How much does the NC500 cost? A realistic budget for 2026

How much does the NC500 cost?

For two people over five to seven days, the NC500 costs about £450 if you camp and use hostels, £1,000 to £1,800 with B&Bs and pub suppers, about £1,800 in a hired campervan on campsites, and about £2,600 with a hire car, hotels and restaurants. That works out at £45 to £190 a day each. Fuel for the loop is around £120 in a petrol car and £180 to £240 in a diesel campervan or motorhome. All prices in this guide were checked in August 2026, and the sums are shown so you can swap in your own choices.

Those totals cover the trip from Inverness and back. Getting to Inverness is on top.

The rest of this guide prices each part of the trip in turn, then builds those four budgets line by line. If you are still deciding how many days to take, read how long does the NC500 take first, because the number of nights drives everything else.

What you are actually paying for

Six things make up the bill: fuel, a vehicle if you are hiring one, somewhere to sleep, food, the handful of paid attractions and boat trips, and small change for parking and the odd tour. Accommodation is the big variable. Fuel is the one cost everybody shares, and in 2026 it is high.

Fuel: about £120 for a car, up to £240 for a motorhome

The signed route is 516 miles (830 km). Almost everyone drives more than that once you add the Stoer peninsula, Cape Wrath, the Black Isle or a wrong turn in Assynt, so we budget on 640 miles.

UK average pump prices for the week ending 24 August 2026 were 161.63p a litre for unleaded and 182.82p for diesel (gov.uk weekly figures). The RAC said at the end of July that petrol was at its highest since November 2022. Highland pumps run a few pence a litre above the national average, so add about 3% to the figures below.

The sum is miles divided by mpg, times 4.546 for litres, times the price per litre.

The bare 516-mile loop in a 40 mpg petrol car is 59 litres, about £95. Hiring from Edinburgh or Glasgow adds 150 to 170 miles each way before you reach Inverness.

Fill up when you can. The longest gaps are Thurso to Durness (about 80 miles, with only Bettyhill and Tongue between), Durness to Ullapool (about 100 miles, with Kinlochbervie, Scourie and Lochinver, two of them off the route), Ullapool to Gairloch (about 56 miles, Laide only) and Gairloch to Applecross (about 50 miles, Kinlochewe in between). Some village pumps are unmanned card machines, which is a problem if your card is declined, and the smaller ones keep short hours on Sundays and out of season. The NC500 route map walks through the route section by section if you want to plan fills around it.

Car hire from Inverness: £35 to £50 a day

No hire company publishes a rate card, so this is a band. In August 2026 the comparison sites were showing small cars at Inverness Airport from about £35 a day, with monthly averages between £27 and £52 a day depending on when you travel. Run a live quote for your dates rather than trusting a "from" price.

The rules matter more than the headline rate. Arnold Clark, one of the main Inverness operators, takes drivers from 23, adds £25 a day for anyone under 25, gives unlimited mileage on hires of four days or more, and holds a refundable deposit of up to £150. Check the excess, and whether your insurer minds single-track roads, because a tyre or a wing mirror on a single-track road is the likeliest damage you will do.

Campervan and motorhome hire: £85 to £250 a night

A week in a VW campervan in high season is therefore £1,100 to £1,300 before fuel, and a family motorhome from Glasgow £1,000 to £1,500. Two things to check before you book: the mileage cap (Go North and Big Sky give unlimited miles) and whether the van fits the Bealach na Bà. The official NC500 advice is that nothing bigger than a VW-sized conversion should attempt the pass; anything larger takes the coast road via Shieldaig. Our motorhome and campervan guide covers the rest.

What a night costs on the NC500

The self-catering rows come from our own directory: 24 priced pods, cabins and cottages on or beside the route, sleeping two to fourteen, with a median of £188 a night for the whole unit. At full occupancy that is about £38 a person a night, which is why a cottage shared between four or six often beats a B&B on price. It is a small sample and it leans towards self-catering, so treat the medians as a guide to what our listed businesses charge rather than a market average. Browse them on the NC500 places to stay page.

