Which countries are the cheapest to travel to in 2025? Exclusive HelloSafe ranking of 131 countries
Planning a budget is always an important step for any traveller preparing for a stay abroad. Whether it's for accommodation, food or transport, it's important to be well informed before setting off. This study gives you the average daily budget required for one person in 131 countries around the world. It shows that the most expensive destinations are not always the ones you think of.
Good to know
This budget includes the expenses incurred by the traveller on site in the destination country, i.e. accommodation expenses (hotel or Airbnb-type reservation), food expenses (based on local CPI indices and the cost of catering) and transport expenses within the country itself (plane, train, bus, other public transport or taxi). Conversely, this budget does not include the cost of transport to the destination country (typically the cost of a plane ticket). To find out more about how this map was compiled, please refer to the "methodology" section at the bottom of the document. This data was collected as at March 2025.
High travel budget: our ranking of the 15 most expensive countries in the world
If you have a high budget for your travels, here is a list of the 15 countries where you will need to plan for the highest expenses once you're there. With a high-quality tourism accommodation sector, the Caribbean islands occupy the top positions in this ranking:
- Barbados (£264), Antigua and Barbuda (£248), and Saint Kitts and Nevis (£217) are indeed the countries that require the highest budgets, followed by the Maldives (£214) and Grenada (£207).
- Also included in this top 15 is a single European country with high prices: Switzerland (£251), ranked 6th.
- It is also worth noting the presence of the United States (£199), Greenland (£177), as well as the United Arab Emirates (£176) and the Principality of Oman (£171), representing North America and Asia.
Source : Budget Your Trip, Kayak.com, Booking.com, HelloSafe's data
Budget travel: our ranking of the 15 cheapest countries
For travellers seeking affordable destinations, here is a list of the 15 countries to visit for a budget-friendly trip. This selection mainly includes countries in Asia and Africa:
- Laos (£12.3), Kazakhstan (£15.1), and Rwanda (£16.6) are the three countries requiring the lowest budgets, followed by Ghana (£17.6) and Mongolia (£19.0).
- Also included in these budget-friendly destinations are countries from the Caucasus region, such as Armenia (£20.5) and Georgia (£22.1), as well as Moldova (£28.4), the only European country in this top 15.
Source : Budget Your Trip, Kayak.com, Booking.com, HelloSafe's data
The UK is the 6th most expensive country in Europe in which to travel, with an average daily budget of £137
The analysis of data regarding the average daily budget required for a trip in Europe reveals a wide variation depending on the destinations. The most expensive countries, such as Switzerland (£200), France (£150), and Iceland (£147), clearly dominate the list. These destinations are often associated with a high cost of living and strong tourist demand, justifying higher prices for accommodation and services.
In contrast, Eastern European and Balkan countries, such as Kosovo (£37), Serbia (£33), and Moldova (£28), offer much more affordable options, with significantly lower costs. This price difference can be explained by the level of economic development, the dominant type of tourism, and the availability of low-cost infrastructure in these regions. Additionally, countries like Poland (£46) and Bulgaria (£48) offer a good compromise between affordable prices and service quality. As a result, travellers can adjust their budget according to their preferences, while still having access to a variety of experiences across Europe.
| Rank | Countries | Budget for 1 day of travel |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Switzerland | £200 |
| 2 | France | £150 |
| 3 | Iceland | £147 |
| 4 | Luxembourg | £140 |
| 5 | Greece | £139 |
| 6 | United Kingdom | £137 |
| 7 | Denmark | £137 |
| 8 | Netherlands | £134 |
| 9 | Italy | £127 |
| 10 | Norway | £127 |
| 11 | Andorra | £126 |
| 12 | Finland | £119 |
| 13 | Austria | £115 |
| 14 | Germany | £115 |
| 15 | Spain | £115 |
| 16 | Belgium | £108 |
| 17 | Ireland | £108 |
| 18 | Portugal | £103 |
| 19 | Sweden | £100 |
| 20 | Slovakia | £99 |
| 21 | Malta | £90 |
| 22 | Latvia | £86 |
| 23 | Montenegro | £80 |
| 24 | Cyprus | £78 |
| 25 | Czech Republic | £77 |
| 26 | Estonia | £77 |
| 27 | Croatia | £72 |
| 28 | Slovenia | £71 |
| 29 | Lithuania | £70 |
| 30 | Hungary | £59 |
| 31 | Romania | £59 |
| 32 | Albania | £57 |
| 33 | Bosnia and Herzegovina | £51 |
| 34 | Russia | £49 |
| 35 | Belarus | £49 |
| 36 | Bulgaria | £48 |
| 37 | Poland | £46 |
| 38 | Kosovo | £37 |
| 39 | Serbia | £33 |
| 40 | Moldova | £28 |
Methodology
Aim of the study
This study was carried out on the basis of multiple sources, all of which were taken into account in order to provide as accurate a picture as possible of the average travel budget required for a tourist stay for one person in a given country. The aim is to be able to offer an estimate of the budget per day that corresponds as closely as possible for each country studied to the reality of the places that tourists visit during their stay.
Categories of expenditure taken into account
This budget includes expenditure made by the traveller on site in the destination country, i.e. :
- 1. Accommodation costs (hotel or Airbnb-type reservation)
- 2. Food expenses (based on local CPI indices and restaurant costs)
- 3. Transport costs within the country (plane, train, bus, other public transport or taxi)
- 4. Expenditure on visits and tourist activities on site
Conversely, this budget does not include the cost of transport to the destination country (typically the cost of a plane ticket).
Methodological choices
The way in which a travel budget is put together can obviously vary according to a large number of criteria: the standard of accommodation and restaurants, different costs from one town to another or from one region to another within the same country, the type of transport preferred in the destination country, and so on. In order to arrive at a figure that is as representative as possible of the budget needed to travel in a given country over a given period, we have taken two approaches into account in our calculation algorithms:
- 1. Objective approach: using an artificial intelligence module developed in-house by HelloSafe, our algorithms have analysed tens of thousands of accommodation, restaurant and transport offers in each of the countries mentioned in the study, enabling us to establish average budget levels in each of the expenditure categories that are representative of the country as a whole and of the different standings available.
- 2. Subjective approach: we wanted the study to be equally representative of what tourists actually do in a given country. For example, if a majority of travellers to Egypt choose to take a cruise on the Nile, we believe that this specific tourist characteristic should be taken into account from a statistical point of view. To do this, we have based ourselves on the data made available by the Budget My Trip and Numbeo websites, whose method consists of allowing thousands of travellers to report the prices they observe and pay on the spot. These on-the-ground figures provide invaluable insight into the reality of what travellers actually pay in a given country.
It is therefore by taking these two approaches into account that we are able to propose the figures presented in this study.
Details and limitations
It is important to remember that the data presented in this study are estimates, and are by no means absolute. As we have said, planning a travel budget is a complex exercise that depends above all on individual choices and trade-offs. Nevertheless, the methodology we have used has enabled us to get as close as possible to a figure that we consider representative for all the countries for which we have been able to obtain sufficient data.
🔎 About HelloSafe
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