The 50 greatest bargains in travel
It’s the most expensive summer ever for travel. Airfares have soared, hotel rates leapt, restaurant prices keep rising. And not just in the UK. It is the case all over the world. Meanwhile, the cost of living crisis gnaws at our budgets and it is clear that many of us will be approaching this year’s holiday season with a deep sense of financial trepidation. We’ll be trimming our expectations and checking our credit card limits.
But while there is no hiding from the hard reality of inflation, the world is a big place. Currencies and cultures vary hugely and so does the cost of living. And it is always heartening to be reminded that the bill won’t always come as a shock.
So I have gone bargain hunting. I have racked my brains, consulted with my colleagues and our destinations specialists, and checked back over dozens of recent Telegraph Travel articles to try to find some nuggets of optimism, a few chinks of light amid the financial gloom.
I have come up with 50 of what seem to me to be the best deals in travel. It isn’t possible to be definitive, of course. But I have tried to cast the net as widely as I can to cover everything from flights and places to stay, to budget beers and cheap eats.
I’m sure there are lots of other travel bargains out there. So please do run your eye over our suggestions and let us know your own tips and ideas.
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Discount destinations
1. Cut-price Croatian islands
Independent travellers who like to book their own flights and go bargain-hunting for hotels will find it hard to beat the value offered by the Croatian islands. Village rooms in the Old Town on Korčula generally cost from £40-60 per night, for example, and the Hotel Odisej on nearby Mljet, highly recommended by our hotel experts, has rooms from €64 a night this spring.
2. All-inclusive Tenerife
The huge popularity of all-inclusive holidays – which include all meals and drinks in the upfront cost – stems both from the certainty they offer those who want to keep to a budget and their sheer good value. And the best value of all – according to a recent survey by Which? – is in Spain. Which? found thatr all-inclusive holidays in Tenerife were cheapest overall this summer, at an average price of £1,097 per person, closely followed by the Costa Blanca at £1,103.
3. It’s all Greek
If you are looking for peace and quiet and good value combined, the same data crunch of holiday prices by Which? found that the cheapest option for room-only, B&B and half-board packages was Kalymnos, Greece, just off the coast of its much more popular neighbour, Kos. A week’s stay cost £847 per person on average, while accommodation in the capital Pothia was the most competitively priced on the island – with the cheapest package costing £794. Close behind Kalymnos were Thassos (£862) and Lefkada (£935).
4. Sri Lankan savings
When it comes to long-haul sun-and-sand holidays, you will be hard pressed to beat the value offered by Sri Lanka. Politically, the island had a troubled time a few years ago and has struggled to reignite its tourist market since the 2019 Easter bombings. The Foreign Office still advises general caution, but tour operators have rebooted their holiday offerings with some highly competitive pricing. Tui for example, is offering half-board holidays from around £1,000 per person, including flights (tui.co.uk).
5. Argentina: for £5 steaks and £3 operas
The Argentine peso has been falling steadily for a decade or more, and it saw a particularly heavy slump in December. The country’s dizzying inflation rate eats up a fair chunk of those savings, and you still have to fork out for your airfare, but once you are there, you get a hell of a lot for your holiday pound. In 2022 our reporter Chris Moss spent a week in Buenos Aires eating £5 steaks, drinking £1 coffees and watching £3 operas.
6. Cruises – for less than £60 a day
Obviously you can pay through the nose for a small ship cruise or a premium cabin. But if you pick the right itinerary and ship, you can find extraordinary value. Repositioning cruises, when ships relocate for the upcoming season, provide particularly good bargains. For example, a 21-night voyage from Southampton to Galveston, Texas, via Madeira and a clutch of Caribbean islands (departing on October 6 on board Regal Princess), is currently on sale for £1,162 per person, via Iglu Cruise. That’s just £55 a day (plus the cost of a flight back to Britain).
