was because we booked quite last minute, but rental cars were quite expensive! For 24 hours, we paid a total of 165 CHF, which is approx. 83 CHF per person. With parking and gas, our car related expenses came to a total of 101 CHF per person for one day (24 hours).
Accommodation
Our hotel was very well located, right next to the Cathédrale Saint-André. We had a studio with a full kitchen and plenty of room. Here we spent 2 nights (we flew in on Friday evening). Per person, this cost 150 CHF, which equals to approx. 75 CHF per night. From what I could tell, this was really on the “cheaper” side, especially for the very city center.
The last night we spent at an airport hotel, because our outbound flight was very early on Monday morning. The airport hotel cost another 45 CHF per person for the one night.
Hence, you could say on average we spent 65 CHF per person per night on accommodation.
Activities
The good thing is that you really don’t need to spend (any) money on activities! The city of Bordeaux is beautiful in itself, so you could easily spend your time just wandering about and exploring the streets. There are some great shopping streets, but that is of course optional.
The only thing that we spent money on is a wine tasting in the wine region of St. Emilion. For a guided tour (approx. 1h) and tasting of 4 different wines we paid 25 euros per person. The winery we visited was called Château de Pressac. Totally worth it, but I’m sure there are cheaper options out there that offer the same experience…
We also visited the Dune du Pilat and the city of Arcachon – both were free! 🙂
Food
Ah, food! Apparently, Bordeaux is the city with the highest density of restaurants per capita in France. Hence, food will certainly make up quite a chunk of your spending…
Overall, we spent around 62 CHF per person per day on food. This includes breakfast, lunch, dinner, as well as some snacks and drinks in between. We ate out for every single meal, so that definitely added up…
For a detailed cost split, check out the chart below.
| CATEGORY | TOTAL COST | COST / DAY |
|---|---|---|
| Breakfast | 17 | 6 |
| Dinner | 52 | 26 |
| Drinks | 23 | 8 |
| Lunch | 41 | 21 |
| Snack | 4 | 2 |
| TOTAL | 137 | 62 |
Is a weekend enough time for visiting?
As always, this depends. If you’re only staying within the city I would say 2 days is definitely enough. Since we decided to do a day trip on the second day, visiting BOTH St. Emilion and the Bassin d’Arcachon, this did feel a little rushed. You could easily spend a full day in both of this areas if you have more time. Hence, my answer would be maybe do at least 3 days if you’re interested in the surroundings as well.
Can I visit BORDEAUX for cheaper?
Yes, of course!! There are two main things that come to my mind that could drive you’re your costs. First of all, you could not rent a car. While this would certainly limit your flexibility a little bit, you could still do a day trip to St. Emilion by train, or just spend two days in the city itself.
Secondly, you could stay a little outside the city center. From what I could tell, prices drop significantly if you’re outside the center. You won’t be sacrificing much, because as I said, the tram network is really great and very affordable.
Do I need cash?
As in most Western European cities nowadays, there’s really no need for you to carry cash on you. All restaurants, bars, bakeries and stores that we visited were open for card payments. Even for miniscule amounts like 2 euros.
Personally, I really like to use Revolut. Not only are payments super safe, but they also offer some of the best exchange rates for FX transactions. Check them out here!
So there you go, in my experience a weekend in Bordeaux incl. day trips costs approx. 460 CHF. If you’re looking for inspo about what there is to see and do in Bordeaux, check out the weekend trip itinerary here.