What it costs to summit Mont Blanc

Last year, after Andrea's and my trip to France, I wrote a post breaking down our expenses. Since I just got back from France to climb Mont Blanc, I thought I'd do the same thing. My trip consisted of a few days of getting ready, eight days of mountaineering, then a week of visiting a few friends. My expenses break down as follows:

Beer/coffee	$136.56
Climbing	$199.67
Fees	$67.11
Food	$238.14
Gear	$407.31
Gifts	$125.39
Guide	$4,823.26
Lodging	$1,639.67
Misc	$102.60
Tourism	$65.62
Travel	$1,575.47
Grand Total	$9,380.79

A few quick notes:

• Beer/coffee represents beer, coffee, small snacks (eg, a croissant), but not quite a meal
• Climbing covers fees, mostly for cable cars up the mountains
• Fees are currency conversion, money transfers, etc.
• I bought gear (crampons, ice axe, helmet, etc.) rather than hauling it across the world
• Aside from plane tickets, travel was crazy cheap this time, having no need for a rental car. I used BlaBlaCar, Flixbus, and SNCF train.

Yet again, travel and lodging are some of the biggest factors; though this time, paying someone to keep me from dying on the mountain was by far the biggest factor. Having been armed with the previous trip's analysis, I knew this time that going out to eat and buying souvenirs was a fraction of what I would spend, so I didn't hold back too much on those.