7. Leaving it late
Our next bargain is not actually a place but a time. The two or three weeks after most schools break up are invariably the most expensive of the year. Having a little patience, however, brings big dividends. Families who book the last week of August (24-31) will most likely save several hundred pounds on their holidays. My most recent price survey found savings of up to £1,072 on hotel packages and up to £1,500 on villas.
Cheap sleeps
8. Gentrified youth hostels
You don’t always have to bed down in a dormitory full of hearty walkers when you stay in a British youth hostel. There are some rimpressive options these days and many offer private accommodation in small rooms. For example, 800-year-old St Briavels Castle in Gloucestershire has family rooms sleeping six from £60 a night, and others sleeping two or three (with a double bed) from £90. It’s popular, so book well in advance (yha.org.uk/hostel/yha-st-briavels-castle).
9. Five-star Bangkok
Hotel rates chop and change nowadays, so the picture is always shifting, but for the honour of cheapest city-centre five-star, I nominate the Raweekanlaya in Bangkok, Thailand – a grand, old-fashioned, 19th-century hotel near the Palace and the National Museum where you can often find rooms for 3,000 baht (£65) a night (raweekanlaya.com).
10. Chateaux on the cheap
Hotel prices in Paris are among the world’s dearest; not so in rural France, where there are some fantastic bargains. My top pick is the three-star Château Hôtel de la Côte, a 15th-century turreted gem in the Périgord Vert, between Périgueux and Brantôme, where rooms start at €95 (£81) (chateau-hotel-dordogne.com).
11. Stay loyal
With air miles, racking up sufficient points for anything worthwhile can seem to take forever – but some hotel loyalty schemes can offer meaningful savings. Telegraph Travel’s hotel expert, Fiona Kerr, recommends three in particular: World of Hyatt, Marriott Bonvoy and Booking.com Genius. For full details, plus further tips on hotel savings, see our recent feature.
12. Scandi cool – for less than £150
Another Fiona Kerr recommendation is the Well, which opened as a spa in 2015 in peaceful woodland outside Oslo, Norway. Saunas range from the moderately warm 45C meditation sauna to the scorching 90C Finnish variety. The hotel was added a few years later and offers amazing value, especially considering Norway is one of the most expensive countries in Europe. Doubles cost from £148 B&B, including spa access (thewell.no).
13. Mountain refuges and bothies
If you don’t mind things a little basic, you can stay in a mountain bothy in Britain for next to nothing. The Mountain Bothies Association runs dozens of remote shelters in Wales, Scotland and the north of England, and for a subscription of £25 per year they are free to use – though a donation is always welcome (mountainbothies.org.uk). Other countries have similar schemes, normally with a small additional fee. In Austria, for example, the Austrian Alpine Club charges members from €15 (£13) a night for stays in its huts (alpenverein.at/britannia).
Meal steals
14. Cape Town eats
You can find plenty of bargain places to eat in different cities around the world, but among the major tourist destinations surveyed by Post Office Money each year, it is Cape Town that delivers the best value overall. You can typically find a three-course evening meal – including a bottle of wine – for £34.64 for two people. In Europe, Lisbon is reckoned to offer the most affordable dining, with a bells-and-whistles meal costing £36.60.
15. The world’s cheapest Michelin-starred meal
You’ll have to queue, and the atmosphere will be entirely different from a top-notch restaurant in, say, Paris, but you can enjoy Michelin-starred cooking for relative peanuts at Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle, on Crawford Lane in Singapore. Depending on portion size, you will pay just £4-6 for a bowl (taihwa.com.sg).
16. Bargain bouillons
The bouillons of Paris were conceived as bargain places to eat more than a century ago and some still survive, offering a great Belle Époque atmosphere and extraordinary value for those prepared to queue for a table. One of the best is Chartier, where starters range from €1-7.5 (86p-£6.43) and main courses from €7-13.80 (£6-11.82) (bouillon-chartier.com).
