Destinations that cost more (or less) than expected (A Carrie Commentary)

It’s been a long time since I tracked travel expenses for the points and miles blog Travel is Free (a blog I helped maintain in the 2010s). The motivation for this was to demonstrate how a nomadic life using points and miles could be just as cheap as a stationary life in the US. The experiment was overall successful and also gave me a better awareness of costs from one destination to the next.

In this post I’ll outline some of the destinations I found more or less expensive than expected for the on-the-ground expenses. After all, even if you’ve already covered your flights and hotels with miles and points, as they say, “man cannot live on club lounge-canapés alone”.

About this series: After years of traveling nomadically on miles and points in the 2010’s, I essentially retired from the points and miles game to focus on other things. Now, I’m trying to gradually re-enter the game, this time learning the tricks for myself instead of coasting along as a P2.

Inexpensive travel destinations (that we pretty much all know by now)

It’s more or less common knowledge by now that Southeast Asia, Central and South America, and Eastern Europe can be incredibly affordable for travelers, which is part of why these destinations are so popular for digital nomads. (It can be so cheap in fact that it’s sometimes worth just paying cash for your lodging and saving your points for the expensive destinations referenced later.)

With most of these more or less known already, I won’t spend a lot of time on this point. However, here’s a quick summary of inexpensive travel destinations:

• Pretty much all of Asia except for Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea, which are a bit more mid-level
• Eastern Europe, especially the less buzzy destinations like Bulgaria, Romania, Albania, and Georgia, and even Slovenia, Slovakia and Hungary to an extent as well
• Pretty much all of Mexico and Central and South America

Now what about the especially expensive destinations?

Destinations I found more expensive than expected

Some of these are more surprising than others. I knew Western Europe would be expensive, for example, but I wasn’t expecting all of these. I’ll start with the least surprising.

• Western Europe (especially Switzerland, for example)
  Much of Europe is pretty comparable to the US in terms of day-to-day costs, but a few destinations kick it up a notch. When I stayed at the InterContinental Davos on points, I remember loving the hotel itself and the ski town where it sits, but I did not love spending $17 on a slice of pizza from a corner store for dinner. (And that was 12 years ago – who know show much that pizza costs today!) I’ve heard that Iceland, Denmark, and Norway are similar, but believe it or not, I have not been there yet and can’t share my own insights on that.
• United States
  The United States were always a budget guzzler during my nomad days, largely because of the lack of public transportation, and how remote the different sites on a travel itinerary can be. Where Western Europe may have equally expensive food and park fees, you often don’t have to rely solely on car rentals and Ubers like you might in the United States. And while some cities have public transportation systems that can take you from the airport into the city center, this is definitely not a given for every major city. Yes groceries are expensive here too, but I think it’s the on-the-ground transit that makes the US so expensive to travel in.
• African safari destinations
  Even though my crew and I chose the self-drive approach for our safari in Masai Mara, the park entry itself is still pretty expensive: $100 per adult per day from January 1st – June 30th and $200 per adult per day from July 1st – Dec 31st. Not to mention, many African safari destinations don’t really have much of a budget traveler infrastructure. That means there are not a lot of budget lodging options to choose from, especially for the National Park and Safari destinations. (You can read about Tim’s visit to the JW Marriott Masai Mara here.) Similarly, there’s no great budget transportation option to the National Parks and Wildlife Parks either. (Many locals in the Masai Mara region for example rely on hitch hiking to get from town to town.) Typically, the transportation from Nairobi to Masai Mara is either handled by your Safari lodge, requires a private driver, or in our case, requires renting a car (which turned into a whole adventure of its own).If you are truly a budget traveler, the Pilanesberg National Park is a good option for a self-drive safari that can be done in a day trip from Johannesburg, where you’ll find decent points hotel options.
• Puerto Rico
  As an (unincorporated) territory of the United States, the food and entertainment costs in Puerto Rico are fairly similar to the mainland US, but you also have some of the added costs that are typical to islands (because many things have to be transported in.)

Destinations I found less expensive than expected

• Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were countries that I’d somehow mentally grouped together with the reputation of the Nordic countries for being expensive. These destinations were actually on the cheaper side, comparable to or even a little cheaper than the US. Estonia is apparently where the Finnish go to party on a dime, for example.
• Poland, Portugal, and Spain are all countries that were a bit cheaper than I expected too. Especially for anyone who appreciates wine, you’ll find it quite a bit cheaper than the US.

This is certainly not a comprehensive list, but these are the destinations I remember feeling surprised by when attempting to do ordinary day-to-day things, outside of the reach of miles-and-points.

Where are some destinations that surprised you in terms of how expensive (or inexpensive) it was to travel?

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