RT's Travel Editor, Ed Grenby, has some smart suggestions that will let you see the world for less.
Ed Grenby - 16 June 2025
Think dream trips have to come with nightmare price tags? Think again (and book again!). Choose right, and some of the world’s most wonderful travel experiences are surprisingly wallet-friendly.
We’re talking Japan without the jaw-drop costs, a Scandinavia less spendy, and New Orleans for next to nothing. Throw in a few lesser-known discoveries – like a Scottish road trip that beats Route 66 for views-per-mile, or Porto’s port-soaked pleasures perhaps – and you’ve got a line-up of globe-trotting getaways that will leave you and your credit card beaming.
Here, then, is the world… at a much more reasonable rate.
Often labelled ‘expensive’, the Land of the Rising Sun is actually the once-in-a-lifetime trip you can afford to do twice. Yes, the airfare might sting a bit (though you can bring it down by flying via Rome or Zurich) – but once you land, the value’s as crisp as fresh tempura. Cheap accommodation ranges from sleek city pod-hotels to trad ryokan inns, with mid-range options often under £80 a night. (Save by travelling outside the New Year and March-April cherry blossom seasons.)
Public transport is blisteringly cheap, efficient and extensive, from bullet trains (and the rail network’s bargain multi-day passes; jrpasss.com) to 90p tickets on the Tokyo metro.
And the food? Steaming bowls of ramen for £5, wrigglingly fresh sushi feasts for £15, and world-beating bento boxes for less than the price of a Tesco Meal Deal. Entrance to temples and gardens is rarely more than a few pounds, and even Tokyo, for all its glitz, can be enjoyed on a budget.
Maximum culture shock, minimum wallet shock.
Best value foodie break
Bologna
Want to eat like Diocletian but on a Domino’s budget? You want Bologna. It’s known to Italians as La Grassa (which translates, encouragingly, as ‘The Fat One’), and it’s the country’s most authentic and affordable capital of consumption, delivering exceptional pastas, cheeses and meats without the inflated prices of more touristed cities. In backstreet trattorias, a perfect tagliatelle al ragù costs barely £10 (don’t call it Bolognese, or ask for spaghetti with it), but it gets even better. Order a glass of local wine, and the aperitivo often includes a spread generous enough to replace dinner.
Accommodation in the medieval centre can still be found for under £100 a night (though you’ll pay more in high summer). And with day trips to Modena (for Balsamic vinegar) or Parma (for ham, obviously) costing less than £10 by train, the flavours of Emilia-Romagna open up with minimal expense.
Flights are cheap, the old Quadrilatero market is even cheaper, and the welcome’s as warm as the tortellini in brodo. Less touristy than Florence, more flavourful than Rome, not a gondola in sight – Bologna is Italy in foodie form: convivial, comforting, and deeply satisfying.
It’s probably not your first (pun deeply regretted) port of call for a quick Euro break – what with Paris pouting, Barcelona sunning itself and Rome shouting about its ruins – but pocket-sized Porto tops the bang-for-your-buck lists. Hugging the Douro River like it invented scenic charm, this relaxed little city is all crooked lanes, tile-clad buildings and terraces dripping with wine and views. It’s properly walkable (no need for expensive cabs), and food is rich, porky and pleasingly priced. Port-house tours can be had for 15 quid – and yes, they do give generous tastings.
Even at the very top end – the star chef and local flair of Restaurante DOP, for instance (doprestaurante.pt) – you’ll struggle to pay more than £80 for dinner; but you can always grab an £8 Uber to the beach for cheap seafood feasts. (Better still, hop a train to wine country a couple of hours away – where the hills ripple and the vineyard tastings are cheaper than bottled water.)
Flights start around £90 return, and it’s golden hour all day, every day – in the light, the wine, and most definitely the value.
Best value cruise itinerary
The Danube
Cruising is always good value – it’s transport and accommodation all rolled into one.
The downside can be city-sized ships and a feeling that you’re just skimming the edges of your destinations rather than experiencing them fully – which is where river cruising comes in. River cruises glide rather than gallop, moor in the heart of cities instead of on their outskirts, and swap vast buffets and coach tours for wine tastings and guided walks.
Portugal’s Douro is relaxed; France’s Rhône and Seine sophisticated; but it’s the Danube that’s the continent’s biggest bargain. Flowing through the very heart of Europe – from Black Forest to Black Sea – it slips past Vienna, Budapest and Bratislava like a cultural showreel, pure variety from start to finish. Step off in the morning to explore a medieval abbey or open-air market, and be back in time for a glass of Grüner Veltliner on deck at sunset – with as few as 150 fellow passengers.
