Journal
Reports, analyses and features from all 195 countries - the journalism behind the journeys.
There Is No Such Thing as the Price
In an economy with a parallel exchange rate, the same bed has three prices depending on how you paid. Argentina ran the best-known version; the arithmetic is identical in half a dozen other countries, and it decides what a week costs.
Thirty Units and a Closed Window
Most of the world folded departure tax into the ticket. In the places that did not, a small cash payment at a specific window in a specific currency stands between a passenger and their flight — and the desk closes before the gate does.
The List That Is Longer Than the Brochure
Travel insurance is sold on evacuation and bought on lost luggage, and the gap is where declined claims live. Pre-existing conditions, alcohol, motorcycles and an altitude threshold that quietly excludes many of the world’s famous treks.
The Counters That Still Want Notes
The map of where cards fail does not follow income and does not follow the obvious geography. Border posts, park gates and ferry tickets are cash transactions in a great many countries whose restaurants take contactless without blinking.
What Made Data Cheap
Roaming was ruinous and local SIMs were an hour of your first afternoon. Both problems dissolved in about five years, and the reason was not generosity — it was that a piece of plastic stopped being necessary to sell the product.
Everything Between the Quote and the Bill
Resort fees, city levies, regional levies, cleaning charges, pre-authorisation holds and the counter upsell on car insurance. A full accounting of the charges between the price you booked and the money that leaves your account.
The Countries That Cannot Devalue
Ecuador, El Salvador, Panama and Zimbabwe gave up the ability to print money. The convenience for a visitor is real; so is the reason those destinations cost more than their neighbours and will go on doing so.
The Rate the Machine Offers You
The ATM asks whether you would like to be charged in your own currency, at a rate shown helpfully on screen. Accepting is the single most reliable way to lose money abroad — and it does not remove your own bank’s foreign-transaction fee either.
The Fare Was Never the Price
Unbundling did not make flying more expensive — in real terms it did the opposite. What it did was make the cheapest-looking fare systematically the one with the most stripped out, because every search engine on earth sorts on the base number.
The Line Nobody Budgets For
The visitor levy is the one charge on a European trip that almost nobody budgets for and almost everybody pays. Three collection models, a long list of exemptions nobody advertises, and a tax whose payers have no vote in the council that sets it.