Napa: Great Tips for Visiting Wine Country on a Budget (ish)

Napa Valley is a dream destination for many wine lovers, but planning a trip can be overwhelming if you’re trying to stick to a budget at all. I won’t lie: Napa Valley is not a budget destination. But it also doesn’t have to break the bank. Carefully selecting your visit timing, accommodations, transportation and wine tastings can help you stick to a budget while living out your Napa Valley dreams. 

Here are my tips for visiting Napa Valley without breaking the bank:

Go during the off season

It’s common knowledge that visiting a destination in the off season will get you better deals than visiting during high season. However, for many destinations, visiting during the true off-season comes with major trade-offs like poor weather and limited activities. These trade offs are not the case for Napa. In fact, I’d argue there are more upsides to visiting Napa in the off-season than the high season.

Napa’s high season is summer, between the months of June-August. The weather at this time is going to be hot, with the average high in the 80s. By August, you’re at the start of California’s wildfire season, and a bad wildfire can ruin or cancel your trip. During high season, prices are also 2-3x higher than off-season, and larger crowds make reservations and ride shares more competitive.

Visiting in late November resolved all of that. Weather was cool and crisp in the 60s, but still with clear blue, sunny skies. The vineyards were also beautiful, bathed in the fall colors of red, orange and yellow.

Visiting during the off season meant reservations were readily available at most wineries. Ride share services were also readily available, but I’ll discuss that more in a bit.

Select the Most Affordable City Base

Napa Valley includes five different towns and borders Sonoma Valley. Each town has plenty to offer for wine lovers, as well as gorgeous views. If you’re set on visiting a specific winery, you should choose the town closest to it as your home base. However, if you have more flexibility, I’d recommend selecting the town with the most affordable accommodations and basing your winery visits off that base.

When researching the areas to stay in Napa in November, the towns that seemed to offer the most affordable accommodations were the city of Napa and Calistoga. I looked across Airbnb, Booking and credit card portals to narrow it down to these two cities. These cities were also close proximity to wineries with more affordable tastings.

The city of Napa ultimately seemed like the best home base between the two because it seemed to have more to do in the town itself compared to Calistoga. For example, it seemed to have a wider range of restaurants and tasting rooms, as well as attractions like the historic Oxbow Market.

Use Ride Shares, Public Transportation or other Affordable Transit

Your home base selection can also impact how you choose to get around Napa Valley. Unless someone has volunteered to be the designated driver, you have to consider how you’ll get to  the different wineries.

There are a lot of different companies that provide transportation services throughout Napa Valley, from private drivers to group tours. However, these options can drive up the cost of your visit significantly, especially if you’re visiting with a smaller group of people. The most affordable group tour company I found was Platypus tours at $119/person. Like other tour companies, this price excludes the cost of wine tastings. It does look like Platypus tries to go to more affordable wineries with expected tasting costing between $20-$40/person. Platypus appeared to be the most affordable group tour option I found as of November 2022. This company could be a solid choice if you don’t want to put a lot of effort into planning. 

For a more economical visit, you can piece together more affordable transit while still enjoying your wine tastings. Instead of hiring a driver or doing a group tour, consider…

Ride shares:

Depending on your home base, you may be able to use ride shares to help you get around the wineries. Before the trip, I read several things warning against relying on ride share services due to high demand making them difficult to access. I think this concern is more applicable during the high summer season because we had no trouble finding affordable rides in November. Note, access to ride share services is dependent on the city where you’re staying. The city of Napa has Uber, but Calistoga does not.

Public Transportation:

From research, it seems like many cities have affordable public transportation that can get you to or close to wineries near the city limits. It is typically $1-$2 per ride (or cheaper). Calistoga even has a door-to-door free public transit service that will pick you up and drop you off anywhere within the city limits, including a couple of wineries just outside.

Biking:

There are bike paths all throughout Napa Valley, and plenty of bike rental options. This option is more economical, environmentally friendly and allows you to appreciate the beauty of the vineyards at a slower pace. However, you should never ride a bike while intoxicated, so you will have to watch your wine consumption.

Walking:

This option is more for getting between vineyards than getting to the vineyards from where you’re staying in the city center. If the wineries you’re visiting are close enough to each other, this option might work for you. I selected wineries that were within 1-2 miles of one another. We got dropped off at the first winery by a Lyft, then walked to the next two wineries before taking an Uber back to our hotel. Though there are not a lot of sidewalks, there are options to walk off the road. There wasn’t much traffic, so it felt safe to walk, but unsure if this would be the case during high season.

Visit Wineries with More Affordable Tastings

Nothing in Napa is actually cheap, including the wine tastings. You can stick to tasting rooms in the city for a cheaper experience, but that takes away from some of the magic of being in Napa. If you want to visit wineries, you have to be prepared to pay a steeper price for tastings.

However, some tastings are much more affordable than others. The cheaper tastings I found during my research were in the $30-$50 range. The most common prices were closer to $50-$75, but some were >$100. When planning our visit, I stuck to wineries that offered more relatively affordable tastings within close proximity to one another. We also visited a tasting room in the city of Napa that was much more affordable than the wineries themselves.

Most wineries also offer to offset the cost of a tasting if you buy a bottle of wine. I think this offer is only a good deal if you were already planning to purchase a bottle of wine, but you shouldn’t rely on it to make the tasting more affordable. 

Another thing to note is that many wineries offer snacks or a picnic for an additional cost, but some are okay if you bring your own picnic. Bringing your own picnic can help you save on food costs.

Other Activities

Finally, your visit to Napa Valley doesn’t have to completely revolve around wine. Though the wine is probably what initially drew you to the region, there are plenty of other free or low-cost activities to enjoy.

The city of Napa is near hiking trails that are free or cost only a small fee to park. The day before our winery day, we hiked the Skyline Trail in Skyline Wilderness Park. This hike was fairly easy but rewarding, with beautiful views of the vineyards bathed in fall colors from above. 

There are also some attractions and markets within the city itself. In Napa, we stayed near the historic Oxbow Market and enjoyed walking through the stalls. There was also a farmers market on one of the days we visited.

How I Put the Trip Together:

When I started researching this trip, I was overwhelmed by all the options at first. But as I started researching how to make it more affordable, it came together more easily.

First, I considered the city where we should stay based primarily on accommodation affordability and transportation options. 

Once I decided on Napa and decided against a group tour, I started researching wineries. I looked at wineries in and around the city of Napa with interesting and relatively affordable tastings. 

I found three wineries to visit that fit my criteria, had reservations available at convenient times and were within walking distance of one another. Then, I planned our route to and between wineries based on public transit, ride shares and walking.

Finally, I looked at other activities to do in and around the city of Napa that looked interesting and free or cheap.

All of this took more effort to research and plan, but ultimately resulted in a great trip that worked within our budget. Napa definitely caters to more luxurious travel, but you don’t have to do that to have a good time and try some delicious wines in a beautiful setting.

Have you been wanting to take a trip to Napa but have been overwhelmed by the cost and choices? Let me know if this helps!