Prices are lowest in shoulder season – April to early June, or late September into October – when the sun still shines but the crowds have gone home. But whenever you go, the Danube is scenic, story-rich – and, with a different destination every day – several holidays for the price of one.
Scandinavia? A bargain? Well… yes. But only if you do it right.
Go it alone and your budget will disappear faster than a cinnamon bun in a Swedish fika break. But book an escorted tour, and suddenly this famously beautiful, famously pricey corner of Europe becomes entirely affordable.
Why? Because those eye-watering transport costs, hotel rates and £8 coffees are all rolled into one neat, pre-paid package. Better still, you’ll get guides who speak the language (and understand the sauna etiquette), seamless travel between fjords and forests, and someone else to worry about ferry timetables.
Plus, the punch-for-Pound (or crikey-for-Krone) ratio is unbeatable: many itineraries offer three countries for the price of one – maybe Norway’s fjords, Sweden’s hip cities, and Denmark’s hygge – not to mention landscapes so outrageously pretty they look like a screensaver.
The Nordics are never going to be cheap – but with the kind of memories you’ll bring back home, they’re a bargain.
Best value road trip
The North Coast 500
Leave the cowboy boots (and passport) behind: there’s no need to head Stateside for an open-road extravaganza. Just pack a cagoule and a thermos, because Scotland’s North Coast 500 (northcoast500.com) delivers all the epic, edge-of-the-earth ‘wow’ of America’s great highways, without the long-haul flight and price tag.
This winding ribbon around the very rim of Northern Scotland delivers everything from castle-stacked headlands to loch-side roads so scenic they should come with a warning for distracted drivers.
And crucially, it’s brilliant value. Petrol’s cheaper than plane tickets, and the route is peppered with wallet-friendly, wonderfully personal stays. Try the Auld Post Office in Caithness (auldpostoffice.com) – cosy, quiet, and under £125 a night – or Ardvreck House (ardvreckhouse.com), where you’ll get loch views and and one of the country’s great honesty bars.
Spring’s the sweet spot: blossom-dusted glens, glittering lochs, and Caribbean-coloured seas licking at beaches like Achmelvich and Gruinard Bay – only with sheep instead of sunbeds. Factor in the lack of passport queues – and, indeed, other cars – and it’s the ultimate economical adventure: all the drama, none of the dollar.
Best value beach holiday
Greece
OK, so it’s not exactly a secret little country that no-one else has discovered yet. But the strange thing? There are bits of it that still feel like that (if you go just out of season, at least). Greece has such an infinitude of cove-crinkled coastline – and, obviously, an oddyssey’s-worth of beach-bound islands – that you can easily find your own quiet slice, and all that competition keeps prices down.
Look for the bits ‘in between’ the big hitters: the sleepy Peloponnese, for instance, rural Crete, of those mini islands-off-the-main-islands such as Folegandros and Paxos. Of course, things can be slightly pricier away from that beaten track, but you’ll get the Greece that existed before mass tourism – and spending a few extra Euros on that represents excellent value for money.
Try Kefalonia, for example: go after the school summer holidays but before flights stop in mid-October, and you’ll find £50 airfares, £90 a night rooms, £20 car hire – and some of the best beaches in Europe (where the water is still blissfully warm!) almost to yourself.
You want big city buzz, small city charm, and guaranteed fun at prices that don’t make your wallet flinch? Welcome to New Orleans. While other US hotspots bleed you dry with £20 burgers and £300 hotel rooms (we’re looking at you, New York, with the rest not far behind), the Big Easy rolls out the red carpet – and actually leaves you change for beignets and bourbon.
£500 will get you a direct flight with British Airways (ba.com), while good hotels in the French Quarter go for under £100 a night, and foot-long shrimp po’boy sarnies and sizzling jambalaya will fill you up for a fiver. Even better, most of the entertainment – from jazz parades to riverfront strolls to the general, glorious mayhem of Bourbon Street – is utterly free, with the buskers and bar acts on Frenchmen Street a more-or-less 24-hour festival of top-quality music that costs nada.
And this isn’t a diet version of America. It’s the full-fat, Technicolor dream: paddle steamers on the Mississippi, voodoo shops and velvet-curtained cocktail bars. Even the museums and tours (mostly fun stuff like ‘The History of the Cocktail’ or ‘Kayaking the Bayou’) tend to cost less than £20.
