Many people were curious how to see polar bears and how much it cost. So I wrote this post How to See Polar Bears on a budget in Churchill, Canada where I tracked in detail all our expenses for the trip.   

I love keeping track of all our budgets and seeing how much things cost. One of our most popular posts was How Much our 2 month USA Road Trip Cost and What Our One Month Mexico Cost in Yucatan. 

Taking a step back, if you are wondering first how to organize all this I wrote: How to See Polar Bears in Churchill, Manitoba.  Be sure to check out that post for the details on how to replicate this trip.

This article is to focus on:

How to see Polar Bears on a Budget (And how much our Trip Cost)

No matter how you approach it, a trip to Churchill is a destination to get to. There are no roads to Churchill! By default you are either flying or taking a train. It’s remote and cost of living up there is more. However figuring out how to see polar bears on a budget in Churchill is still possible.

That said, it is an incredible experience, the best place in the world to see polar bears. There are plenty of ways to keep expenses reasonable for the experience you get to have. I still encourage people to seek small and repetitive ways to save money. I outline a bunch of actions I personally do in this post: How I Saved over $535 with Easy Life Hacks. 

First, a few disclaimers. As I’ve said before and Nomadic Matt says in his book How to Travel the World on $50 a Day, travel is super personal. 

We could have spent way more money and we could have spent way less money. 

We did the things we wanted to do with a level of comfort that was great for us and we are super content and grateful for this trip. 

At the time of writing $1 CAD = $0.75 USD

Overview of the Trip:

We drove ~2000 miles from Vermont to Thompson, Manitoba, Canada to then take an overnight train (there are no roads) to Churchill, Manitoba, Canada. Our trip in total was 18 days.

Churchill is the Polar Bear Capital of the world. 

The purpose of this trip was to see polar bears in the wild. (Omg – achieved! Did you see our Instagram?!)

Accommodation:

7 nights car camping

2 nights overnight train

5 nights hotel in Churchill

3 nights hotel on the road

1 night stay with family

Car camping setup:

Ta-da!

I know other instagrammers create these beautiful shots. Ummm…well…this was our very real photo of car camping. 

I watched a youtube video on making curtains with reflectix for your car and below is a little clip of me reenacting that. 

The reflectix adds so much warmth to the car! It was incredible. The only down side to using velcro was if you wanted to put your windows up and down, it would make me nervous to do that without taking the pieces off. But for us right now traveling in a cold season, this was not a big deal. This style of curtain was so easy, simple and cheap! 

Here is a little video of the curtain making process. Cost to make these curtains for the entire vehicle was just about $30. 

We slept in a Wal-Mart parking lot one night and then rest stops and trail heads the rest of the time. 

THE RULE IS: Always be a discrete, low impact, respectful camper!!!

Poor behavior makes us all look bad and ruins it for everyone. People requested I talk about how I pee while traveling like this. First answer: outside, if appropriate. Otherwise if you are not familiar, there are these types of products for ladies in the outdoor industry or even traveling in certain places. They are very convenient little products!

There were no other special considerations to car camping like this. I love my down sleeping bag, stove, (although I would have also really enjoyed a Jet Boil), booties, and just a normal pillow. 

Unexpected Pleasant Routine:

A pleasant and unexpected routine and expense we did have car camping was every morning we ended up going to Tim Horton’s. We each got the maple bacon farmers wrap, hash brown and coffee meal deal. We ate breakfast, used the wifi and the bathrooms were always clean. This was a nice way to start our days and we looked forward to it. 

So you could say cost of car camping was: $80.85 for the 7 nights. Haha. 

Hotel Stays:

We stayed at two places in Churchill – 4 nights at Sipi River Inn and 1 night at Sarah’s Dream House. Originally we were bummed at the inconvenience of having to switch places, but in this instance it really became no inconvenience and then we got to meet two different sets of people. 

I mentioned in my other post about being cautious of having travelers shock going to Churchill and arriving at your hotel or inn. You are in the subarctic and accommodations are built to withstand the extreme climate.

Sipi River Inn is the blue building and it had one of the coolest vehicles parked outside of it.

Part of the kitchen at Sipi River Inn.

Part of the living room and social area of Sipi River Inn. Not seen and off to the left was a full sized fridge and tables and chairs for eating.

Sarah’s Dream House living room.

