How we work out the prices 🧭

Every guide on this site leads with what things cost. That is only useful if you know where the numbers came from and how far to trust them — so here is the whole method, including the parts that are rough.

What the figures are

Good-faith approximations of what a first-time visitor actually spends — not quotes, and not the cheapest price obtainable. The daily budget on each city page is mid-range and per person: a mid-range room, eating out, local transport and the sights you came for. It excludes flights, travel insurance, visas and shopping, because those depend far more on where you are coming from than on where you are going.

Ranges, never single numbers. A hostel bed and a business hotel are both "a night in Tokyo". A range is an honest description of a real spread; a single figure would be a false precision that is wrong for almost everyone. Where you land inside a range depends on season, neighbourhood and how you travel.

Why every guide lists local salaries

Each city page shows the average local monthly wage next to the tourist prices. It is the number that makes the others make sense: it tells you whether a price is normal or a tourist markup, whether a tip is generous or insulting, and whether haggling is expected or rude. A meal that costs a tenth of a day's local wage means something different from one that costs a full day's. Prices without that context are just numbers.

Currency conversion

Local prices are always paired with an approximate US dollar figure so you can build intuition for an unfamiliar currency. The currency selector in the header converts every dollar figure on the page.

Those conversions use fixed reference rates, not live ones. The site is deliberately dependency-free and calls no exchange-rate service, so it is working from a stored snapshot: 1 USD ≈ 0.92 EUR · 1 USD ≈ 0.79 GBP · 1 USD ≈ 149 JPY · 1 USD ≈ 7.15 CNY. Treat converted figures as ballpark. For anything where the exact rate matters, check a live source on the day.

How current this is

Every city guide carries the month its figures were last reviewed, shown under the price tiles at the top of the page and recorded in the page's structured data. Nothing is undated. Prices drift — with inflation, exchange rates and seasons — so a guide reviewed a year ago should be read as a shape, not a total.

Places, photos and links

The bars, restaurants and venues under "Things to do" are real places we could confirm exist. Where a candidate could not be verified — closed down, demolished, or impossible to confirm — it was dropped rather than listed on a guess. Each one links to a plain search so you can check current hours and status yourself, which is the part no static guide can keep accurate.

Photographs are hotlinked from Wikimedia Commons and every one credits its source page, where the photographer and licence live.

What this site doesn't do

There are no affiliate links, no sponsored placements and no advertising anywhere on the site. Nothing here is ranked, included or excluded because someone paid for it — there is no commercial relationship with any hotel, airline or booking service to influence it. It also means we cannot book anything for you: the guides are for working out what a trip costs and what to expect, and you book wherever you like.

It is not financial, legal or medical advice. Visa rules and safety guidance in particular change without notice — always check your own government's current advice before booking.