The Flight Is Twenty-Nine Per Cent of Your Trip

An extra day is cheap per day and real in money

Because the transport is already paid, each additional day costs only 150 rather than the 210 the ten-day average suggests, which is why stretching a trip always looks like good value — and it is, per day. The total still rises by 150 a day, so a fortnight instead of ten days is 2,700 rather than 2,100. Both facts are true at once, and the mistake is to let the falling average stand in for the rising total when deciding what the trip can cost. Decide the total first, then choose the length that fits inside it.

What the transport line usually leaves out

The 600 is almost always just the ticket. Getting to the departure point and back, parking or the taxi at either end, checked baggage, seat selection, travel insurance, a visa or entry fee and any vaccination all belong on that line and are frequently missing from it. Together they routinely add a third to what was budgeted as transport, and because they arrive as small separate payments across several weeks they are easy to spend without ever appearing in the plan. List them once at the start and the total stops moving.

Frequently asked questions

How do I set a realistic daily spending figure?

Not from a per-day average found online, which blends backpackers with business travellers into a number describing neither. Price the day you actually intend to have: two coffees, lunch, dinner, one entry ticket and local transport, at the destination's own prices. Do that once and the figure is yours rather than a stranger's — and it will usually land higher than the round number you had in mind, which is the point of doing it before departure instead of after.

Should the budget be in my currency or the destination's?

Build the daily lines in the destination's currency, because that is where the decisions happen and mental conversion at the till is where budgets quietly fail. Convert once, at the end, to know the total. Add a margin for the exchange rate moving and for card charges, which are easy to underestimate: a two per cent foreign transaction fee on 1,500 of local spending is 30, small but exactly the kind of item that was never in the plan.