Sipi River Inn: $142 a night x 4 night = $568

Sarah’s Dreamhouse: $165 x 1 night

We did stay at hotels three other nights on the trip.

This was the action outside our window in Thompson, Canada, the town we took the train from.

Transportation:

We choose to drive 2000 miles from Vermont to Thompson. We wanted the freedom and flexibility to stop along the way, particularly the way back, if we wanted to. And this was the most economical in terms of actual dollar figure.

The scenery was so beautiful. I could have spent weeks driving these sections of roads.

Here is a brief glimpse at driving the Trans Canada highway. I kept singing ‘OH Canada’ the whole time. 🙂

HOT TIP: For USA readers, we have been taking advantage of the Get UpSide gas app. Several of my friends use it, we use it, the cash back apps are the real deal if you use them right. So far I’ve been able to always get the cheapest gas and have earned back $32. 

We could have flown, taken the train all the way or drive like we did. Remember there are no roads to Churchill, so we did take an overnight train there and back. 

Highest price paid per liter: $2.51 CAD liter/ $9.48 CAD gallon / $7.09 USD gallon

Lowest price paid per liter: $1.58 CAD liter / $5.97 CAD gallon / $4.46 USD gallon

Best gallon per mile: 34+ mile per gallon → WoW! Not bad for Honda CRV!

Worst gallon per mile: 22 mile per gallon → driving to Thompson, in the snow storm with heavy winds and slush. Terrible gas mileage!

*Note the gas mileage was with four snow tires on!

Total Cost of Gasoline for Honda CRV: $703 USD

Interesting observation that I have done no research for nor having any backing on, but: We noticed we got the best gas mileage we ever had in Canada and that was with snow tires on! We did just a big road trip to Florida (also very flat) and did not get nearly as good of gas mileage. So that left us to wonder if despite the gas prices being higher in Canada we then got more miles per gallon. Maybe better quality gas? Maybe there is less ethanol?  

Train:

Hot Tip: sign up ahead of time for VIA rail emails and try to book on Tuesdays to save 10-20%! We did not do this. Ah! Missed opportunity!

When I started booking this in the morning there were sleeper cars at a discount rate. By the time I got back later in the afternoon that rate was gone. So we just booked Economy Class for the one night.

On the way back, our new friends from Australia helped show us how to put the seats into basically a bed! How were we not smart enough to figure this out ourselves!? 

Economy class was ok for one night – even better with the seat turn-around-into bed method!

Total Cost of Train Return Tickets: Thompson>Churchill>Thompson: $357 USD

Breakdown to $178 USD pp / $89 pp/ per night on the train.

We brought Subway Subs on the train for dinner. Dinners were more expensive at current price of $18 CAD each. 

Breakfast was $13 CAD each and as you sit there and eat whatever you ordered they will refill your coffee. If you are like me, this means the amount of coffee you drank paid for breakfast right there! So breakfast was a good deal and fun to eat on the train. 

The grocery store in town was sufficient for any basics one would want. We even found mark downs! Certainly fruits and vegetables were more costly. 

Prepared fruit like this is normally more expensive, but yeah, you would be better off cutting up your own cantaloupe to save money.

I’m not sure if this is how the grocery store owner feels, but we felt that since we could, we tried to bring all the fresh fruit and veg we could as to not deplete a limited supply for locals that might be more hopeful than us for a fresh carrot. I have no backing of this theory, that was just an assumption and we brought as much fresh fruit and veg with us as we could. 

Alcohol

There is a section where you can buy beer and liquor. We treated ourselves to some Borealis Beer to celebrate being in Churchill.

Average cost of a craft beer (usually sold as a single can) bought from the grocery store: $3.50 CAD / $2.61 USD.

Eating out

We choose to cook most of our meals for both convenience and cost savings. We ate at the Tundra Pub on our last night. Chris got the bison burger and I got the borealis veggie burger with sweet potato fries. The meal was excellent and memorable. Each came to about $20 CAD. Not that bad. 

We took a peak at a few other restaurants too and other types of meals were around $20-30 CAD for basic meals – also not that much more than eating out in normal places. Certainly getting the nicer menu option and drinking anything besides water would add to that cost. 

Tours and Entertainment:

This is the section that if you are making all the effort to get all the way up to Churchill, you might as well have some budget to do things. We ended up finding so much value in the tours that we ended up splashing out and going on some of them again. (Don’t forget, more detailed explanation of tour options and planning here.)

