How much will your trip cost?
Pick your destination, trip length, travellers, and style. Get a realistic budget estimate with a daily breakdown — not a booking quote, but a planning number worth starting from.
How the budget works
The calculator uses baseline mid-range daily costs we track for 49 destinations in our destination-profiles database. The budget tier applies a ~0.45× multiplier (hostels, street food, public transit); the luxury tier applies a ~2.8× multiplier (5-star hotels, fine dining, private transfers). Mid-range (1×) assumes solid 3-4★ hotels, sit-down restaurants, and mixed public + taxi transport — what most travellers actually do.
The daily number splits roughly: 45% accommodation, 30% food, 15% activities, 10% local transport. These ratios hold reasonably well across destinations — when accommodation is cheaper, food tends to be cheaper too, and vice versa.
Flight costs are rough round-trip averages from US East Coast gateways in shoulder-season bookings (regional 4-8h flights at ~$1,600/couple, long-haul 8h+ at ~$2,800/couple). If you're flying from Europe or Asia, subtract 20-40% for shorter intercontinental flights. For genuinely cheap airfares, see our weekly deals page — we surface specific routes at below-average rates when we find them.
For deeper cost analysis, see our Luxury-per-Dollar Index (which ranks 30 cities on where the same 5-star night goes furthest) and our Shoulder Season Score (where peak-pricing avoidance saves most).