What's the cost of climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro?

Summiting Mt. Kilimanjaro is a trip of a lifetime, and it was one of our team's bucket-list and favorite experiences. The cost of climbing Kilimanjaro can vary based on the tour operator you choose, the route you choose, the extras you select for your climb, and more. In this blog, we’ll break down the base costs for climbing Kilimanjaro, including the base costs, extra costs, hidden costs, and potential ways of reducing the cost of your trip.

Climb Costs

Kilimanjaro has several routes you can take to climb the mountain (our preferred routes are the Machame 7 Day Route or Lemosho 8 Day Route as they have high chances of success for summiting). The base breakdown for each climb is listed below (these are all based on 2 people traveling).

5 Day Marangu Route, $1817 USD per person ($2470 CAD)

6 Day Marangu Route, $2128 USD per person ($2891 CAD)

6 Day Machame Route, $2100 USD per person ($2854 CAD)

7 Day Machame Route, $2410 USD per person ($3275 CAD)

6 Day Rongai Route, $2256 USD per person ($3065 CAD)

8 Day Lemosho Route, $2880 USD per person ($3914 CAD)

All climbs above include the first night and last night at accommodation in Moshi, meals & water on the mountain, a guide, etc., but do not include transportation to/from your arrival/departure airport. For more details on what’s included/excluded, check out each one of the trip pages in the links above.

Extra/Hidden Costs

Aside from the base costs of the mountain, there are some extra costs you may incur that would add to the cost of your trip.

• Transportation to/from the airport (around $26 USD one way per person)
• Private toilet I highly recommend this (around $156 USD for up to 4 people)
• Meals at the accommodation before & after your climb (this may or may not be included)
• Insurance costs (we recommend World Nomad’s Travel Insurance)
• Equipment costs - this depends on the quality of equipment that you want to purchase but this can be expensive.
• Tipping - most climbs don’t include tipping for the guides that you climb with. This is subjective based on how you evaluate your climb, but typically tipping can be between $200-400 USD per person (you have about 4 guides/porters per person).
• Mountain Evacuation - if you need to descend from the mountain because of altitude sickness or other reasons, there may be extra costs incurred for your overnight accommodations and the transportation required to transport you.

Reducing Costs

If you’re looking to reduce costs on your trip, there are several things that you can do, however, this may come with extra stress which you want to avoid as much as possible before climbing Kilimanjaro.

• Arrange your own transportation to/from your location before the climb and after the climb
• Arrange your own accommodation the day before your climb and the day after (though we personally don’t account for this as your guides will need to brief you before the climb)
• Rent equipment. If you don’t plan on using the equipment again, it can be significantly cheaper to rent the equipment aside from bringing your own
• Rough it out and don’t get a private toilet (I don’t recommend this, but to each their own)

There are other ways of reducing costs (i.e., finding cheaper tour operators, however, this will always come at an extra expense & for your summit you do not want to sacrifice quality).

Ready to start looking into your Kilimanjaro climb? Check out one of our programs below

5 Day Marangu Route

6 Day Marangu Route

6 Day Machame Route

7 Day Machame Route (Recommended Route)

6 Day Rongai Route

8 Day Lemosho Route

That's all! If you have any questions, please feel free to contact our team at [email protected]