There’s beauty, too, in those balconied Creole townhouses and oak-lined Garden District streets. Not to mention the price of a Sazerac at happy hour…
We’re talking Japan without the jaw-drop costs, a Scandinavia less spendy, and New Orleans for next to nothing. Throw in a few lesser-known discoveries – like a Scottish road trip that beats Route 66 for views-per-mile, or Porto’s port-soaked pleasures perhaps – and you’ve got a line-up of globe-trotting getaways that will leave you and your credit card beaming.
Here, then, is the world… at a much more reasonable rate.
Have a read of our travel supplement where you can find MORE holidays with great value for money!
Best value bucket-list journey
Japan
Often labelled ‘expensive’, the Land of the Rising Sun is actually the once-in-a-lifetime trip you can afford to do twice. Yes, the airfare might sting a bit (though you can bring it down by flying via Rome or Zurich) – but once you land, the value’s as crisp as fresh tempura. Cheap accommodation ranges from sleek city pod-hotels to trad ryokan inns, with mid-range options often under £80 a night. (Save by travelling outside the New Year and March-April cherry blossom seasons.)
Public transport is blisteringly cheap, efficient and extensive, from bullet trains (and the rail network’s bargain multi-day passes; jrpasss.com) to 90p tickets on the Tokyo metro.
And the food? Steaming bowls of ramen for £5, wrigglingly fresh sushi feasts for £15, and world-beating bento boxes for less than the price of a Tesco Meal Deal. Entrance to temples and gardens is rarely more than a few pounds, and even Tokyo, for all its glitz, can be enjoyed on a budget.
Maximum culture shock, minimum wallet shock.
Best value foodie break
Bologna
Want to eat like Diocletian but on a Domino’s budget? You want Bologna. It’s known to Italians as La Grassa (which translates, encouragingly, as ‘The Fat One’), and it’s the country’s most authentic and affordable capital of consumption, delivering exceptional pastas, cheeses and meats without the inflated prices of more touristed cities. In backstreet trattorias, a perfect tagliatelle al ragù costs barely £10 (don’t call it Bolognese, or ask for spaghetti with it), but it gets even better. Order a glass of local wine, and the aperitivo often includes a spread generous enough to replace dinner.
Accommodation in the medieval centre can still be found for under £100 a night (though you’ll pay more in high summer). And with day trips to Modena (for Balsamic vinegar) or Parma (for ham, obviously) costing less than £10 by train, the flavours of Emilia-Romagna open up with minimal expense.
Flights are cheap, the old Quadrilatero market is even cheaper, and the welcome’s as warm as the tortellini in brodo. Less touristy than Florence, more flavourful than Rome, not a gondola in sight – Bologna is Italy in foodie form: convivial, comforting, and deeply satisfying.
Have a read of our travel supplement where you can find MORE holidays with great value for money!
Best value weekend getaway
Porto
It’s probably not your first (pun deeply regretted) port of call for a quick Euro break – what with Paris pouting, Barcelona sunning itself and Rome shouting about its ruins – but pocket-sized Porto tops the bang-for-your-buck lists. Hugging the Douro River like it invented scenic charm, this relaxed little city is all crooked lanes, tile-clad buildings and terraces dripping with wine and views. It’s properly walkable (no need for expensive cabs), and food is rich, porky and pleasingly priced. Port-house tours can be had for 15 quid – and yes, they do give generous tastings.
Even at the very top end – the star chef and local flair of Restaurante DOP, for instance (doprestaurante.pt) – you’ll struggle to pay more than £80 for dinner; but you can always grab an £8 Uber to the beach for cheap seafood feasts. (Better still, hop a train to wine country a couple of hours away – where the hills ripple and the vineyard tastings are cheaper than bottled water.)
Flights start around £90 return, and it’s golden hour all day, every day – in the light, the wine, and most definitely the value.
Best value cruise itinerary
The Danube
Cruising is always good value – it’s transport and accommodation all rolled into one.
The downside can be city-sized ships and a feeling that you’re just skimming the edges of your destinations rather than experiencing them fully – which is where river cruising comes in. River cruises glide rather than gallop, moor in the heart of cities instead of on their outskirts, and swap vast buffets and coach tours for wine tastings and guided walks.
Portugal’s Douro is relaxed; France’s Rhône and Seine sophisticated; but it’s the Danube that’s the continent’s biggest bargain. Flowing through the very heart of Europe – from Black Forest to Black Sea – it slips past Vienna, Budapest and Bratislava like a cultural showreel, pure variety from start to finish. Step off in the morning to explore a medieval abbey or open-air market, and be back in time for a glass of Grüner Veltliner on deck at sunset – with as few as 150 fellow passengers.
Prices are lowest in shoulder season – April to early June, or late September into October – when the sun still shines but the crowds have gone home. But whenever you go, the Danube is scenic, story-rich – and, with a different destination every day – several holidays for the price of one.
