Club Thifty / 100 Cheapest Places to Travel in the World for 2019

The Cheapest Places to Travel: Our Observations

If you’re a veteran of budget travel, the results of our study shouldn’t shock you.

As expected, travel destinations in Asia once again dominate the top half of our list. In fact, Asia is home to the cheapest countries in the world – claiming a whopping 27 of the top 30 cheapest places to travel on our list…and all of the top 23. That’s a pretty incredible number.

Travel destinations in Europe and North America are generally the most expensive places to visit. A newcomer to our survey, Lviv, Ukraine is the most affordable European destination, landing just outside the top 25 overall. For reference, no other European destinations make it into the top 30 while the cheapest place to travel in the United States is ranked a meager 67th.

Keep in mind, however, that comparing the best travel destinations by price is extremely relative. When searching for cheap places to travel, numerous factors come into play – including your proximity to the destination and the time of year you plan to visit. Seemingly cheap vacation spots can quickly turn into budget busters if you don’t account for every expense.

So, with dozens of variables at play, how can anybody accurately compare the cheapest travel destinations in the world?

Easy. We had to set some ground rules.

Cheap Travel Destinations: Our Methodology

Let me assure you, we haven’t taken this project lightly.

To accurately measure the cost of each location, we needed to create a methodology which ensured that each destination stood on relatively equal footing. So, as we’ve done in the past, we focused our efforts on factors that were universal, controllable, and useful.

First, we had to decide which destinations to include. Although Sleepy Eye, Minnesota may be a cheap place to travel for fellow Minnesotans, how many people actually visit Sleepy Eye each year? How useful is that to the vast majority of people?

For that reason, we limited inclusion to Euromonitor International’s 100 most popular travel destinations in the world for 2018, as determined by the total number of international visitors.

Since everybody’s travel style is different, we also needed to determine which factors best represented the overall cost of a destination. Average food and beverage costs became an important factor in our rankings, as we feel they are indicative of an area’s overall affordability.

Using numbers from Numbeo, we based our food and entertainment numbers on the average cost of a meal at an “inexpensive” restaurant (3 per day) and the average cost of a domestic beer (3 per day). We added an extra 10% to both, just to be on the safe side.

Prices for accommodations were also a major factor in our rankings. Clearly, one’s travel preferences are going to affect the amount it costs to stay in a certain area. For instance, overwater bungalows, no matter how affordable, are going to cost a heck of a lot more than a standard hotel room.

Additionally, because rates change based on occupancy and the time of year in which they are booked, we needed to find a consistent way in which to apply our methodology. So, we based our numbers on a midweek stay during each destination’s “low season,” averaging the 5 cheapest 3-star options for accommodations during that time.

To help you put this all together, here’s a quick breakdown of our methodology:

• Must be one of the top 100 most visited destinations in the world
• Average of top 5 cheapest accommodation options for each location
  • 3-star accommodations only
  • “Low season” pricing
  • Midweek stay
  • Double occupancy
• Average price of meal at an “inexpensive” restaurant
  • 3 per day
  • Plus 10% for accuracy
• Average price of domestic beer at a restaurant
  • 3 per day
  • Plus 10% for accuracy

Using this data, we created our “Affordability Index” – a metric used to compare costs between locations and rank each travel destination by their overall affordability. The lower the number, the cheaper the destination.

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