How Much Money Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany Costs

I’ve never had any interest in going to Oktoberfest. I always imagined tents filled with drunk Americans in cheap costumes, downing way too much beer in the name of co-opting a hundreds-year-old cultural tradition. So when my brother’s friend group invited my husband and me to join them in Munich this October, we weren’t sure we wanted to come along. Luckily, we had a last-minute change of heart—and even luckier, I was totally wrong about what to expect from Oktoberfest.

As it turns out, the Oktoberfest that I had created in my mind couldn’t have been further from the reality of the event: a culturally rich, historically nuanced experience that went far beyond beer and costumes—though yes, the beer is a big part of it. We arrived in Munich to find that most of the revelers were Germans participating in a completely wholesome celebration with great drinks and endless entertainment—no frat party vibes to be found.

My group and I ended up packing a lot of activities into our short trip to Munich. From partaking in the local cuisine, to wandering around the city, to making a pilgrimage to the tents and festival grounds of Oktoberfest, here’s everything we did—and spent—while we were there.

About the traveler

Job: Travel journalist, photographer, and video content creator
Annual salary: $81,000-100,000 per year
Location of residence: San Francisco
Age: 39

About the vacation

Where: Munich, Germany
How long: Four days
Planned budget: $600

Upfront costs

Flights: $75. My husband and I were traveling in Slovenia before our Germany trip, so we ended up taking a bus from Ljubljana to Munich. I spent 75,000 Lufthansa points, plus $75 in taxes, to fly to Copenhagen at the end of our Oktoberfest adventure.
Hotels/lodging: $0. We stayed at the Hampton by Hilton Munich City West for 147,000 Hilton points.
Tracht: $112. Tracht refers to the traditional clothing worn in Bavaria and other Alpine regions of Germany; think lederhosen and dirndls. It’s customary to wear this garb during Oktoberfest. At first, I was dead set on buying our tracht in Bavaria, but after doing a little research, I realized the costs would be high, so I bought most of my outfit at Held Over, a German-owned vintage shop in San Francisco. Generally the dirndls were $60 but I found one with a broken zipper for $10, and a bodice blouse for $32. I also decided to scoop up a $55 pair of lederhosen for an additional option. To complete the look, I ordered Dockers suspenders online for $15.

Day by Day

Day 1 – Monday

Total cost: €168.48 ($184.42)
The trip started with a 9:41 am Flixbus bus ride from Ljubljana, Slovenia, where I’d been traveling during the previous week. The tickets cost €22.99 ($25.16) and we paid an extra €10 ($10.94) each for the panoramic seating in the front of the bus where you can see out of the giant windows. But when we got on the bus, our row number didn’t exist. Apparently, our planned bus had been swapped and assigned seating had been scrapped as a result. In the end, we just asked if we could sit in the front anyway, though it’s normally reserved for the bus operators. I also ended up spending a bit more money when the bus operators, visibly and audibly shocked by my 70-pound bag, charged me €21.99 ($24.06) extra.

The bus ride was stunning, especially through Salzberg, Austria. We passed a castle and tons of Alpine scenery. About an hour into the trip the bus drivers decided to put the shades down, so that our panoramic view became a restricted view. I would still recommend these seats, though, as they were much more spacious than the rest of the bus, and had a tiny table where you could set down any drinks and snacks.

The bus stopped midway at Landzeit Gourmet Market & Restaurant, a posh cafe with amenities like olive oil on tap, plus stunning views of the Alps. I ordered a tiny bowl of soup and threw some green onions on top for €8.31 ($9.09). It helped stave off the hunger until we reached our destination.

After arriving in Munich, we met up with a party of 12 friends who had come from Berlin. Our friend Davy, who used to live in Germany and knows the language and culture, took us to a no-frills Bavarian spot called Klinglwirt. We started off the meal with a healthy serving of dunkel beer. I thought I had found my favorite German beer brand, but it turns out dunkel just means “dark” in German. My husband and I split the spinat-käsespätzle (soft egg noodles with spinach and cheese, topped with caramelized onions) and the Vienna-style schnitzel with pork, cranberries, and fried potatoes. We split the tab between all of us, which came out to €48 ($52.53) per person.

We followed up dinner with a trip to Hofbräuhaus München (the Royal Brewery House of Munich). This is a famous Oktoberfest pregame and afterparty spot, where the revelers drink from liter beer steins, sing, and clink glasses over and over, banging fists on the tables until their beer spills and the waiters tell them to stop. We found an incredibly diverse crowd there, from babies to 80-year-old men.

