Travel Finances Home > Price Comparisons

Price comparisons between several popular destinations:

If you're looking for a budget holiday then it's time to leave the country. London remains the most expensive city in Europe, according to research.

The UK capital fell from second to third place in an annual world study of 144 cities, behind the Japanese cities of Tokyo and Osaka. Glasgow featured in 40th place with Birmingham 47th in the study by Mercer Human Resource Consulting. It looked at the cost of housing, transport, food, clothing, household goods and entertainment.

But it's not as simple as avoiding London and Japan. Holiday hot-spot Greece has earned the dubious honour of offering Europe's most expensive cup of coffee. Europe's switch to the euro currency at the beginning of 2002 prompted many retailers to round up prices, bringing protests from locals and tourists, alike. Since then, some goods in Greece have risen as much as 200%, particularly in resorts and restaurants. With an average price of €3.40 or £2.38, getting a caffeine-fix in Athens is almost double the price of Paris, and €1 more than Rome. And at an average €0.90, or 65p, a bottle of water is more expensive in Greece than anywhere else in the eurozone. Even a beach ticket can cost as much as a nightclub entry fee.

League tables released by the consumers' association show that the average Greek must work almost twice as many hours as the average Briton in order to buy a typical supermarket basket of 100 items.

Burgernomics

Coffee is not the only thing used to measure global finances. The Economist's Big Mac index uses hamburger prices around the world to make exchange-rate theory more digestible. It is arguably the world's most accurate financial indicator to be based on a fast-food item and is occasionally accompanied by side-orders such as the Coca-Cola map of the world and the Starbucks tall latte index.

This year's Big Mac Index reveals that you should avoid fast food in Scandinavia. Our friends in Denmark, Sweden and Norway pay top dollar for their all-beef patties and special sauce. Iceland has the most expensive Big Mac at US.67 - more than double the US cost. They make up for this with a putrified shark delicacy washed down with some of the world's most dangerous moonshine called Brennivin. Sample enough and it wont be your wallet that suffers. You have been warned.