Have a read of our travel supplement where you can find MORE holidays with great value for money!
Best value escorted tour destination
Scandinavia
Scandinavia? A bargain? Well… yes. But only if you do it right.
Go it alone and your budget will disappear faster than a cinnamon bun in a Swedish fika break. But book an escorted tour, and suddenly this famously beautiful, famously pricey corner of Europe becomes entirely affordable.
Why? Because those eye-watering transport costs, hotel rates and £8 coffees are all rolled into one neat, pre-paid package. Better still, you’ll get guides who speak the language (and understand the sauna etiquette), seamless travel between fjords and forests, and someone else to worry about ferry timetables.
Plus, the punch-for-Pound (or crikey-for-Krone) ratio is unbeatable: many itineraries offer three countries for the price of one – maybe Norway’s fjords, Sweden’s hip cities, and Denmark’s hygge – not to mention landscapes so outrageously pretty they look like a screensaver.
The Nordics are never going to be cheap – but with the kind of memories you’ll bring back home, they’re a bargain.
Best value road trip
The North Coast 500
Leave the cowboy boots (and passport) behind: there’s no need to head Stateside for an open-road extravaganza. Just pack a cagoule and a thermos, because Scotland’s North Coast 500 (northcoast500.com) delivers all the epic, edge-of-the-earth ‘wow’ of America’s great highways, without the long-haul flight and price tag.
This winding ribbon around the very rim of Northern Scotland delivers everything from castle-stacked headlands to loch-side roads so scenic they should come with a warning for distracted drivers.
And crucially, it’s brilliant value. Petrol’s cheaper than plane tickets, and the route is peppered with wallet-friendly, wonderfully personal stays. Try the Auld Post Office in Caithness (auldpostoffice.com) – cosy, quiet, and under £125 a night – or Ardvreck House (ardvreckhouse.com), where you’ll get loch views and and one of the country’s great honesty bars.
Spring’s the sweet spot: blossom-dusted glens, glittering lochs, and Caribbean-coloured seas licking at beaches like Achmelvich and Gruinard Bay – only with sheep instead of sunbeds. Factor in the lack of passport queues – and, indeed, other cars – and it’s the ultimate economical adventure: all the drama, none of the dollar.
Best value beach holiday
Greece
OK, so it’s not exactly a secret little country that no-one else has discovered yet. But the strange thing? There are bits of it that still feel like that (if you go just out of season, at least). Greece has such an infinitude of cove-crinkled coastline – and, obviously, an oddyssey’s-worth of beach-bound islands – that you can easily find your own quiet slice, and all that competition keeps prices down.
Look for the bits ‘in between’ the big hitters: the sleepy Peloponnese, for instance, rural Crete, of those mini islands-off-the-main-islands such as Folegandros and Paxos. Of course, things can be slightly pricier away from that beaten track, but you’ll get the Greece that existed before mass tourism – and spending a few extra Euros on that represents excellent value for money.
Try Kefalonia, for example: go after the school summer holidays but before flights stop in mid-October, and you’ll find £50 airfares, £90 a night rooms, £20 car hire – and some of the best beaches in Europe (where the water is still blissfully warm!) almost to yourself.
Have a read of our travel supplement where you can find MORE holidays with great value for money!
Best value big city break
New Orleans
You want big city buzz, small city charm, and guaranteed fun at prices that don’t make your wallet flinch? Welcome to New Orleans. While other US hotspots bleed you dry with £20 burgers and £300 hotel rooms (we’re looking at you, New York, with the rest not far behind), the Big Easy rolls out the red carpet – and actually leaves you change for beignets and bourbon.
£500 will get you a direct flight with British Airways (ba.com), while good hotels in the French Quarter go for under £100 a night, and foot-long shrimp po’boy sarnies and sizzling jambalaya will fill you up for a fiver. Even better, most of the entertainment – from jazz parades to riverfront strolls to the general, glorious mayhem of Bourbon Street – is utterly free, with the buskers and bar acts on Frenchmen Street a more-or-less 24-hour festival of top-quality music that costs nada.
And this isn’t a diet version of America. It’s the full-fat, Technicolor dream: paddle steamers on the Mississippi, voodoo shops and velvet-curtained cocktail bars. Even the museums and tours (mostly fun stuff like ‘The History of the Cocktail’ or ‘Kayaking the Bayou’) tend to cost less than £20.
There’s beauty, too, in those balconied Creole townhouses and oak-lined Garden District streets. Not to mention the price of a Sazerac at happy hour…
Have a read of our travel supplement where you can find MORE holidays with great value for money!