17. British fine dining for £35
Set menus in many Michelin-star restaurants in Britain cost more than £100 (and often much more), so the £35 Wednesday and Thursday evening dinner menu at the Bridge Arms, near Canterbury, is a snip. The current offering includes smoked chalk stream trout and Gloucester old spot pork jowl (bridgearms.co.uk).
18. Beer in Vietnam (and Prague)
Enjoy a beer? According to Post Office Holiday Money, you’ll find the cheapest brew around the world’s main holiday spots in Vietnam, where a glass will set you back about £1.16 in a typical bar. In Europe, online travel company Omio suggests heading east, where Prague (£1.86), Sarajevo (£1.75) and Sofia (£1.66) are among the capitals with the cheapest pints.
19. Wine on the Algarve
Wine drinkers, according to Post Office Holiday Money, will do best to make for the Algarve, where a glass of decent Portuguese red will cost you about £1.62. If that’s not quite enough, a whole bottle can be had from a wine shop for less than £4.
In the air
20. Ryanair’s lowest fares
The deals and the destinations come and go, so you will have to pick and choose and adjust your timings. But when I last checked, I could book London Stansted to Tirana (Albania) for £14.99 each way – that’s less than the cost of the Stansted Express from Liverpool Street to the airport (£17-23). Several cities were available from £24.99. That’s with minimal baggage of course – the fare more than doubles if you take a full-sized cabin bag – but in a time of spiralling airfares, the Irish airline still offers undeniable bargains.
21. Around the world for under £1,500
Multi-stop round-the-world airfares are certainly not as cheap as they used to be. But if you have a few weeks you can set aside for a big trip, they are an incredibly good-value way of ticking off some bucket-list destinations. Prices vary hugely, but Trailfinders currently offers a ticket from London-Vancouver-Auckland-Shanghai-London from £1,487 (trailfinders.com).
22. London-New York for less than £350
One route that remains especially competitive, simply because there are so many flights available, is London-New York. You have to duck and dive a bit to find the bargains (your departure time makes a big difference), but I found returns from Gatwick to JFK with low-cost carrier Norse Atlantic for £324 (as with Ryanair, this includes just a small piece of hand luggage).
23. La Paz for pennies
The eight lines of La Paz cable cars, which form a network around the Bolivian capital, are arguably the world’s most spectacular public transport system. Not only are they a great way to see the city, but they are incredibly cheap. One-way fares cost from just 3 bolivianos, or 35p.
On the tracks
24. Eurostar to Brussels for less than £80
As a stress-free way of enjoying a city break, it’s extremely hard to beat Eurostar’s services from St Pancras. But it is also getting harder to find affordable fares, especially to Paris. You can still get good deals to Brussels if you book a few weeks in advance, however. I found plenty at £78 return in standard class and £154 in standard premier (eurostar.co.uk).
25. Interrailing around Europe
Whether you’re planning a grand tour of Europe, or an itinerary through a single country, Interrail passes will nearly always work out cheaper than buying separate long-distance tickets – especially if you want to travel first class. There is a huge choice of fares: from €283 (£242) for four days’ unlimited travel in any one month across 33 countries, to, for example, €144 (£123) for three days in France (interrail.eu/en)
26. Across America for £79
The 51-hour rail journey from Chicago, Illinois to Emeryville, California is one of the most romantic ways to cross the United States, and it can be incredibly cheap: from £79 one-way if booked a few months ahead (amtrak.com/california-zephyr-train).
27. Scotland by rail – £29.40
The UK is famous for its extortionate rail fares, but there are some isolated exceptions, such as the regular service on the Far North Line in Scotland. Following the coast north from Inverness to Wick, it is one of our most spectacular lines, yet a day ticket for the four-and-a-half-hour return journey costs just £29.40, or even less if you have a railcard (scotrail.co.uk).