I ordered a pretzel for €5.60 ($6.13), and found it disappointingly cold and hard. I had been imagining a soft, salty concoction with gooey beer cheese, but it was at this moment that I realized that I had been indoctrinated by Wetzel’s Pretzels and did not have realistic expectations. It may not have been financially pricey, but you can’t quantify the emotional damage one endures from a trauma like this. Thankfully, there was beer to soothe my despair. We ordered a round of the Hofbräu Oktoberfest beer for €10.80 ($11.82) each. They were so large I could only drink half my mug before heading back to the hotel.

Day 2 – Tuesday

Total cost: €177.19 ($193.88)
We woke up ready to throw ourselves into the Oktoberfest experience. Everyone got dressed in our traditional garb and rode the train two stops from the hotel to the festival site (€3.90, or $4.27).

Once we arrived, I called Josef, a friend of a friend who said he would show us around the festival. He met us outside of the gate, looking dapper in his tracht, and walked us to the Augustiner Bräu tent to see his friends play in a band. As we walked, he explained the origin of Oktoberfest: In the early 19th century, Prince Ludwig of Bavaria was getting married and decided he wanted everyone in the country to celebrate with him. As a result, he threw a version of the reception for the common folk: the carnival that we now call Oktoberfest. According to Josef, the original dress code was formal (like a wedding) and people only started dressing in traditional Bavarian garb in the last 15 years or so.

We enjoyed watching Josef’s friends play music, then headed to lunch. Josef secured two tables for our group of 14 at the Schottenhamel Festhalle tent, where we paid €70 ($76.61) each for two very large beers, lunch, and dessert. The food was great. My husband and I split Nurnberger rostbratwurst with sauerkraut and mustard and the house special. Then we got the rohrnudeln, kaiserschmarrn and the frische auszogne for dessert. I had no idea what these German dishes were, but they were heavenly. While we were in the tent, my husband bought a Tirolerhut hat for €25 ($27.37) and a feather to go with it for €12 ($13.13).

At 2:30, Josef told us it was time for our behind-the-scenes tour of the Hacker-Festzelt tent. It’s one of the most famous tents, and usually almost impossible to get a tour or a table. The manager showed us the kitchen and told us how the security worked. He also took us to a beer control room that looked and felt like an underground bunker monitoring war operations, but was literally just for making sure that the beer was flowing abundantly.

We sat down at Hacker and ordered another round of giant beers while the band played American pop music like Taylor Swift. The tab here was only €13 ($14.23) per person, but the experience came with an unexpected cost. Our friend Natalie, while dancing, swung an overzealous left hip into my beer just as I was lifting it to my lips. I heard a loud crack and found she had chipped a huge chunk out of one of my teeth. Fortunately, Natalie’s husband is a dentist.

We put Natalie on time out and left the beer tents for the carnival and all its games. We hit up a toboggan game where you hop onto a conveyor belt and try to maintain your balance while being thrust up 40 feet into the air. The cost is €6 ($6.57), but it comes with the potential for a German hospital bill. I also spent €5 ($5.48) on what turned out to be my all-time favorite game: Teufelsrad, or Devil’s Wheel. It’s a huge spinning platform where different groups are called out (for example, men with hats, kids under 10, women wearing braids). Each group runs up to the platform when called, attempting to get as close to the center as possible while it spins. Most people fall off immediately, but the final few are left to duke it out for the victory of being the last man standing, while the operators attempt to lasso them and a ball on a rope rolls through the air, hitting them in the head. It was the most entertaining thing I’ve seen in my life, and totally worth the money.

When we’d had our fill of the games, Josef took us to Rischart’s Café Kaiserschmarrn: the dessert tent and Oktoberfest’s only catwalk. American and Latine pop music blared, and we got a few rounds of cocktails and split the three desserts that they had on the menu. The tab came out to €239 ($261.93), or €14.5 ($15.89) per person.

At the end of the night, Josef took us to Oide Wiesn, the nostalgic section of Oktoberfest, which was created in 2010 to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the festival. Everything there focuses on the traditional aspects of the festival and on Bavarian culture. We paid €4 ($4.45) to get in, then wandered around looking at beautifully clanky replicas of early 20th-century rides, German folk bands, and a lot of traditional Bavarian dancing. Even the beer there was brewed using more traditional recipes, and the vibe was quieter and more family-friendly.

