I’m on edition #2 of The World’s Cheapest Destinations and no doubt at some point I’ll have to break down and create a third version. As soon as one rolls off the press though, there will inevitably be complaints that I was off by 50 cents on the average price of a room in Bumfuctoo or that “I spent $2 a day less than what you quoted for Funkyodorville.”
Whatever. The idea is to offer guidelines and a general description of what to expect in various bargain destinations. I’m not doing an academic thesis with footnotes here and the sands are always shifting due to gas prices, currency fluctuations, and plain old supply and demand. Which brings me to this excellent rundown of budget travel costs in 94 cities. (Sorry, as of 12/1/13, this page is gone.) A traveler named Rob Meyer spent some serious time and effort tracking down the cheapest accommodation and representative meal costs in all these destinations. Consider it an antidote to the annual Mercer study, which the media loves to quote each year but is seriously flawed because it looks at costs for expats to have the same kind of accommodations they have at home.
The comments underneath show that people love to quibble about the details of these things, but overall I think he’s nailed it pretty well. All but a few of the top-30 cities are in one of The World’s Cheapest Destinations. (And a few of those were left out just because nobody goes there–like Ascuncion.)
[Vangvieng, Laos photo from Pantawee Hotel]
