The Cities Where Your Money Will Go Furthest
‘Best Bang For Your Buck’ Index
With the cost of living crisis and fuel costs surging, we know that many people are worried about the figures they’ll see on their bills this winter.
Interestingly though, there has been a recent rise of travellers deciding to take long-stay holidays this winter in order to ease costs as a result.
But, the question on everyone’s lips, we’re sure, is ‘where will my money go the furthest?’
That’s why we wanted to shed some light on the cities that offer the opportunity to travel, live and work – all without breaking the bank.
We’ve analysed a list of travel destinations around the world and found out which offers the best value for money when basing yourself there for a month, the entire winter, or even a year.
However, alongside cost, there are other important factors to consider when looking to move abroad for a period of time, which is why we have also taken the healthcare systems, power grid reliability and internet speed into account.
So, it is really more affordable to flee the daily grind, dodge winter fuel costs and live more cheaply abroad?
Read on below to find out the results.
The Cities In The World Where Your Money Will Go Furthest
1. Chiang Mai, Thailand
Sitting in the top spot is Thailand’s second city, Chiang Mai. In fact, of all of the cities in the study, Chiang Mai scored the highest for value for money of dining out, with a meal in a restaurant costing a mere £1.16 on average. Of the top five too, the city also offers the cheapest price for rent on a one-bedroom apartment with an average cost of only £259.16 per month.
Being a major city, Chiang Mai also scored full marks for the reliability of its power grid, meaning that you’ll rarely find yourself disconnected when trying to work. Thailand, on average, also has an internet broadband speed of 225.17 Mbps, so working should be a breeze.
2. Budapest, Hungary
It is Hungary’s capital city, Budapest, that takes the silver medal position overall. The highest-ranking European city in the study scored well for the average cost of wifi, with the cost of broadband connection being around £10.48 per month. Hungary, as a country, also scored well for how reasonable its electricity is, with reports this year outlining prices of £0.091 per kWh.
It’s not the cheapest for keeping fit though, scoring the lowest of the top five with a monthly gym membership costing £34.44 on average. Of the top five, Budapest also scored the lowest for the cost of eating out at a restaurant, not that an average meal being £6.33 is by any means expensive though!
3. Łódź, Poland
In third position is another European city, Łódź. Of the other three European cities in the top five, this Polish city scored the highest for the value of eating out at a restaurant, with an average cost of £4.57 per meal. Within the same parameters, it also scored highest for the cost of a one-bedroom apartment with a bargain price of £367.43 on average.
What’s more, as a whole, of the countries where the top five cities are based, Poland scored the highest for its healthcare system, scoring 26th of all the nations included in the study.
4. Hanoi, Vietnam
Taking fourth position overall is Hanoi in Vietnam. One factor that the capital city really stood out for was the average price of a co-working space hotdesk, with the cost of £90.06 per month being the second cheapest in the entire study. Of the top five, Hanoi also offers the cheapest wifi connection costs for anyone preferring to work at home, with an average price of £8.39 per month.
Vietnam does have the slowest wifi speed of the top five though. Its score of 78.34 Mbps actually ranked it 110th in the entire study, which might not be a problem if you don’t require a super-speedy internet connection.
5. Poznań, Poland
Rounding up the top five is another Polish city, this time Poznań. Of the European cities in the top five, Poznań offers the lowest price for a co-working space hotdesk per month at an average price of £109.97, which is also the fifth cheapest price in the entire study.
However, of the top five, Poznań scored the lowest for the cost of a one-bedroom apartment per month, with an average price of £408.5. Although, this is still excellent value for money when you consider that the average one-bedroom flat in Manchester, United Kingdom, costs £1,100 according to research.
Results That Particularly Interested Us
Map by Chris Lawton via unsplashed
The city with the cheapest cost of living (living factors aside)?
Giza, Egypt. The city has an average monthly living cost of around £224.81 with the cost of a one-bedroom apartment being as little as £108.19 per month.
The city with the cheapest wifi connection cost?
Delhi, India. The city has the cheapest average internet connection cost with a figure of around £6.83 per month – but it also has one of the slowest internet speeds at only 64.03 Mbps on average.
The country with the best-ranked healthcare system?
Denmark. The country employs a universal health care system in which citizens receive mostly free medical care.
Methodology
To compile the global ‘Bang For Your Buck Index’, we first collated a list of all of the main cities in each country in the world and then analysed each on the below factors:
City: Average cost of a one-bedroom apartment per month
City: Average cost of wifi for the month
Country: Internet Speed in Mbps
City: Average cost of co-working hotdesk
City: Average cost of eating out at a restaurant
City: Average price of a domestic beer
City: Average cost of one-way ticket on public transport
City: Average cost of a gym membership for a month
Country: Average price of electricity by kWh
City: Rating of power grid based on previous electrical outages
Country: Ranking of well-developed public healthcare systems
As some factors are more important than others, the scores of the average cost of a one-bedroom apartment, internet speed and healthcare system ranking are double weighted.
We used a variety of credible sources to find data for each of the above categories and then ranked the cities from first to last based on this data. Cities, where a full dataset was not available, were omitted from the index.
We then added the scores together to get a total score, before ranking the destinations based on this overall, final score.
Sources include Numbeo and Nomadlist.
The starting list included all of the cities on Resonance’s ‘World’s Best Cities’ and Euro Monitor’s ‘Top 100 City Destinations’ lists, as well as some additional cities that were drawn from credible sources including Culture Trip and Business Insider about popular city destinations.
Separately to the overall ranking, we also worked out the average cost of living price in each of the cities in the study using the below calculation.
Average cost of a one-bedroom apartment per month
Average cost of wifi for the month
Average cost of eating out at a restaurant twice per week
Average price of two domestic beers at each meal out
Average cost of public transport tickets using this 4 times a week
Average cost of a gym membership for a month
Average price of electricity, taking the average UK usage
The full dataset and source list are available upon request.