If you live in a city, the chances are you’re all too aware of feeling like you’ve spent too much money as soon as you’ve left the house. Even just grabbing a coffee and mooching around a gallery or meeting friends for a quick post-work drink can seriously add up, and that’s why Time Out has evaluated which cities are the priciest places for going about your day-to-day.
While we say ‘to live in’, our survey hasn’t investigated the cost of rent or groceries – instead, it encompasses the price of day-to-day activities, including eating at a restaurant, grabbing a coffee, a drink at a bar or going on a night out, as well as going to see a movie, some art, a theatre or comedy performance, or some live music. Basically, all the things that make your city worth living in!
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So, while London for example is a notoriously pricey place to rent an apartment, and regularly features high up on city expense reports like this one from Henley & Partners, the culture scene is renowned for accessibility, thanks to so many cheap or free art galleries and museums. That’s why it ranks thirteenth on our list, instead of somewhere nearer the top.
But where is the spenniest place to live, based on our survey? According to locals’ responses, it’s Seoul, the South Korean capital. Just 30 percent of respondents living here said dining out was affordable, 27 percent said so about a night out and a mere 21 percent said that grabbing a drink was cheap. The cheapest thing to do in the city is grab a coffee, but even then, less than half (43 percent) of Seoul locals said they found doing so affordable.
Istanbul came in second place on Time Out’s ranking, and Oslo came third. You can have a look at the full ranking and our analysis, which includes a roundup of the most affordable cities, below.
Check out the full list of the world’s most (and least) expensive cities to live in, according to Time Out.
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