While this part of the night was peaceful, everything descended into chaos when it started pouring rain just as the festival was closing. We all got separated, and I was wet, a little drunk, and my phone was on 1% by the time my friends finally found me. We scrambled onto the crowded train, and since our phones were dead, we had to ask for directions back to the hotel. We forgot to pay for the train, and my brother-in-law threw up. But in the end, we made it safely back to our beds and lived to see another day in Munich.

Day 3 – Wednesday

Total cost: €199.80 ($218.47)
We spent the next day exploring Munich, though we decided to wear our tracht for the experience. We had breakfast at Viktualienmarkt, Munich’s famous open-air market that dates back to 1807. We started at Kleiner Ochs’nbrater, a cute counter-service outdoor seating spot. I got a bratwurst that came in the shape of a bull for €8.80 ($9.63) and a beer for €1.40 ($1.53). We followed this up with a little picnic of cheese, which some dairy-obsessed members of our group picked up for €26.57 ($29.10) split between 12 people. We sat on a bench and scarfed it down, along with an Altanzno wine from the Spanische Delikancan (€12, or $13.16). For dessert, we had a small cup of ice cream from Zio Santo (€2.50, or $2.74).

We walked around the city, did a little shopping, and decided to take in some history, stopping by the Residenz, which was the primary residence of the Wittelsbach dynasty. The palace houses a lot of art, historical architecture, and very expensive jewelry. We paid €9 ($9.88) each to visit the museum section of the Residenz, and were famished by the time we were done there, so we stopped at the cozy, welcoming Caffe Vinca. I ordered truffle pasta for €18.90 ($20.77), a cappuccino for €3.80 ($4.18), and a dessert for €13.90 ($15.27).

We then decided to head to the English Garden, which is one of the largest urban parks in the world. Though it was fall, the outdoor space was filled with people picnicking, biking, and even surfing. The Eisbachwelle is one of the most famous urban river surfing spots in the world; we watched from the comfort of dry land, warm in our furry hats and gloves.

Our last stop on the Munich tour was the Biergarten am Chinesischen Turm. This beer garden is set around a wooden pagoda that was apparently built by Europeans in the Chinese style. We got a very mediocre order of fries, two types of bratwurst, a side, and a beer for €31.20 ($34.28).

At this point, my husband and I parted ways with our friends, who were ready to rest, and went back to Oktoberfest, heading straight to Oide Wiesn. We paid the €4 ($4.39) entry fee and the attendant handed us some farhchips (ride tickets), which meant we were able to hop on a few rides for no additional cost. We visited some of the tents and went shopping for pins for my husband’s Tirolerhut hat, settling on four pins that came out to €37 ($40.60) total.

We then found ourselves drinking for free, since some locals bought us some beers. They took us to the Pschorr Bräurosl tent, which is probably the most famous among old-timers and feels like traveling back in time. The decor has a lot of wood and Alpine motifs, and brass bands and Bavarian folk musicians play. The beer here comes from the Pschorr brewery, known for its traditional Bavarian beer. We danced with our new friends until the festival closed for the night, then paid €3.90 ($4.27) each to hop onto the train.

We got off at the wrong stop, where we heard some music coming from outside the train station. Curiosity piqued, we took a look around the corner and found a collection of graffitied stationary train cars. Past the train cars, we found the source of the music: a vintage shop moonlighting as a nightclub. We met the shop owner and asked him if there was anywhere nearby where we could order a beer. He simply handed us four beers and told us we could pay him whatever we wanted. My husband gave him €10 ($10.94). Ten minutes later, the shop owner came back and gave us two more. We had a great rest of our night at the vintage shop.

Day 4 – Thursday

Total cost: €85.71 ($93.73)
On our final day, we got up and headed directly for the airport. We paid €9.70 ($10.61) each for our airport train tickets, but when a woman in uniform checked them, she informed us that we had bought the wrong types of tickets and that she would be giving us each a €60 ($65.58) fine. It would’ve been a lot cheaper to just buy the correct ticket!

When we got to the airport, the security line was the longest I’ve ever seen in my entire life. We got a few beers to make the experience better, which cost €8.70 ($9.52) each. This was our last Oktoberfest purchase and then we were off to Copenhagen.

How it all broke down

Upfront and travel costs: $208.02
Costs from the week: $690.50
Final total: $975.87
How I did against my original budget: $417.99 over budget

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