Hotels in the Highland Coast group (Kylesku, Tongue, Brora, Dornoch), the Ulbster Arms at Halkirk and Links House in Dornoch only show prices through their booking engines, so check your dates directly. The NC500 accommodation guide lists what is where.

Can you sleep in your car or van for free?

Not under the Scottish Outdoor Access Code, which is the law that allows wild camping. The Code is explicit that "access rights don't include motor vehicles", and the official NC500 site puts it more bluntly: wild camping rights do not apply to campervans or motorhomes, and a rooftop tent is only legal on a formal campsite. Parking overnight in a formal lay-by is tolerated as long as everything stays inside the vehicle: no awning, chairs, table or cooking outside, and never within sight of houses, at a burial ground or where a sign says no.

The legal, cheap option is Highland Council's Highland Campervan and Motorhome Scheme. Membership is £40 for seven days, one per vehicle, and it lets self-contained vans stay overnight (10pm to 8am) in twelve designated car parks: Torvean in Inverness, Nairn Harbour, Dunnet Head, Dunnet Seadrift, Noss Head, Reiss Beach, Riverside in Wick, Durness village, Golspie Shore Street, Latheron car park in Ullapool, Gairloch Harbour and Little Gruinard Beach. You cannot return to the same car park within 72 hours, daytime charges still apply, and waste water goes to official disposal points only. It also includes showers at High Life Highland leisure centres. The same car parks took £10 a night pay and display when the scheme was piloted in 2022; check the machine, because the council's pages no longer quote a non-member rate.

The scheme is a council product, whatever the blogs say, and it is not the NC500 Traveller Membership, which is £20 a year from northcoast500.com and gets you the digital route map PDF, an itinerary planner and partner discounts, but no parking rights at all.

Attractions, tours and ferries

The big castles, the cave tour and one distillery come to about £80 a head. Everything that makes the route famous, from the Bealach na Bà to Duncansby, costs nothing but the parking. Our 25 best stops guide has the full list, and the distilleries guide explains which tours suit a driver, given Scotland's 50mg drink-drive limit.

A note on Orkney: the John o' Groats passenger ferry and its Orkney day tours have stopped, and the boat was sold in 2025. To see Orkney from the route you now take Pentland Ferries from Gills Bay (five minutes from John o' Groats) or NorthLink from Scrabster, and it needs a full day.

Food and drink

The Applecross Inn's May 2026 menu is a fair benchmark for a good pub on the route: haddock and chips £16, langoustines in garlic butter £16.50, dressed crab salad £19, a beef burger £14, a 10oz sirloin £28, soup £8, cranachan £8.50. A cream tea at the Royal Golf Hotel in Dornoch is £15 a head. The Seafood Shack in Ullapool and Kishorn Seafood Bar post their prices on the day rather than online; both are worth the queue.

Self-caterers have proper supermarkets in Inverness, Ullapool (Tesco), Thurso and Wick (Tesco), a Co-op in Golspie and a Spar in Durness, which also has the village cash machine. Between Ullapool and Thurso, those two shops are it. Budget about £10 a person a day for breakfast, lunch and snacks from the shops; that is our assumption, not an operator price.

When you go changes the bill

Operators price by month, and the gap is real. Big Sky Campers' 2026 grid is £185 a night in June, July and August, £165 in May and September, £145 in April and October and £95 through the winter. Applecross Campsite charges £15 an adult from 25 May to 30 September and £12 outside it. Go North Campers is £160 a night from May to September and £130 the rest of the year. Car hire follows the same curve. Late May, June and September give you the light and most of the opening hours for a lot less; our best time of year guide weighs it up.

The costs people forget

Highland fuel is a few pence a litre dearer, and some pumps are card only. Council car parks at the popular beaches charge a few pounds; Achmelvich and Chanonry Point both introduced pay and display, so keep coins and a card. Single-track roads eat tyres and wing mirrors, and hire excesses start at several hundred pounds. Smoo Cave tours are cash only because there is no signal in the cave. Hotels charge £10 to £25 a night or a stay for a dog. Midge repellent is under a tenner but you will want it from late May to September on the west coast. And most hostels and campsites on the north coast shut from October, which pushes you into pricier beds out of season.

