How do you calculate the cost of a trip per person?

Add up the costs shared by the whole group — travel, accommodation, activities — and divide by the number of people. Then add each person's own food and spending, estimated per day and multiplied by the number of days, which is one more than the number of nights.

How much should I budget per day on a group holiday?

Food, local transport and small entry fees are the per-day costs. Estimate food at roughly one and a half times a normal day at home, and keep a buffer of around ten per cent of the total for the things nobody predicted.

Should accommodation be split evenly if rooms are different?

Not necessarily. If one couple has a double and two people are in a twin, splitting the booking by room and then by the people in it is fairer than dividing the whole thing by heads.

Trip cost per person calculator

Put in what the trip is likely to cost as a group, and it comes back as a figure per person and a figure per day — which is the number that actually decides how long you go for.

People

Nights

Food per person / day

₹

Travel (total)Flights, train, fuel — for everyone

₹

Accommodation (total)The whole booking, all nights

₹

Activities (total)Tickets, guides, rentals

₹

Anything else (total)Visas, insurance, the buffer

₹

Per person₹17,300.00

about ₹4,325.00 a day each, over 4 days

Shared costs: ₹50,000.00
Food for everyone: ₹19,200.00
Trip total: ₹69,200.00

Estimate food per day, not in total

Food is the line everyone underestimates, because it is the only major cost that scales with both the number of people and the number of days. A single pot figure hides that; a per-person-per-day figure makes it obvious what an extra night adds.

As a rough start: whatever you would spend on food in a normal day at home, add half again for a trip. Eating out three times a day is not a normal day.

The lines people forget

Getting to and from the airport or station at both ends — easily a tenth of the travel budget.
The first and last day. A three-night trip is four days of eating.
Tips, entry fees and the small stuff, which is what the buffer line is for.
The one expensive activity somebody will suggest once you are there.

An estimate is not a ledger

This works out what the trip should cost each person. It does not know who actually paid for what — and on a real trip one person books the hotel, another buys the fuel, and a third pays for dinner twice.

That is the part to record as it happens rather than reconstruct afterwards. When you get back, the settle-up calculator turns who-paid-what into the shortest list of payments — or a group keeps the running total for you while the trip is happening.

This is the estimate. What it actually cost — and who ended up paying for what — is the part a Splitly group keeps for you while the trip is happening.

Frequently asked questions

How do you calculate the cost of a trip per person?: Add up the costs shared by the whole group — travel, accommodation, activities — and divide by the number of people. Then add each person's own food and spending, estimated per day and multiplied by the number of days, which is one more than the number of nights.
How much should I budget per day on a group holiday?: Food, local transport and small entry fees are the per-day costs. Estimate food at roughly one and a half times a normal day at home, and keep a buffer of around ten per cent of the total for the things nobody predicted.
Should accommodation be split evenly if rooms are different?: Not necessarily. If one couple has a double and two people are in a twin, splitting the booking by room and then by the people in it is fairer than dividing the whole thing by heads.