28. Across India for £10
It takes about 28 hours to cover the 1,300 miles down the spine of India from New Delhi to Goa. But it is a lot more relaxing and much cheaper than flying. A sleeper-class ticket costs just £10 (or £53 in first class air-conditioned sleepers). For booking advice see (seat61.com/India.htm).
29. The Himalayas by train – from 43p
It takes 10 hours (averaging 10mph), crosses 950 bridges, stops at 33 stations, and climbs to almost 4,000ft through some of India’s most stunning Himalayan scenery and the snow-capped Dhauladhar range. And the price of a one-way ride on the astonishing Kangra Valley Railway? Just 45 rupees (43p). Astonishing.
30. Rail travel in Italy
Italy’s rail network is a fascinating combination of rickety old local trains and the latest high-speed inter-city services like the Red Arrow. But there is one constant – the fares are excellent value. A random check found me a single ticket all the way from Naples to the north-west coast of Italy – that’s about nine hours on the train – for £31 (trenitalia.com).
By water and road
31. The Sydney Harbour to Manly Bay ferry
Enjoy a 20-minute trip across the whole sweep of Sydney Harbour, over to Manly Bay, for just £5.30 (standard single) and you’ll probably step off the boat wishing it was your regular morning commute (transportnsw.info).
32. Hong Kong’s Star Ferry – just 40p
You could take the metro, but the Star Ferry is by far the most atmospheric way of crossing the strait between Kowloon and Hong Kong Island and (so to speak) immersing yourself in the atmosphere of one of the world’s greatest harbours. There are two links – between Central and Tsim Sha Tsui and between Wan Chai and Tsim Sha Tsui. The 10-minute crossing will cost you just 4 HKD (41p), or 5 HKD (51p) for a seat on the top deck (starferry.com.hk/en/service).
33. The free Staten Island Ferry
You may not be able to afford to sail into the Hudson River by cruise liner and be welcomed by the Statue of Liberty and the Manhattan skyline, but anyone can get a taste of that feeling on the Staten Island Ferry, which runs between St George Ferry Terminal in Staten Island and South Ferry in Manhattan. The 25-minute journey, which passes Ellis Island and the statue, is free (siferry.com).
34. Greek ferries from €5
Not all the ferry services between the Greek mainland and its islands are the bargains they used to be. But the 90-minute link to Corfu from Igoumenitsa on the mainland is a supremely relaxing way to travel to the island (or do a day trip to the mainland) and costs just €5 (£4.28) one-way (corfuferries.gr/en/home-en).
35. Europe is your oyster – for a little more than £50
Not only is it likely to be the cheapest way to take your car across the Channel this year, but the journey from Newhaven to Dieppe drops you off in one of the prettiest of all the north coast ports. DFDS’s four-hour crossing costs from just £53 for a car and two people for travel between October 1 and December 15 2024 (dfds.com).
36. The €2 gondola ride
A standard tourist’s gondola ride in Venice will cost you €120 (£103) to hire the boat for about 25 minutes. But large gondolas – known as traghetti – are still used by locals in the city at seven different crossing points on the Grand Canal. You can hop on board for the five-minute transit for just €2 (£1.71) – it’s €0.70 for residents.
37. Petrol for pennies
OK, you are unlikely to be taking advantage of it, because the Foreign Office advises against all but essential travel to Venezuela – but for the record, this is where you will find the world’s cheapest petrol prices: 2p per litre. Of more interest to travellers are Egypt (22p), Malaysia (34p), Vietnam (79p) and the US (82p), where the car remains king.
38. Lanzarote for bargain car hire
Enjoy independent exploring when you are on holiday? Car hire prices have soared since the pandemic, but you can still find decent value in Lanzarote, where Which? recently reported it had found the best value, with all-inclusive rates at around £190 for a week.
Cultural highs
39. UK heritage memberships – from £68
It costs about £15 for admission to a typical National Trust property, but become a member and all visits are free for a year (the individual annual fee is £91.20; nationaltrust.org.uk). Visit just one stately home a month and you will effectively be paying half price; one a week and you save nearly £700 a year. A similar logic applies to English Heritage (£69; english-heritage.org.uk) and Historic Houses (£68; historichouses.org).
