Press · 100 cities
Travel cost data, free to quote
TieredTravel prices 100 cities three ways, budget, mid-range and luxury, per person per day. Quote any figure, republish the table or embed a city's card in your article: all it asks is a credit link.
Key findings
Hanoi and Tbilisi are the cheapest cities to visit
From $15 a day on a budget and $50 at mid-range. Of the 10 cheapest cities for a mid-range trip, 6 are in Asia.
A luxury day in Tbilisi costs less than a mid-range day in 22 cities
Tbilisi's luxury tier starts at $150 a day: a 4–5 star hotel, fine dining and private tours. That is less than a comfortable mid-range day in 22 of the 100 cities, among them San Francisco ($230), Honolulu ($220) and Monaco ($220).
The most expensive city depends on how you travel
On a budget it is Zurich, from $100 a day against $15 in Hanoi and Tbilisi; at mid-range San Francisco, from $230; in luxury London, Monaco and Sydney, from $700.
Going luxury costs 16 times a budget day in Bali and Bangkok, 5.5 times in Zurich
The widest gap of the 100 cities: in Bali a budget day starts at $25 and a luxury one at $400, cheap living and top-end hotels side by side. The narrowest is Zurich, where even the budget end is expensive: $100 against $550.
A mid-range day costs more than twice as much in North America as in South America
The typical (median) mid-range day by continent: North America $170, Oceania $150, Europe $130, Asia $100, Africa $80, South America $78. Continents with fewer than 5 cities here are left out.
The data
- 100 cities on 6 continents, from Hanoi to San Francisco.
- Three tiers. Budget: hostels, street food, local transit, free sights. Mid-range: a 3–4 star hotel, sit-down restaurants, paid attractions. Luxury: 4–5 star hotels, fine dining, private tours.
- Per person per day, in US dollars, covering accommodation, food, local transport and activities. Flights, visas and insurance are not included.
- Each figure is the lower end of the tier's range, the "from" price: Barcelona at mid-range is "from $130", out of a $130–$180 range.
- Researched and set by hand, city by city, from real listings for hotels, hostels and restaurants, local fares and ticket prices. Not scraped, not averaged from user reports: the methodology explains it.
- Updated 21 October 2026. Every city's guide shows when its figures were last checked.
Use the figures
You are welcome to quote and republish any figure, in an article, a video or a spreadsheet, as long as you credit TieredTravel with a link to the ranking or to the city's guide.
- All 100 cities as a spreadsheet (CSV) →
- The full ranking, cheapest to most expensive →
- An embeddable card for any city, with its rank →
Writing about one city? Its guide states its place in the ranking ("the 21st most expensive of 100"), and its row in the ranking has its own link, such as https://tieredtravel.com/cost-per-day#hanoi.
About TieredTravel
An independent, solo-built travel site by Sergej, a developer and traveler: one person researching the costs, writing the guides and running the server. It earns a commission when a reader books through a partner link, and every such link is marked. No partner pays for a place in the ranking, and every city is ranked by the same figures its own guide prints. More about the site.
Contact
For an interview, a figure explained, a city's numbers before you publish, or a cut of the data you need: [email protected]. It goes straight to Sergej.