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World taxi prices: What a 3-kilometer ride costs in 72 big cities
The cost of a short taxi ride can be incredibly cheap in some places and amazingly expensive in others. Check out our global list to see how things compare.
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The 11 best-value cities in Europe for budget travelers
Some European cities are very cheap, but still not really worth going to. Here are 11 you should definitely visit.
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12 best-value cities in Asia for budget travelers
Here's our list of the best of Asia's cheapest cities.
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107 World cities by latitude: Things line up in surprising ways
Compare all the popular cities around the world from north to south to see which ones line up.
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List of free walking tours around the world
Free walking tours are now found in cities all over the world. Here's a list of all of them.
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47 European cities by price: European Backpacker Index for 2012
Now in its second full year, the European Backpacker Index has been totally updated for 2012. With the entire continent struggling financially price rises have mostly been modest, but exchange-rate shifts (which will continue to shift) have caused some changes in ranking from the 2011 list.
There’s good news for Americans in that (at least early in 2012) the US Dollar is up either a little or a lot versus the European currencies, so many cities will actually feel slightly cheaper this year. You’ll always find the up-to-date Index number on each city’s own page, which also has detailed price information in addition to weather averages and other helpful features.
Best of 2011 that you might have missed
It’s been a great 2011 and we are very pleased with how many people have visited Price of Travel to help plan their trips. The site only launched in late 2010, and the numbers have been steadily increasing since then.
With hundreds of pages and different features spread all over the site, we thought we’d highlight 14 articles from 2011 that many people found interesting but that you might have missed. In almost all cases they are based on research that no one has done before so you wouldn’t know to look for them until you saw the title.
17 Cheap destinations with great weather in February
Those with time for a holiday in February are very much in luck if they are looking for affordable destinations. This is the warm and dry season in most of the world’s cheapest tropical hot spots, and also toward the end of the busy season so prices are already starting to come down after the holidays and finding bargains is simple for those who book in advance.
The one complication for many people is that the flight itself might be quite long and fairly expensive to get to Southeast Asia or Latin America, but you’ll see fare sales and low prices popping up in December and January so don’t give up if they look too expensive at first glance.
Cheapest Caribbean Islands: 32 destinations by price
Extremely popular with both North Americans and Europeans during the winter months, the Caribbean is filled with islands and destinations that range from cheap & basic to posh & exclusive. You’ll also find islands where English dominates, but also where Spanish, French, or Dutch are far more common.
Ranking Caribbean islands and destinations by price is challenging for a variety of reasons, so we simplified it by including only a cheaper 3-star hotel room for a week and two cheap flights from New York City. Generally speaking, islands with cheaper hotels will also have cheaper meals and diving etc.
The free-walking-tour business is exploding in popularity
In 2004 Sandemans New Europe Tours launched its new “free walking tour” concept in Berlin, and they’ve been so successful that they’ve continued to expand ever since, now on the verge of adding their 13th and 14th cities across Europe and Israel. When something works there will be others ready to copy the concept in their own market, and by late 2011 it turns out that similar free walking tours are available in about 50 cities around the world.
On a long research trip to Europe in 2008 I had the pleasure of going on 5 different New Europe walking tours, in Berlin, London, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, and Paris, and I can honestly say they were all excellent so this seems like an exciting new trend that is good news for everybody but the high-price walking tour outfits that are probably struggling a bit.
List of free walking tours around the world
The trend of ‘free’ walking tours appears to have started in Berlin in 2004 and has now spread to over 40 cities around the world, including nearly every major tourist destination in Europe. Fad or not, free walking tours seem to be here to stay, so we thought it would be helpful to collect a list of them all in one place.
The fine people at Free Sofia Tour compiled this original list and with their permission I’m including it here as well so value-oriented travelers have more chances of finding these tours and even planning their trips around them.
The tour guides work on tips and participants are free to tip as much or little as they think is appropriate, so they are a great first activity and orientation in a city on literally any budget.
Is the New York Pass worth it? We review prices and value here
New York City is a place everyone should visit at least once in their life, and while it has a reputation for being expensive, it doesn’t have to be. Unfortunately, the best and most famous attractions in the city are, on average, the most expensive in the world. Walking through Central Park will cost you nothing, but all the wonderful museums and tours are pricey.
The New York Pass is an ideal solution for many people, as it allows you entry into over 50 of the cities best attractions and tours for a single price. That price seems high at first, until you do the math to see what it includes and how much you can save.
Cheapest flights to Caribbean islands from Europe
As winter is approaching and the Western World dreams of flying on down to the Caribbean for a week or two, we are sorting out which are the best-value islands and which are better for those with bankrolls that allow them to avoid the riff-raff.
Recently we broke down the airfare market for Americans by listing the cheapest flights to the Caribbean by island and destination. For that one we used New York City as the starting point for all of them since it’s by far the largest market for winter Caribbean flights and it’s also the cheapest starting point for many islands. Those starting elsewhere will still find that list to be helpful because the order will stay more or less the same, with flights costing a bit more for most, depending on starting city.
Is the Paris Pass worth it? We review prices and value here
As glorious as it is, Paris can be expensive. There are two main Paris attractions passes available and each offers a great many benefits that could make it a good value to some people, but for many others these passes are poor value, or worse yet, might encourage visitors into such a sightseeing frenzy in order to get their money’s worth that they are unable to really enjoy the wonders of the city.
You can get a good look at most important Paris travel costs, translated into US dollars or any currency you like, on the main page. But here we are going to be concentrating on attractions, museums, and transportation prices to examine the value of the Paris Pass and the Paris Museum Pass.
Cheapest flights to the Caribbean by island and destination
As we are starting a series of articles that will concentrate on Caribbean islands to help winter travelers figure out which is the best for their budget and their style, we thought we’d start out by breaking things down by the price of the flights themselves.
It’s definitely true that many of the best deals to the Caribbean are part of package holidays where the flight and the hotel (sometimes an all-inclusive hotel) are bundled together into an unbeatable deal. Have a look at our list of the cheapest Caribbean islands and destinations to see where your travel money goes furthest. We’ll be sorting through those deals in the coming weeks as well, but in the meantime we’ll start by ranking each island and destination by the cost of the flight itself, which will also generally translate into the cost of an entire vacation package.