Leh Ladakh Trip Budget Breakdown

On the comfort defaults here — a Leh hotel shared two-up in peak season, a private SUV with driver for five touring days, Nubra and Pangong, and two rest days — a seven-day trip works out near ₹80,000 per person including a return Delhi–Leh airfare, permits and a 12% buffer. A guesthouse-and-shared-taxi version lands closer to ₹44,000 per person; a luxury-camp version runs past ₹1.4 lakh. The vehicle is the swing factor: it is charged for the car, so doubling the group roughly halves that line per head.

Indian travellers need an Inner Line Permit for the protected areas — Nubra, Pangong, Tso Moriri, Dah-Hanu and the Changthang — applied for online through the Leh district administration or through your taxi operator; foreign nationals need a Protected Area Permit instead. The charge is a one-time environmental fee per visitor plus a small per-person-per-day wildlife and Red Cross levy, both collected when the permit is issued. The hill council revises the amounts, so confirm them on the official permit portal before you budget.

The standard advice is at least two full days resting in Leh, which sits at roughly 3,500 m, before crossing anything higher — Khardung La and Chang La are both above 5,300 m. Flying straight in and driving to Pangong the next morning is the most common way people end up with acute mountain sickness. This is general information rather than medical advice: talk to a doctor about altitude illness and any medication before you go, particularly if you have heart or lung conditions or are travelling with children.

The road is cheaper in fares and far more expensive in days. The Manali and Srinagar highways are normally open only from about late May to October and each takes two days each way with an overnight stop, so four extra days of food, stay and vehicle usually outweigh the airfare saved unless you were going to make the drive the point of the trip. Flying also skips the gradual altitude gain, which is exactly why fliers need the rest days built in.