For the average visitors up there, I really think taking a van tour AND a tundra buggy tour is the way to go. On any of the tours they give you a lot of information about polar bears and that is definitely an added value to taking a tour.

We felt comfortable and rented a car and also got great value out of that.

In retrospect, we still would have paid for another tour simply because the different perspectives and things that you get out of each style of tour can be really fulfilling. 

Car Rental: $224 USD for 2 days

Gas: $91.70 USD

Tundra Buggy Great White Bear: $778.71 USD

Tundra Buggy Frontiers North: $790.09 USD

Churchill Northern Studies Center: $10.50 USD

You see the numbers. The tundra buggy’s are expensive, but what an experience! We thought the value was excellent.

Total for Entertainment: $1895 USD

Gifts:

With very few exceptions, personally we no longer buy souvenirs or gifts for family or friends. We used to do this a lot, and sure, it was fun. As the years ticked by we just saw these items either piling up in houses or getting thrown away. 

If we want to do anything to help the polar bears or global conservation, one of the best things we can do is consume less.

And I know, some people make their livelihood selling souvenirs. We still saw people carryings BAGS of freshly bought key chains, fluffy stuffed animals and t-shirts all over town. 

No shame – no blame. I get both sides and we’ve done both sides. 

Now we usually just do post cards and bring back regional food items.

Gifts Total: $38 USD

Medical:

I really debated if this purchase was necessary and I still don’t know the answer. 

I am pretty sure our credit cards (which we used to pay for the expenses of the trip) would have had this coverage included. But. We bought an additional emergency medical certificate of coverage anyway through IMG. (Not an affiliate link – this is just who we use.) 

Extra insurance coverage: $42.12 USD

Miscellaneous:

We did laundry twice while on the road. 

Oh my gosh – we used laundry sheets like the Earth Breeze and they are are a game changer!

For traveling, these are absolutely so wonderful. Light. No mess. No chance of spilling. So easy. Not to mention all the environmental benefits. Definitely recommend using these at least on trips. 

Misc total: $10 USD

Aside from polar bears, there is the chance to see all sorts of other wildlife like this arctic fox!

Credit Cards:

We used three no international fee credit cards. They were: Barclays, Venmo, and I have an Amazon Prime account (part of Chase cards which also have good offers) and that credit cards all with no foreign transaction fees. 

The Amazon Prime card also happened to be offering bonus point for gas, restaurant and grocery store purchases. What good timing for us! 

If you are diligent to always pay them off in full every month, we make hundreds of dollars a year by using credit cards. I always set up auto pay so it’s completely hassle free and I never miss a payment to get charged a late fee. 

Ensuring we had fee-free credit cards saved us a lot of money. 

Although we didn’t need a ton of cash, we needed some. We use Fidelity world-wide fee free ATM card. (Charles Swabb also offers this product.) These two options are not affiliate links and we get no kick back from these links. They are resources available to save tons of money of the span of any international traveling you decide to do. They are so worth it!

Typically your best rates of exchange will be directly from ATM’s. 

So with all that here is the final break down of the 18 day trip on: How to See Polar Bears on a Budget in Churchill, Manitoba.

Accommodation: $1177

Transportation: $1103

Tours: $1895

Gifts: $38

Misc: $10

Food: $529

Insurance: $42

Grand Trip Total in USD for two people: $4794

Grand Trip Total in USD per person: $2397

Cost per day USD for two people: $266

Cost per day USD for one person: $133

We could have spent way more money and we could have spent way less money. And honestly, this trip was so amazing, we would have stayed longer and spent more money in retrospect.

Travel (and life) is about finding the best value for pursuing what brings you joy. Whatever we decide to do, it requires a lot of life energy. My absolute most favorite recent book talking about how we use life energy is by Vicky and Joe entitled: Your Money or Your Life. 

I love this book. Read it and read it again. Give it as a gift. 

Our time is finite and so is our life energy. 

We are so grateful we had the ability and privilege to go and experience this trip. 

Going to see polar bears was an amazing experience. We saved and budgeted the money for this trip and had an incredible adventure. Life hopefully is to be one incredible trip. Our time is unknown, other than we know it’s finite. Polar bears was one heck of a trip. Thank you for coming along. 

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