You can find accommodations around the lake that will fit any budget or any taste that you might have. Besides the usual hotels, there are guest homes, health spas, cabins, hostels, and private apartments to let. Camping in tents is also very popular. The high season for tourists at Baikal is in July and August, as well as during the winter sport season of February and March. We would recommend that you book your accommodations early, if you are traveling during any of these months.

A decent hotel room without frills—either downtown or not far from the lakeshore—you can rent for about 5,000-6,000 rubles/day (currently around 60 Euros—or 460 Yuan). Prices for a four-star hotel, or for rooms with designer furnishings, start at 8,000 rubles. Hostel beds in shared rooms are naturally less expensive, and will cost about 700-1000 rubles/day. In the most popular spots on Olkhon Island or Maloye Morye, a standard two-person room with a shared bathroom and toilet on each floor will cost somewhere around 4,000 rubles/day.

A decent meal at a roadside café here at Baikal, with dumplings, homemade chicken noodles, salad, and green tea, will run around 500 rubles (6 Euros or 45 Yuan) per person. In some of the nicer restaurants in Irkutsk or Ulan-Ude you could expect a bill between 2000-3000 rubles for dinner. There are also food vendors out on the street, where a whole cooked fish on Olkhon Island (for example) would cost around 300 rubles. Or another kiosk would sell you a couple meat dumplings with a juice drink for some 250 rubles.

Please note that, if you are out in the back-country or walking along one of our wilderness trails, food will cost about 20-25% more in the villages along the way, than in the cities or along the main roads of Baikal.

There are regular buses that run from the big cities of Irkutsk and Ulan-Ude out to the lake-side villages at Baikal. You can also take one of the smaller taxi vans that run along the same routes. As an example, a one-way bus ticket to Listvyanka from Irkutsk would cost around 150 rubles (2 Euros or 15 Yuan). Or further over to Slyudyanka it would cost around 250 rubles. Then there are longer trips from Irkutsk to Baikalsk (350 rubles) or Olkhon Island (800-1000 rubles). Buses also run on schedule up to Ust-Barguzin and Zabaikalski National Park from Ulan-Ude, costing in the neighborhood of 650 rubles one-way.

If you are more inclined to travel by boat with the East Siberian Ship Company, during the summer months a ticket up the Angara River from Irkutsk and then out to Bolshiye Koty would run around 1000 rubles one-way. Or if you are already down by the lake, the short ferry ride across the mouth of the Angara (from Listvyanka to Port Baikal) is only 70 rubles. And if you drive out to Maloye Morye from Irkutsk, you can easily take the ferry from the mainland over to Olkhon Island for free.

You can gain entrance to almost any city museum at Baikal for less than 350 rubles. And for smaller museums outside of the city the cost would be more like 150-200 rubles.

If you prefer group trips by mini-van or boat, you could pay between 1500 and 3000 rubles per person for a tour of Olkhon Island, for example. It would cost about the same if you wanted to go as a group out to visit one of the local Buryat Siberian villages, to get a taste of the local culture and food. But if you want a full-fledged local tour, accompanied by a guide who takes care of all your logistics (accommodations, food, and local transport), there are any number of local travel companies that you can find on the internet who can help you.