So, you’re thinking of taking a city break to Copenhagen? In this blog, I’ve put together my costs for visiting Copenhagen over five days in December 2019. Copenhagen is known for being quite an expensive city to visit; many compare the prices similar to that of London. Here I take a look at everything from flights to attractions to food, discover how much a trip to Copenhagen really costs.
Flights
The cost of flights will depend on where you’re flying from, when you’re flying and who you fly with. Flying from London is a lot cheaper (with more variety) than if you fly from Bristol. We flew out from London Stansted and flew back into Bristol (as flying back to Bristol was more convenient). On the way out we flew with Ryanair and on the way back, with Easyjet.
We visited in December 2019 over the Christmas period, from the 28th to the 1st of January. Our flights’ cost was £129 in total, £47 on the way out and £82 on the way back. We went over a busy period, and flights to Copenhagen tend to be a lot cheaper. On average, a return flight from London to Copenhagen tends to be about £50-60, and the prices do increase over the New Year.
The Copenhagen Card
When planning our trip to Copenhagen, we researched what we wanted to do, see and places to eat. We priced everything up to see whether it would cost less to pay for everything individually or buy the Copenhagen Card.
The Copenhagen card gives you access to 87 attractions and museums and free transport. There are five different durations; 24 hours, 48 hours, 72 hours, 96 hours and 120 hours. With prices ranging from £51 to £121. As we were there for five days, we opted for the 120 hours card (which in 2019 was £110).
I would highly recommend picking up the Copenhagen card as this not only gave us unlimited transport but included a lot of the attractions we wanted to visit too.
Accommodation
We found a hotel on booking.com for three people and four nights at £129 each, which turned out to be £32 per night. Copenhagen Go was a little out the centre but was situated close to the train station with trains running all the time, so being a little out the centre wasn’t an issue for us.
To stay closer to the centre will cost more, and as we were there for four days, we wanted to find a cheaper alternative. Although it wasn’t badly priced, the hotel was actually really lovely and one I would recommend.
Obviously, it depends on what kind of traveller you are. Whether you opt for a hostel, budget hotel, or a 5-star hotel will determine how much your trip will cost. We opted for a budget hotel but one which had good reviews.
On average, I would say a budget hotel could cost you around £50-70 per night. Again, this will depend on when you travel to Copenhagen and how many people you’re travelling with.
Transport
As mentioned, we had travel covered under our Copenhagen card, so didn’t have to spend out on this. Copenhagen is a great city to explore by foot, we actually walked a lot of the time and only used the metro where we needed to go from one side to the other.
Getting the metro is the most convenient way to travel around Copenhagen, there are a few ways you can get a pass such as a City Pass as well as buying zone tickets. A 3 zone ticket costs £5 (you’ll need a 3 zone if you’re travelling from the airport to the city) and a 2 zone ticket costs £3.
We did however jump on a Lime scooter which was a lot of fun, how much you pay depends on how long you travel for around a 20-minute journey, which was 1.5KM this cost £6.85.
Food & Drink
The food and drink in Copenhagen are known to be expensive too. We researched beforehand a lot of places which we wanted to visit and knew that some would come at a cost. However, there are a few places for street food/ food halls which cost a lot less, and the options are then also endless! You’ve got Torvehallerne, The Bridge Street Kitchen and Reffen which are the most popular.
On average, a pint costs around £6, a cocktail around £10 and other drinks such as cans of cider around £7.
In regards to food, a typical meal is likely to cost around £20. We did grab a few McDonald’s when we were visiting as they’re cheap and as mentioned we visited some food halls too which brought the cost down!
Attractions
Depending on what you’d like to do and how long you have will determine what you can squeeze in. As mentioned, we opted for the Copenhagen Card, and a lot of what we wanted to do was included which meant that we didn’t need to fork out too much more than we paid at the start of our trip.
The Attractions We Used Our Copenhagen Card For
- Tivoli Gardens – £14
- Christiansborg Palace – £19
- The Round Tower – £3
- The Amalienbord Musuem – £12
- Rosenburg Castle – £14
- Copenhagen Zoo – £20
- Guinness World Records, H.C. Andersen Fairy-Tale + Ripley’s Believe It Or Not – £30
So, by using the Copenhagen Card for all the above attractions, it actually saved us around £112. (Please note prices may have changed since I visited).
The Attractions We Did Without The Copenhagen Card
- Ice Skating at Skøjtebanen – £7
- Walking Tour – £11
- Cinema – £12
Total Cost Of Trip?
So, what was my total cost of trip? Including the flights, accommodation, Copenhagen Go card, food + drink plus any other expenses, the total was: £644 on average.
There we have it, my guide on how much a trip to Copenhagen costs. For a five day trip to Copenhagen between Christmas and New Year, I don’t believe this cost is bad at all. We did a lot in our five days, and if you wanted to scale back, you could have made the trip less expensive.
Looking for the perfect itinerary? Explore my five days in Copenhagen blog to discover how I spent my time in the beautiful city.
