Major cities aren’t exactly known for their affordability. The mere suggestion of traveling to a large city in another country can immediately conjure images of expensive restaurants, overpriced trendy cocktail bars, and accommodation priced about $100 higher than its quality and cleanliness warrant. Not all cities are budget-breakers, however. Luggage storage company Bounce analyzed 75 popular city break destinations to find the most affordable cities for urban vacations. To arrive at the final list, it looked at the cost of five travel essentials — hotel rooms, meals at local restaurants, public transport tickets, a bottle of wine, and a cold beer.
Photo: Olena Z/Shutterstock
The World’s Most Affordable Cities for Urban Vacations in 2021
According to their findings, these are the world’s 10 most cities for urban vacations:
- Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Istanbul, Turkey
- Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- St. Petersburg, Russia
- Krakow, Poland
- Moscow, Russia
- Porto, Portugal
- Budapest, Hungary
- Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
- Santiago, Chile
Buenos Aires took the top spot largely thanks to its cheap wine (just $3.10 per bottle) and extremely reasonable public transportation cost ($0.27 for a one-way ticket). Istanbul followed closely behind, at just $.40 for a one-way travel ticket and its similarly cheap taxi fares, while Rio de Janeiro has the distinction of being the cheapest city on the list for draught beer, which costs just $1.34.
Bounce also analyzed the world’s most expensive cities for tourists, so if you really don’t mind shelling out some extra dough on vacation, these are the destinations for you:
