Most "cost of travel" articles are one person's receipts. This one is 103 of them — real itineraries planned on Yanvara in 2026, each with a fully costed budget covering flights, accommodation, food, activities and local transport.
Aggregate them and you get a picture of what travellers are actually planning to spend, destination by destination. All figures are median Australian dollars per person per day, flights included, with "a week" being that figure × 7. Medians, not averages — so one luxury honeymoon can't distort a destination. The full method is at the end, including the budget-tier mix of every sample.
What a week costs, destination by destination
| Destination | Trips | Typical length | A$/person/day | A week (A$) | Middle 50% (day) | Budget mix |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thailand | 18 | 11 days | 287 | 2,006 | 196–502 | 14 mid-range · 4 unstated |
| Japan | 11 | 14 days | 369 | 2,585 | 328–447 | 8 mid-range · 2 budget · 1 unstated |
| South Island, New Zealand | 11 | 14 days | 375 | 2,625 | 309–461 | 10 mid-range · 1 luxury |
| Bali | 6 | 9 days | 385 | 2,695 | 364–684 | 4 mid-range · 1 premium · 1 unstated |
| Bangkok–Chiang Mai–Krabi (route) | 6 | 11 days | 318 | 2,226 | 304–516 | 6 mid-range |
| Bangkok (city trip) | 5 | 4 days | 404 | 2,828 | 353–465 | 5 mid-range |
| Namibia | 5 | 9 days | 1,189 | 8,324 | 1,133–1,322 | 2 premium · 2 luxury · 1 unstated |
| Istanbul & Cappadocia | 5 | 7 days | 450 | 3,150 | 371–498 | 5 mid-range |
| Southern Brazil: Rio, Paraty & Iguazu Falls | 5 | 10 days | 506 | 3,543 | 420–539 | 4 mid-range · 1 budget |
| New York City | 4 | 7 days | 504 | 3,525 | 394–638 | 4 mid-range |
| Switzerland & Northern Italy | 3 | 12 days | 450 | 3,150 | 447–497 | 3 mid-range |
| Dubai | 3 | 8 days | 764 | 5,351 | 507–1,311 | 2 mid-range · 1 unstated |
| Kyoto (city trip) | 3 | 7 days | 486 | 3,400 | 435–496 | 3 mid-range |
| Tanzania + Zanzibar | 3 | 11 days | 1,605 | 11,237 | 1,029–1,744 | 2 luxury · 1 mid-range |
| Hong Kong | 3 | 5 days | 600 | 4,200 | 595–613 | 3 mid-range |
| Slovenia & Northern Croatia | 3 | 8 days | 438 | 3,063 | 385–484 | 3 mid-range |
| Southern Peru (Lima, Cusco, Machu Picchu) | 3 | 12 days | 303 | 2,123 | 229–342 | 2 mid-range · 1 budget |
| Barcelona (city trip) | 3 | 4 days | 383 | 2,683 | 316–439 | 3 mid-range |
| Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh City, Hoi An, Hue) | 3 | 8 days | 207 | 1,452 | 204–244 | 3 mid-range |
Scroll the table sideways for every column. Median planned cost per person per day, flights included, in Australian dollars. "Middle 50%" is the range the middle half of trips fell into. Data is free to cite with attribution to Yanvara.
Japan now plans at Bali prices
A$369 a day against A$385 — a gap of sixteen dollars. We checked the composition before claiming more: Japan's sample tilts slightly budget (2 of 11 trips) and Bali's slightly premium (1 of 6), so we won't call Japan cheaper. But parity alone breaks the prior. The destination famous for being expensive now budgets like the destination famous for being cheap, and the weak yen and Japan's genuinely inexpensive food are why.
A fortnight in Japan medians A$5,166 a person all-in. Nine days in Bali medians A$3,465. The nightly rate isn't what separates them any more — the flight and the trip length are.
Vietnam is the cheapest trip anyone planned
An 8-day Ho Chi Minh City–Hoi An–Hue route medians A$207 a day, and all three of its trips were planned mid-range — no budget-tier asterisk to explain it away. That's A$1,452 for a week, flights included. Nothing else on the board comes close.
Thailand, meanwhile, draws more trips than any other destination — 18 of the 103 — at A$287 a day. It is the value king by volume, and its middle 50% (A$196–502) is the widest on the board: Thailand is genuinely whatever you make it.
Nobody plans a budget safari
Tanzania with Zanzibar medians A$1,605 a day and Namibia A$1,189 — four to six times Thailand. The budget-mix column shows this isn't only lodges being dear: safari trips are overwhelmingly planned premium or luxury (Namibia: 2 premium, 2 luxury; Tanzania: 2 luxury). The safari is the one holiday where the brief itself is the splurge.
A week on safari costs more than a month in Vietnam.
Short city trips burn money faster than long country trips
A 4-day Bangkok city break runs A$404 a day while an 11-day tour of Thailand runs A$287 — the same country, 41% more per day. Every one of those city trips was planned mid-range, so it isn't a tier effect. Japan repeats it: a week in Kyoto medians A$486 a day against A$369 for a fortnight across Japan.
Fixed costs — the airfare above all — spread over fewer days, and city hotels do the rest.
The Machu Picchu trip is a sleeper bargain
A 12-day Southern Peru itinerary — Lima, Cusco, the Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu — medians A$303 a day, flights included. One of its three trips was planned budget, the other two mid-range. The world wonder is not the expensive part; getting there is, and a 12-day itinerary amortises it.
Nobody plans a week
The "typical week away" barely exists in this data. Thailand medians 11 days; Japan and New Zealand's South Island both median 14. When the flight is the biggest single line in the budget, travellers stretch the trip to amortise it — and the only 4-day trips on the board are city breaks.
Method (the honest fine print)
Data: all qualifying trips planned on Yanvara in 2026 — 103 of 330 candidates. A trip qualifies if it was completed and saved with a fully costed itinerary of at least two days. Destination labels differing only in word order or a redundant country name are grouped as one. We exclude our own demonstration trips, cruises and escorted group tours (their budgets deliberately exclude the fare or package price, so including them would understate), and any destination with fewer than three trips.
Figures are medians of per-person per-day costs. Each trip's budget is in its traveller's own currency and converted to AUD at the rate on the run date. Budgets are planned costs — itemised itinerary estimates including estimated return airfare, accommodation, food, activities and local transport — not audited receipts. Our travellers are predominantly Australian, so airfares reflect departure from Australia. Most trips were planned for one traveller; where a party was specified, costs are divided per person.
One more honest limitation: each budget reflects the style of trip its traveller asked for — budget, mid-range or luxury — so a destination's median describes what people typically plan to spend there, not the floor price of visiting. That mix is published per destination in the table. 83 of the 103 trips (81%) were planned mid-range, which is what makes destinations broadly comparable at all. The safari destinations are the deliberate exception, and we say so in the findings rather than letting the number imply otherwise. Treat three-trip rows as indicative, not gospel.
No individual trip, prompt or traveller detail is published or identifiable — only aggregates. The figures are free to cite with attribution to Yanvara and a link to this page. Want more detail, a different cut, or the numbers for a destination that isn't here yet? Ask us.