40. London’s wonders for nothing
Given the soaring costs of visiting museums in the vast majority of countries, London deserves a special mention: the National Gallery, the National Portrait Gallery, the British Museum, the V&A, the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum, the Tate Britain and Tate Modern, the Wallace Collection… it’s easy to forget what astonishing collections we enjoy for no charge whatsoever.
41. Berlin’s Bundestag
The seat of the German parliament is not only a building of momentous historic importance, but from its terrace and huge glass dome, designed by Norman Foster, it also offers one of the best views of the city. And admission is free – though it’s important to register your visit in advance (bundestag.de/en/visittheBundestag/dome/registration-245686).
42. The free museums of Paris
The French capital has some of the most expensive museums in the world (general admission to the Louvre is €22/£19) but it also has a handful of exceptions with outstanding collections and no entry fee. These include the Musée d’Art Moderne (mam.paris.fr), the Petit Palace (petitpalais.paris.fr/en), which celebrates the art and design of the Belle Époque, and the Carnavalet (carnavalet.paris.fr) in the Marais, which explores the history of the city.
43. The Getty, Los Angeles
Another free treasure house is LA’s great Getty collection, which is housed in two locations on the northern edge of the city. The Getty Center is just off the 405 freeway and holds European art, while the original Getty Villa Museum, just north of Santa Monica, displays art from ancient Greece and Rome (getty.edu/visit).
44. The High Line, New York
Lots of parks are free, obviously, but Manhattan’s High Line somehow feels different, more of an experience than just a park, so the lack of an admission charge feels like a bonus. This amazing landscaped artery has been created high above the streets on a disused elevated railway line that runs 24 blocks up from Gansevoort Street to the west side of 34th Street, with 10 staircase entry and exit points (thehighline.org).
45. The Pantheon, Rome
You might baulk at my including the Pantheon in this list. It’s only a matter of months since it went from being open to all without charge to having a €5 (£4.28) admission fee. That’s a terrible shame, but for the price of a coffee you can still enjoy one of the world’s oldest and most beautiful buildings.
46. Evenings at the Prado
Admission to Madrid’s Prado Museum – which has one of the world’s greatest art collections – normally costs €15 (£12.85), but from 6-8pm Monday to Saturday, or 5-7pm on Sundays and public holidays, visits are free for all. Expect some galleries to be crowded, however (museodelprado.es/en).
47. The park at Versailles
Tickets to access all the Versailles palaces and museums cost a hefty €32 (£27.42) per person. But the park itself – which is, for many, the most scenic and enjoyable part of the visit – is entirely free. The only exceptions are on days when the Musical Fountains are operating – so check in advance before planning a visit (en.chateauversailles.fr).
48. Polish opera: high art, low prices
Many of the world’s greatest opera singers come from Eastern Europe, and if you are looking for a sweet spot between high production values and bargain ticket prices, without enduring a partial view from the gods, you will find it in Poland. At the Polish National Opera, in the astonishingly grand Teatr Wielki, you can sit in decent seats in the circle for about a tenth of the cost of a big production at Covent Garden (teatrwielki.pl/en).
Money matters
49. Multi-trip travel insurance
If you travel a lot, you will definitely save by buying an annual travel insurance policy. As long as you stay within the stated maximum duration for any one trip (usually 31 days), most will allow you to travel as often as you like throughout the year for a single fee.
50. Charge-free payment cards
Whether you are splashing out or picking up a bargain, you want to make sure you pay for it in the cheapest way possible. Cash is expensive to buy and exchange and some cards can also levy stiff charges when you use them abroad. Go for one which doesn’t add charges and doesn’t take a cut on the exchange rate either. These include Monzo, Starling, Cumberland Building Society, Virgin Money and Kroo.
