Most (and Least) Expensive Countries in 2018

Nearly seven months ago, we set sail on a cruise ship from Puerto Rico that would cross the Atlantic and kick off our year of travel.

Having stayed in 15+ countries and dozens of cities so far, what have we found to be the most affordable – and most expensive – places to stay?

Below is a summary, sorted from least expensive to most expensive, that we have stayed at thus far.

If you’re considering traveling to any of these places in the coming years, we hope this helps give you an idea of typical housing and food costs.

Summary of Daily Housing + Food Costs for Two People

Note: for an easier version to interact with, check out the Google Sheet here.

We analyzed the primary daily expenses – housing and food – for each of the places we have visited so far in 2018. The “Total Cost/Day” is the simply the total of housing+food, per day, for two people.

Also, when we stayed for free, we calculated our actual housing cost in the “our housing” column, and included a standard, 4-star hotel rate in the housing column. Otherwise, our actual housing (hotel, Airbnb, etc.) are included in the housing cost averages.

Total Daily Cost World Chart

Top 5 Most Expensive Countries

Excluding cruises, the top 5 most expensive places (housing + food) we have stayed thus far have been:

1. Hawaii (USA)
2. Paris, France
3. Amsterdam, Netherlands
4. Zurich, Switzerland
5. Bruges, Belgium

Housing cost was the primary driver in the top 5 places above. However, note that in each of those 5, our actual housing costs were much less on average, and cost $0 in several instances due to rewards points.

Thus, some of the places that should have cost us the most actually ended up being the most affordable when booked with points, since we only had to pay for food.

Top 5 Most Affordable Countries

The top 5 most affordable places (housing + food) we have stayed thus far have been:

1. France (Laffrey, Lyon, and Nice regions)
2. Australia
3. Italy
4. Spain
5. Denmark

While we’ve only been in Brisbane, Australia for about two weeks so far (and staying free because we are house-sitting), food is probably the cheapest it has been anywhere, and we get great quality, organic options here.

Italy was our first stop on the trip, and despite eating out often, we were more frugal on housing than we have been in recent months.

Spain also had some of our more expensive meals out with alcohol, but this balanced with very affordable housing costs.

Denmark is surprising to appear in the top 5 most affordable, but we had very reasonable food costs with moderate housing in our Airbnb.

Key Takeaways from 2018 Travel

Here are some key takeaways from our travel in 2018:

1. For some of the most expensive cities (Zurich, Paris, etc.), saving and booking your rewards points for those stays can provide maximum value. Those ended up being some of our cheapest actual stays, despite being the most expensive if we had paid for housing out-of-pocket.
2. Because we stayed so many different places in France – and it made both the most expensive (Paris) and least expensive list – we broke it out into regions instead of lumping it all into one country.
3. Food was – by far – the most expensive in Norway, though it doesn’t show up as such on the budget. That is because we were much more cognizant of the costs while there, whereas we were eating out much more often in Disney and Cyprus with friends and family.
4. As previously mentioned, cruises can actually be an affordable option – especially considering that includes entertainment each day and night, transportation to another continent (excluded from all the other locations), and other nice amenities.
5. Other than Hawaii, some of the more expensive places were also some of our shorter stays, so we couldn’t cook food or take advantage of buying things in bulk. There is likely a slight advantage to staying longer to stay for less money.
6. Foreign exchange rates – for the most part, we were in Europe and the Euro to USD exchange rate didn’t seem to impact the results too much. However, it definitely had a negative impact when in Norway, and so far it seems to be having quite a positive impact in Australia, due to the relative strength of the USD to the Australian dollar.
7. Since entertainment, travel (how you get there), and alcohol are all much more dependent on personal preference, we chose to only look at the housing and food for the numbers above. Those would need to be included to get a better estimate of actual daily expenses.

Stay tuned to our monthly budget updates in 2019 to see how we do in Australia, New Zealand, and Asia.