Colorado · mountain

What a trip to Durango costs

A week in Durango for eight people works out around $12,800 before flights — $455 a night for a place sleeping four, scaled for the group, plus $75 per adult per day for food. From Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Seattle and Phoenix it is cheaper for a family of four to drive than to fly.

A southwest Colorado town in the San Juan Mountains, home to the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, a working steam line through the mountains. Mesa Verde National Park is about 35 miles west.

with children okadults-only trip goodstroller / limited mobility poorelevation 6,657 ft

What a week costs

Lodging and food only. Seven nights, whole-property rental, all fees in.

Group	Lodging	Food	Total	Per person
4 people	$3,180	$2,100	$5,280	$1,320
8 people	$8,570	$4,200	$12,800	$1,600
12 people	$11,700	$6,300	$18,000	$1,500

Note the per-person column does not simply fall. A place sleeping four is the efficient unit; going to eight means changing property class, which costs more than double. Past eight it improves again — each additional person adds roughly half what they did over the first jump. The expensive step is condo to house, not the people you put in it.

How Durango compares

DurangoColorado median of 4Mountains median of 8All destinations median of 40

Nightly lodging for a property sleeping four, month by month. Medians are taken across the seeded destinations in each group, so they are the middle of that group rather than any one place.

Averaged across the year, Durango runs $346 a night for a property that sleeps four. That is 14% above the median for all 40 destinations in the library ($305), making it the 17th most expensive of 40 destinations. Against its own kind it is 32% below the typical mountain ($511), the 2nd cheapest of 8 mountains.

Its season swings 56% between its cheapest and most expensive months, against 92% for the typical mountain. Dates move the bill less here than they do for most mountains.
Its cheapest month, January, is exactly when mountains are typically at their most expensive — this one runs against its own kind.
It is above the all-library median for 10 months of the year and below it for the other 2 (Apr, Oct) — so whether it counts as an expensive destination depends entirely on when you go.
The same week costs $1,140 more in June than in January on lodging alone, before anyone has bought a flight.
Within Colorado (4 destinations here), it is 41% below the regional median of $591 a night.
Driving beats four seats from Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, Seattle and Phoenix. The longest of those is Chicago — 1,230 road miles and 19.9h each way, and only $6 cheaper than four seats — thin enough that most groups would fly anyway.
The cheapest seven nights of the year fall in January, at $2,045 for the whole property — $3,185 for the same week in June.
The sharpest single step is between September and October: moving the same week across that line changes the lodging bill by $1,140.
The closest thing to it on price is Outer Banks, NC, a beach town: $12,888 for a week for eight against $12,772 here, $116 apart — the same money for a completely different trip.

When to go

Durango is at its most expensive in June and cheapest in January — a 56% swing on the same property.

Month	Per night, sleeps 4
January	$292
February	$292
March	$292
April	$292
May	$292
June	$455
July	$455
August	$455
September	$455
October	$292
November	$292
December	$292

Getting there

The two halves are not priced the same way, which is the whole point: a seat costs per person, a car costs the same whatever the headcount.

	Flying		Driving
From	Round tripper person	Each wayhours	Round tripper car	Each wayhours	Cheaperfor four
Atlanta	$489	5.6h	$2,242	23.8h3 days	flying
Chicago	$469	5.2h	$1,870	19.9h2 days	driving
Dallas	$430	4.2h	$1,163	12.6h2 days	driving
Denver	$392	3.3h	$460	5.6h	driving
Los Angeles	$426	4.2h	$1,107	12.1h2 days	driving
New York	$534	8.4h	$3,067	32.6h4 days	flying
Seattle	$461	5.0h	$1,740	18.6h2 days	driving
Phoenix	$401	3.5h	$632	7.3h	driving

Drives over ten hours are shown in days as well: nobody drives that in one go. The nights on the road are not counted here, so a long drive is cheaper on this page than it would be in life. All fares are modeled from distance — no published average covers this airport. Driving uses the IRS standard mileage rate, which includes running costs, not just fuel.

See all 8 mountains in the library →

Compare Durango against other destinations →

Where these numbers come from

Lodging is indexed from the US federal per-diem schedule (GSA) for this county, calibrated against real rental listings. Food uses this location's own federal meal tier. Fares come from the DOT Consumer Airfare Report where that airport pair is published, and from a model fitted to 2,073 real DOT fares otherwise. Everything here is an estimate for planning, not a quote — check real prices before booking.