What a riding holiday costs from Denmark
Prices from one marketplace, converted for a Danish buyer. Poland at 2,800 kroner, Bulgaria at 12,000, Patagonia at 23,000, and what the gaps are actually for.
Every post I have written about riding holidays so far has been about a trip I want. This one is about what they cost, because that is the question I actually had first and could not find answered plainly anywhere.
All the figures below are starting prices per person from one marketplace, shown to me in Danish kroner because that is where I am sitting. They are a snapshot rather than a survey, and they will move.
The range, roughly
At the bottom: four days in Poland, at Galiny Palace, from around 2,850 kroner. Seven days at the same place from around 5,400.
In the middle: three days on an English valley trail from around 4,100. Four days in Essaouira, Morocco, from around 4,100. Five days in Andalusia from around 8,600. Eight days in Ireland, County Clare, all meals, from around 11,700.
Higher: seven days camping in Bulgarian wild nature from around 12,300. Four days in Iceland from around 12,200. Six days in the Alpujarra from around 11,200. Seven days in Rila National Park, Bulgaria, from around 17,600.
At the top of what I looked at: seven days in Tuscany from around 18,100, six days in the Northern Patagonian Andes from around 16,600, and nine days in Patagonia from around 23,400.
What the gaps are for
A four-day trip in Poland at 2,850 and a four-day trip in Iceland at 12,200 are not the same product with a different postcode.
Three things move the price, as far as I can tell from reading a lot of listings.
Where the horses have to be. A ride that ends each night at a base is cheaper than one that moves. A ride that moves through country without roads has to move supplies too.
How many staff per rider. Instruction in English, a guide who knows the route, somebody cooking. The wilderness trips are quietly buying you a small expedition team.
What the country costs. Poland and Bulgaria are cheaper to run a yard in than Iceland or Italy, and the price reflects the yard as much as the ride.
Notice which of those is not on the list. None of it is about the horses being better.
The thing that surprised me
Bulgaria is not cheap.
I had assumed the eastern European trips would sit near Poland, and the Rila National Park ride at 17,600 for seven days costs more than Tuscany per day and more than twice what a week at Galiny costs.
The difference is that one is a riding centre with a palace attached and the other is a week of moving camps through a national park. You are not paying for Bulgaria. You are paying for wilderness, and wilderness has the same price everywhere.
What I would actually do first
The honest answer for somebody in my position, with a nine-year-old and no riding holiday behind either of us, is Poland or England.
Four days. Under 5,000 kroner. Two hours on a plane or none at all. A base to come back to each night, which matters more than it sounds when a child is tired.
The Patagonian ride costs eight times as much and requires a rider I am not yet. The cheap trip is not a compromise on the way to it. It is the correct first one, and the marketplace makes that unusually easy to see because the prices are sitting next to each other.