Is Slovenia expensive? What the trip really costs

Admission fees, the real cost

This is where the budget runs away if you don’t choose. Bled Castle costs €19 per adult, €11.50 for students, €7 for children and €16 for over-65s, with under-6s free. Ljubljana Castle with the funicular costs €19 at the desk and €17.10 online, or €15 without the funicular. Postojna sells cave and park packages for adults from €34.90 up to €84.50, and Predjama Castle on its own is €24. Lipica, home of the Lipizzaner horses, starts at €25. For a family, two or three of these visits in a day are a serious outlay.

Is eating, sleeping and getting around expensive?

For restaurants and hotels, Slovenia stands at 90.1 against the EU’s 100, so eating out and staying overnight cost a little less than the European average. The types of accommodation and what each offers are covered in hotels in Slovenia. Supermarket food is at 99.3, essentially average. Transport is at 87.6 and in practice it’s cheap. Ljubljana’s city bus costs €1.50 a journey including transfers within 90 minutes, the train to Zagreb starts at €9 and the one to Trieste costs €11.60. If you’re driving, add €16 for a weekly vignette; buy it only from the official DARS shop to avoid a mark-up. Eurostat doesn’t publish comparable UK figures for these years, so I can’t give you a like-for-like comparison with home.

What costs nothing

There’s plenty to enjoy without paying. Ljubljana’s tourist board notes that on the first Sunday of the month most of the capital’s museums and galleries don’t charge, and Savica waterfall has had no entry fee since 2026 under a new law, according to the Tourist Board. Tap water is safe to drink, and in summer many towns have public fountains. Everything free is gathered in free things to do in Slovenia.

If you are staying the night, see the best hotel deals in Ljubljana for your dates: the well-placed rooms go fast.

Money and payments

Slovenia switched to the euro in 2007, and the Tourist Board points out that there’s an exceptionally high number of cash machines. Note that city buses in Ljubljana and Koper don’t take cash on board. Cards, cash machines and cash in detail are in money in Slovenia.

Tips and tourist tax

Tipping is voluntary and no rule sets a percentage. The Slovenian press reports that rounding up is the norm and that 5 to 10% is left for good restaurant service, so it barely dents the budget; card machines and cash are covered in tipping in Slovenia. Each municipality sets its own nightly tourist tax, and I haven’t read the amounts in an official source either; your accommodation will tell you when you book or pay. One cost worth checking before you go is your phone, which depends on your tariff; I explain it in Slovenia roaming.

So you do not lose the morning at the ticket office, browse tickets and tours in Ljubljana on GetYourGuide.

If you are staying the night, see the best hotel deals in Ljubljana for your dates: the well-placed rooms go fast.