Four worked budgets for two people

All four assume 640 miles, the fuel prices above, and a start and finish in Inverness.

Five days, own petrol car, camping and hostels. Fuel £118. Tent pitches at Clachtoll (£26), Sango Sands (£27) and John o' Groats (£26), plus a small room at the Lazy Crofter in Durness (£50): £129. Food: five self-catered days at £10 each (£100) plus fish and chips for two on two nights (£64): £164. Smoo Cave for two (£30), Corrieshalloch parking (£5), two beach car parks (£8): £43. Total about £454, or £45 each a day.

Seven days, own petrol car, B&Bs and pubs. Fuel £118. Six nights in a B&B double: £354 at the Tullochard end of the market or £1,200 at the Applecross Inn's £200 rate, which is why this budget has a wide band. Food: lunches from the shops (£140), a pub main each every night (£186) and soup or pudding on three nights (£48): £374. Dunrobin (£32), Smoo (£30), Glenmorangie for the passenger (£52), Corrieshalloch (£5): £119. Parking £15. Total £980 to £1,826, or £70 to £130 each a day.

Seven days, hired VW campervan, campsites. Hire: seven nights with Go North Campers at £160 (£1,120). Fuel at 30 mpg on diesel: £177. Six serviced pitches at £33 to £39 (£212). Food: seven self-catered days (£140) plus two pub suppers (£64): £204. Smoo, Corrieshalloch, parking and the Cape Wrath bus and ferry for two (£88). Total about £1,801, or £129 each a day. Two nights on the council scheme instead of campsites saves about £30; going in May or September instead of July saves £210 on the van alone.

Seven days, hire car, hotels and restaurants. Car £245 to £294 (seven days at the £35 to £42 comparison-site average). Fuel £118. Six hotel nights at £200 (£1,200), using the Applecross Inn's published rate as the floor; a Kylesku or Dornoch stay in August can be more. Dinner at about £45 a head (£540), lunches and coffees at about £20 a head (£280). Dunrobin, Old Pulteney, Glenmorangie, Handa and Smoo for two plus Corrieshalloch (£219). Total about £2,600 to £2,650, or £185 to £190 each a day.

Is a package or a coach tour cheaper?

Rarely, once you add what they leave out. Macs Adventure's seven-day self-drive is from £790 a person for six B&B nights with breakfasts and route notes, without a car, lunches, dinners or entry fees: about £1,580 for two before you eat or drive anywhere, which sits between our B&B and hotel budgets. Rabbie's three-day NC500 minicoach tour from Inverness is from £201 a person with no accommodation or food; it is a good answer if you would rather not drive single track, and a poor one if you want to stop where you like. Timberbush's five-day tour from Edinburgh has you paying for beds on arrival at £18 to £25 for a hostel, £40 to £65 for a B&B and £75 upwards for a hotel, which tells you roughly what the operators expect the route to cost.

How to spend less without missing the point

Go in late May, June or September, when hire, pitches and rooms all drop and everything is still open. Take your own car if you have one; hire is the single biggest line in three of the four budgets. Camp two or three nights and spend what you save on one good dinner. Share a pod or cottage between four; the per-head rate on our listings is about £38. Self-cater breakfasts and lunches and buy the pub supper. Use the council's £40 scheme if you are in a van, and skip the paid castles if you have already seen a few, because Duncansby, the Bealach, Sandwood Bay and Achmelvich are the reasons people come and none of them charge.

Plan your trip

• North Coast 500: the complete guide

• 7-day NC500 itinerary

• Where to stay on the NC500

• Campsites along the NC500

• Driving the NC500 in a motorhome or campervan

• Best time of year to drive the NC500

• Camping and caravan sites in Scotland