How much does an NC500 motorcycle trip cost?

Every NC500 forum thread has the same unanswered question buried in it: what does this actually cost on a motorcycle? The answers are always vague — "depends how you travel, mate" — so here are real numbers instead, taken from our 10-day NC500 itinerary, which prices every night and every tank along the way.

The short version: budget around £1,200–1,300 per rider for ten days, riding solo and sleeping in hotels every night. Two-up or sharing twin rooms, the per-head number drops fast — the hotel line is more than half the total.

The full breakdown, line by line

These are the numbers from our 783 km, 10-day route — Inverness around the coast and back, no motorways, no toll roads:

• Hotels — £695 for 9 nights. Around £77 a night for small highland hotels and guesthouses, favouring places with secure or off-street parking for the bike. This is the line you can actually move: hostels and campsites along the route cut it in half, while summer-holiday pricing in hotspots like Ullapool or Dornoch can push it up.
• Fuel — about £61. 783 km (487 miles) at a touring bike's ~50 mpg and ~£1.39 a litre. Even doubling the distance with detours barely dents the budget — fuel is never the expensive part of Scotland.
• Food — around £370. Roughly £37 a day covers a cooked breakfast, fuel-stop coffees, a real dinner and the occasional seafood splurge in Ullapool. Self-catering or packed lunches bring it down; nightly hotel-restaurant dinners push it up.
• Tolls — £0. The whole route is motorway-free. Nothing to pay, nowhere to pay it.
• Stops and buffer — about £100. Viewpoint parking, castle and distillery entries, café stops beyond plain meals, and a small cushion for the day something goes sideways.

Total: about £1,225 per rider — before ferries to get to Scotland, and before drinks.

What moves the number most

Accommodation style

Nine nights of hotels is the comfortable version. The same trip with a tent is realistic on the NC500 — Scotland's access laws and the density of campsites make it one of Europe's best wild-riding routes — and takes the biggest line in the budget down to a fraction. Mixing three or four camping nights into a hotel trip saves £215–300 without turning it into an endurance event.

When you go

June to August is peak: hotel prices climb, and the popular stops book out weeks ahead. May and September usually ride just as well, cost noticeably less, and have quieter roads — the midges are also less ferocious at the edges of the season.

How many of you there are

Riding two-up or splitting twin rooms nearly halves the per-person hotel line. A group of four sharing two rooms turns a £1,200 solo trip into something closer to £850 a head, all else equal.

What people forget to budget

• Getting there. If you're not starting in Scotland, add fuel and a night each way — or the ferry from the continent plus a run up the A9.
• Weather kit. If you don't already own proper waterproofs, buy them before this trip, not during it. The northwest coast does not negotiate.
• The unplanned night. One weathered-out day in Durness or a bike issue in Thurso means an unbooked room at walk-in prices. That's what the buffer line is for.

Price it for your own trip

Every number above comes from a generated itinerary — the same engine prices any route you build, night by night and tank by tank, for your bike, your dates and your group size. See the full 10-day NC500 trip with the day-by-day roads and hotels, or answer eight questions and get your own route priced the same way.