Trip cost calculator
Enter your departure city, destination and dates: you get the full cost of the trip, line by line, from prices that were actually surveyed.
HOW IT WORKS
Your travel budget in 3 steps
Describe your trip
Origin, destination, dates, length, and comfort level. Four fields, no account.
We aggregate real prices
Aggregator APIs for live flight prices, specialized hotel-pricing APIs for accommodations, a leading activity platform for tours, plus local indices for food and transport. 90-day medians, no marketing prices.
You see the full breakdown
Six expense categories, three budget tiers, side-by-side month comparison, and pre-filled booking links. All on one page.
What sets this apart from a guess
Most travel budget calculators apply a coefficient to a national average. This one starts from surveys.
431,394 properties surveyed across 75 cities, on 15 October 2026, from which three bands are drawn per city: well-rated hostel, three-star, four-star. These are not self-reported averages but the median of the rates listed that day.
Month-by-month flight price series across 70 cities, surveyed from Paris and from London separately, because a return flight does not cost the same depending on where you leave from.
Thirty-year climate normals, so the cheapest month is never recommended without saying it is also the wettest.
And an automated check refuses to publish a figure the data contradicts. It is a technical detail, but it is the difference between a figure and an estimate.
What the calculation covers
Six lines, not three: the return flight from your departure city, accommodation at the comfort level you pick, food on the basis of three meals a day, local transport, sights and activities, and incidentals.
Many tools stop at flights and hotels, which produces a figure that is systematically thirty to forty per cent too low. The total shown here is that of a real trip, with its coffees, its metro tickets and its museums.
The calculator also handles multi-city itineraries, up to twelve stops, and room sharing between travellers, which is the single most effective saving and which almost nobody exposes.
Methodology
How is your budget computed?
Six questions to understand exactly what's in your estimate and how to adjust it.
- How is the InstantTripCost estimate computed?
- Each budget combines four independent data layers: the 90-day median round-trip flight price for the chosen airport pair, the median hotel rate per tier (budget, mid-range, premium), local indices for food and ground transport, and the average activity cost per destination. The total is recomputed on every form change, with no cache.
- Why does the result change when I switch departure month?
- Flight prices swing strongly with seasonality (up to 60 % gap between peak and off-peak on some destinations). Lodging also varies by ~30 % on average between peak and trough. Food moves more modestly (5-10 %). All three modulations are computed per city from the destination's own air-demand signal.
- What does each comfort tier include?
- Budget: hostel or entry-level hotel, meals at local eateries, public transit, 1 free or low-cost activity per day. Comfort: well-rated 3-star hotel, mix of local and mid-range restaurants, public transit plus occasional taxi, 1-2 paid activities per day. Luxury: 4 or 5-star hotel, fine dining, taxis and private transfers, daily premium experiences.
- My estimate is too high. How do I cut the budget?
- Four levers cover almost all possible savings. 1. Shift the trip by one month to save on flights (the most profitable lever, up to -40 %). 2. Drop one hotel tier (-30 to -40 % on the lodging line). 3. Pick a less-touristed city in the same country (-15 to -25 % across all lines). 4. Trim a day or two from the trip. Other tweaks have limited relative impact.
- Does the budget cover every trip expense?
- The calculation includes: round-trip flight, lodging, food, local transport, activities, and a miscellaneous-fees margin (tips, SIM card, laundry, small purchases). It does not include: visa, travel insurance, optional vaccines, gear-specific costs (diving, ski equipment), or significant personal shopping. Adding a 5 to 10 % buffer is wise depending on destination.
- How often are prices refreshed?
- Flights are queried in near real-time on every estimate. Hotel medians refresh every 90 days. Local indices (food, transport, activities) are audited annually and manually adjusted per destination. The targeted margin of error on the total trip is under 15 %.
Frequently asked questions
- Is the calculator free?
- Yes, with no account, no signup and no usage limit. The site earns if you go on to book with a partner, never from you.
- How accurate is it?
- Accommodation prices come from a dated survey, flights from real monthly series. Food, local transport and sights rest on per-city ranges, wider by nature. The total is a solid order of magnitude, not a quote: the same trip can vary by twenty per cent on the choices you make once there.
- How much will my trip cost?
- It comes down to three variables, in this order: distance, which sets the flight; length, which spreads that flight; and comfort level, which decides accommodation. Enter them above and the breakdown appears line by line.
- Can I compare several destinations?
- Yes, by running the calculation again, and the country pages on this site give each destination's budget from the same underlying data.