Most expensive place you have ever visited?

[YourPerkyPoet]

We live in Zone 1 so thought we are used to expensive prices. Where have you been that you thought “ouch! that’s expensive.”

For us it has to be Mykonos and Ibiza, total rip offs. We didn’t find New York too bad and thought Barbados was okay too.

Miami

Got married in Copenhagen, to me it is an absolutely magical place. Some of the best restaurants in the world too

Dubrovnik

Singapore, Dubrovnik

Norway. DH’s cousins grew up there. We learnt at one family wedding that home brewing is popular due to the cost of alcohol.

I sometimes think it would be cheaper shopping at Fortnum & Mason’s!

I lived in Switzerland, everything is expensive 😬

Center Parcs

For the disconnect between local prices and economy it has to be the Turkish airports.
Coffee and pastries for three of us was over £40

Rome and New York.

Japan is also “expensive” but everything is super quality and the service fantastic so we didn’t mind so much.
Rome, 10 quid for a black coffee which a surly waiter practically throws at you, not so great.

Another one for the Maldives.

Hotels on the main island charge astronomical amount for overnight (or even a few hours) stay knowing people have no choice due to their flight arrival times, then getting to the resorts.

Then the eye watering cost of either boats or a seaplane to get to the islands, and its a controlled by only a couple of companies.

Thankfully we used points for the resort for accommodation, but the cost of food/drinks was pure greed, and dont get me started on the $25 (plus tax and service) for room service before the cost of the food.....

The Scandi countries, which used to be super expensive, now feel comparable to the UK - and Japan is surprisingly affordable and great value for money, which I wasn’t expecting (though expensive to get to).

Visited quite a few spenny countries but none that feel such poor value as the UK does now. London is extortionate, obviously, but I feel ripped off even going to local pubs and cafes. Supermarket prices here are insane. The only place that feels worse in terms of getting rinsed is Switzerland.

I remember staying a night at the Savoy back in 2001 and being really shocked that a bog standard can of coke in the mini bar was £5. I’ve just done an inflation calculation, maybe not really accurate but it comes up as £9.25 in today’s money. No wonder I was shocked.

Switzerland - Zurich. Yikes I was glad to get back to Tesco prices!

Anguilla. Fortunately I wasn’t paying. It was a five star hotel owned by friends of my parents and I know they got a deal but if paying normal rates I don’t think it was worth it.
One place which was hugely expensive but worth it was La Maison au Quatre Saison - absolutely next level.

Probably Oslo. Went years ago back when Ryanair did £3 flights and the hand luggage included was a decent size. Oh those were the days.

We had been to few other European cities using the dirt cheap flights and Oslo was our last stop, just for 2 days.

We hadn't realised how expensive it was going to be and McDonalds was the only place we could afford to eat or drink.

Iceland is expensive, especially for drinking. I paid about £12 for less than a pint. Excursions are very pricey so recommend hiring a car and driving yourself as you can see loads of beautiful places with no entry fee. Hotels/airbnbs seem to be far more affordable than the food and a drink. I went a couple of months ago and spent about £300pp for 4 nights in a nice apartment, car hire and flights. I do love the Icelandic hot dog stalls. Not cheap but no expensive.

Barbados fairly expensive in supermarkets and some restaurants. We mostly ate from food trucks and casual places where locals were.

Can be the same some places in Manchester City centre to be honest.

Norway. Admittedly 15 or so years ago, but God, it was offensively expensive.

Costa Rica I didn't find bad actually, but we largely ate in, or went to casual places like pizza restaurants. Supermarkets are expensive if you buy imported stuff, reasonable if you buy own-brand and/or local things. We did pay a tenner each for a coffee and an ice cream, but that was in a tourist town and a gourmet ice cream cafe.
If you want tours and 'experiences' where you get picked up from your hotel and escorted round all day, it's (unsurprisingly) very expensive. Do your own thing and use public transport and Uber like we did and it's much less so. I'm happy to pay to access national parks as the money will go towards looking after them.

Copenhagen (not worth it)
Iceland (absolutely worth it)

Monaco and Norway.

I remember paying £5 for a pint in Leicester Square in the 1990’s.

About 30 years ago I visited Norway, Sweden, Finland - very expensive even though I was living and earning in Switzerland at the time, which was also very expensive, but those three countries made Switzerland seem comparatively cheap.

However, loved Scandinavia (and Switzerland), so no regrets.

I wasn't impressed with the Icelandic hot dog stalls.

I'd seen it mentioned a few times as a good choice for an affordable lunch and we found the one that was claimed to be 'the best in Reykjavik, that all the locals go to' and joined a queue of Icelandic looking people.

But quickly decided not to bother when we saw they were all paying about £6 for what looked exactly like what you get from IKEA for about 50 p, including the crappy bun.

So we got slices of pizza from a Sbarro counter in a nearby convience store for a similar price, much more enjoyable.

We're in Tokyo now and finding eating out incredibly cheap.

Australia is expensive, but Copenhagen cheaper than we thought it was going to be.

Norway.
We live there 6 months of the year and rarely eat out, 2 coffee's and 2 small cakes £40!

I think French Polynesia - stuff like a can of coke was ££££