Numbeo.com is a cost of living website where you can enter a city and check current average reported prices for public transportation tickets, restaurant meals and drinks, and common food items in stores.
Finding the price of airline tickets to your travel destination and hotel rates for places you will visit is the easy part of budgeting travel to a new place.
Ground expenses in your travel destinations for transportation, meals and activities is commonly a greater budget expense than the cost of airplane tickets or hotels. This is certainly often the case for travelers flying to and staying in your destination using miles and points.
In the past year traveling I have used Numbeo.com to check prices in places I visited for more than 30 cities around Europe like London, Amsterdam, Prague, Brno, Bratislava, Vilnius, Riga, Reykjavik, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Krakow, Gdansk, Nice and Sofia.
Travel prices generally correlate closely to prices I see for different cities on Numbeo.com. My objective is to cut the expense in high cost cities and plan my trips throughout the year to balance my time in low cost destinations with high cost cities.
High Cost Cities ($121+/day)
- Reykjavik, Iceland
- Stockholm, Sweden
- Copenhagen, Denmark
Numbeo Daily Expenses (Stockholm) $121.50 day/per person
- inexpensive lunch $12.50
- mid-range dinner $43.50 ($87).
- 2 drinks $15
- 3 transportation tickets $14
- $15 *Grocery staples (+40% more than Berlin). I assume some additional food needed during day, especially if no free breakfast.
- $25 activities – museums, admission fees, other.
My typical travel expenses in Stockholm ($75 per day).
- inexpensive lunch $12.50 (Chinese or Turkish food)
- $20 for daily food from grocery store for veggies, hummus, bread, salmon, hot chicken, fruit.
mid-range dinner $43.50 ($87). - $10 to buy 4 beers from Systembologet government alcohol store.
2 drinks $15 - 3 transportation tickets $14 (I almost always walk around
Stockholm, but spend $25 for ARN airport to city round trip). - $20 other activities, but I tend to hang out in Stockholm parks and streets for most of my short transit overnight layovers in Stockholm.
$25 to $40 activities – museums, admission fees, other.
High-Medium Cost Cities ($90 to $120 day)
- London, UK
- Amsterdam, Netherlands
- Monaco/Nice
Numbeo Daily Expenses (London) $108.50 day/per person
- inexpensive lunch $20.00
- mid-range dinner $35.00 ($70).
- 2 drinks in pub $12.50
- 3 transportation tickets $10
- $16 *Grocery staples (+11% more than Berlin). I assume some additional food needed during day, especially if no free breakfast.
- $15 activities – museums, admission fees, other. Most museums in London are free.
My typical travel expenses in London ($85 per day).
- inexpensive lunch $12.50 (Chinese or Turkish food)
- Dinner or pubs $25
- $20 for daily food from grocery store for veggies, hummus, bread, salmon, hot chicken, fruit.
mid-range dinner $43.50 ($87). - $8 to buy 4 beers from supermarket.
- 3 transportation tickets $10.
- $10 other activities. Generally hang out at free museums and parks.
Low Cost Cities ($20 to $70/day)
- Sofia, Bulgaria
- Plovdiv, Bulgaria
- Prague, Czechia
- Brno, Czechia
- Bratislava, Czechia
- Gdansk, Poland
- Warsaw, Poland
- Riga, Latvia
- Vilnius, Lithuania
Numbeo Daily Expenses (Prague) $47 day/per person
- inexpensive lunch $6.25
- mid-range dinner $16.25
- 2 pub drinks $4
- 3 transportation tickets $3.50
- $10 Grocery staples $10 (Berlin Prices = $15, other cities
specific percentage on Numbeo.com relatively lower or higher.) - $7 activities – museums, admission fees, other.
Daily Expenses (Krakow) $46 day/per person
- inexpensive lunch $5.80
- mid-range dinner $15.00
- 2 pub drinks $5
- 3 transportation tickets $3.50
- $10 Grocery staples $10 (Berlin Prices = $15, other cities specific percentage on Numbeo.com relatively lower or higher.)
- $7 activities – museums, admission fees, other.
The cost of travel is relative to what your travel habits tend to be. I almost always travel by public transportation and walk extensively. I tend to eat less and drink more when I travel than when at home.
I adjust my activities to the expense of the location. In Prague and Krakow I primarily eat in restaurants, while I primarily shop for groceries in Amsterdam and London for most meals. When traveling alone I eat very few restaurant meals, except for inexpensive Turkish and Asian restaurants.
I try to plan one activity per day like visit a museum or a particular area of a city I want to explore.
Shopping is extra spend.
Numbeo.com is interesting to compare the cost of travel to a place. Today I did research on Numbeo.com to estimate cost of travel in Romania. My travel thoughts have Romania on my mind for a trip sometime over the next three months.
Numbeo.com shows Prague about 35% more expensive than Cluj Napoca, Romania.
I am thinking $35 per day is a good budget estimate for food, drink and transportation.
An ATM withdrawal in Cluj Napoca of $200 for 7 days should be sufficient for one person with my plan to visit Cluj Napoca and Sighisoara. Then, as in most of my travels in places like Poland, Czechia and Bulgaria, places where I typically spend less than $20 per day, I’ll spend the remaining $60 or $100 I have left near the end of the trip on souvenirs and gifts.
DoubleTree Sighisoara is in my sights for 5,000 points reward nights.
I checked out YouTube to watch Happy in Sighisoara, Sibiu and Cluj Napoca Pharrell Williams inspired videos to get a feel for the locations.
Sighisoara was filmed in snow season and provides good clothes packing tips, while Sibiu and Cluj Napoca look like early spring videos. Cluj is Romania’s second largest city and the airport I plan to fly into.
These places look fantastic to me. I am ready to go.
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