How this works
Every figure on this site is computed from a public dataset with the formulas below. They are published here so any number on any page can be checked.
A daily cost is an estimate, not a quoted price. It starts from a US baseline for each travel style, is converted to the destination's price level using the World Bank's purchasing-power conversion factor, and is adjusted for how large and how central the city is.
tier_usd = round(baseline × price_level × size_factor / 5) × 5
| Travel style | Baseline |
|---|---|
| Budget | $90 |
| Mid-range | $210 |
| Luxury | $450 |
| City population | Factor |
|---|---|
| 5,000,000 or more | 1.25 |
| 1,000,000 or more | 1.10 |
| 300,000 or more | 1.00 |
| under 300,000 | 0.90 |
A national capital adds 0.05 to its factor (GeoNames feature code PPLC).
Tokyo's country price level is 0.6487 and its size factor is 1.30 — 1.25 for a population of 5,000,000 or more, plus 0.05 because it is the capital. That gives:
Local-currency amounts are the USD figure times the World Bank exchange rate, rounded to two significant figures — a reading, not a conversion to spend against.
Every city gets one score out of 10 for each of the twelve months, from the Open-Meteo climate record: how comfortable the temperature is, how wet the month is, and how much sun it gets.
visit_score = 0.5 × temp + 0.3 × rain + 0.2 × sun
Scored on the mean of the month's average high and low. A mean outside every band below scores 0.
| Daily mean | Score |
|---|---|
| 8 to under 14 °C | 3 |
| 14 to under 18 °C | 7 |
| 18 to 26 °C | 10 |
| over 26 to 29 °C | 7 |
| over 29 to 33 °C | 3 |
| Anything colder or hotter | 0 |
| Monthly precipitation | Score |
|---|---|
| under 40 mm | 10 |
| under 80 mm | 7 |
| under 150 mm | 4 |
| 150 mm or more | 1 |
Average daily sunshine hours × 1.2, capped at 10 — so 8.33 hours a day or more scores full marks.
All three are listed in calendar order, because they are a reading of the year rather than a leaderboard.
Safety on this site is not a score we invented. It is the US State Department's travel advisory level for the city's country, in the department's own wording, alongside the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office's safety and security text for the same country.
| Level | State Department wording |
|---|---|
| 1 | Level 1 – Exercise normal precautions |
| 2 | Level 2 – Exercise increased caution |
| 3 | Level 3 – Reconsider travel |
| 4 | Level 4 – Do not travel |
The intro paragraph, the FAQ answers, the sample price list and the short notes on cost, safety and timing are written by a language model. Its job is interpretation: turning a table of figures into a couple of readable paragraphs.
It is not allowed to supply a number. Every figure it may use is handed to it from the datasets, and the draft is checked before publication: a money amount that does not match a cost tier, a seven-day total or a listed sample price fails the check, as does a safety note that goes beyond what the FCDO text says or omits the advisory level. A page that fails twice is not published.
Nothing on this site recommends a named hotel, restaurant or tour, and nothing is paid placement. The full source list names every dataset and its licence.
The written interpretation is regenerated when the data behind it changes, not on a schedule of its own. Every page carries the date each of its datasets was fetched, so a figure can always be placed in time.
If a number here looks wrong, it is worth telling us — the formula, the input or the page could each be at fault, and all three are ours to fix. Report it with the page URL, or read the source list first.