Updated July 2026
☀ Summer 2026Cheapest countries
Cheapest countries
to visit this summer
Top 80 destinations selected from 135 countries evaluated. Score out of 100, calculated from 9 official sources, updated every season.
💰
Budget 40 %
Numbeo 2026
☀
Summer weather 30 %
NASA MERRA-2
🛡
Safety 30 %
GPI · CPI · WGI
🥈🇹🇳Tunisia79.2
🥇🇺🇿Uzbekistan79.8
🥉🇲🇦Morocco79.1
Summer 2026 ranking
Which countries are the cheapest to visit this summer?
Expert view · Antoine Fruchard
HelloSafe Founder · 12 years of travel insurance expertise
This index combines three variables that no one else puts together: the real cost of living in July-August (meals, accommodation, local transport, groceries, not just hotels), the precise summer weather calculated from satellite data, and tourist safety cross-referenced against three independent sources. Each country gets a score out of 100. Flights, trains and ferries are not included: we only measure what happens once you arrive.
- →Uzbekistan finishes first, and it's no coincidence: 27°C in July, one of the lowest costs of living in Central Asia, and a two-week trip estimated at under $2,200 for two people, excluding transport.
- →Egypt has the best budget score among the top-rated summer destinations: 97 out of 100. With Morocco just behind, North Africa confirms it remains one of the most accessible regions in the world during high season.
- →Algeria and Spain have exactly the same weather score this summer: 96 out of 100. The difference is price: a trip to Algeria costs roughly half the price of an equivalent trip to Spain at comparable comfort.
- →Tanzania finishes thirty-one places ahead of Croatia. Yet in the collective imagination, a safari is synonymous with inaccessible luxury. The data tells a different story: the cost of living on the ground is well below that of the Adriatic coast.
- →Greece is the most expensive European destination in the summer ranking, with the lowest budget score in the top 25. For the same budget, there are alternatives with better sunshine and a better safety score.
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| Destination | Score /100 | Budget | Summer weather | Safety | 15-day trip / 2 pax |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1🇺🇿 Uzbekistan Tashkent | 79.8 | 91 Meal ~$7 | 97 ☀ 27.6°C | 47 GPI #37/163 | ~$2,146 hotel · meals · transp. |
2🇹🇳 Tunisia Tunis | 79.2 | 91 Meal ~$7 | 95 ☀ 26.5°C | 49 GPI #77/163 | ~$2,179 hotel · meals · transp. |
3🇲🇦 Morocco Rabat | 79.1 | 89 Meal ~$8 | 97 ☀ 23.3°C | 48 GPI #65/163 | ~$2,339 hotel · meals · transp. |
4🇪🇬 Egypt Cairo | 79.1 | 97 Meal ~$5 | 94 ☀ 29.5°C | 40 GPI #113/163 | ~$1,616 hotel · meals · transp. |
78.8 | 74 Meal ~$12 | 89 ☀ 19.7°C | 75 GPI #7/163 | ~$3,654 hotel · meals · transp. | |
6🇯🇴 Jordan Amman | 78.6 | 81 Meal ~$10 | 97 ☀ 29.0°C | 56 GPI #68/163 | ~$3,001 hotel · meals · transp. |
7🇲🇺 Mauritius Port Louis | 78.3 | 83 Meal ~$10 | 84 ☀ 23.2°C | 67 GPI #18/163 | ~$2,898 hotel · meals · transp. |
78.2 | 72 Meal ~$13 | 96 ☀ 24.0°C | 69 GPI #27/163 | ~$3,866 hotel · meals · transp. | |
9🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan Bishkek | 78.0 | 92 Meal ~$7 | 92 ☀ 26.2°C | 45 GPI #61/163 | ~$2,071 hotel · meals · transp. |
10🇹🇿 Tanzania Dodoma | 77.9 | 93 Meal ~$6 | 89 ☀ 20.8°C | 46 GPI #98/163 | ~$1,945 hotel · meals · transp. |
11🇬🇪 Georgia Tbilisi | 77.7 | 86 Meal ~$9 | 89 ☀ 24.8°C | 56 GPI #94/163 | ~$2,625 hotel · meals · transp. |
12🇽🇰 Kosovo Pristina | 77.3 | 89 Meal ~$8 | 85 ☀ 20.9°C | 55 GPI #54/163 | ~$2,339 hotel · meals · transp. |
13🇹🇯 Tajikistan Dushanbe | 77.0 | 92 Meal ~$7 | 98 ☀ 26.2°C | 37 GPI #47/163 | ~$2,104 hotel · meals · transp. |
14🇮🇩 Indonesia Jakarta | 76.8 | 94 Meal ~$6 | 81 ☀ 27.0°C | 50 GPI #69/163 | ~$1,850 hotel · meals · transp. |
15🇨🇻 Cape Verde Praia | 76.7 | 77 Meal ~$11 | 91 ☀ 25.3°C | 63 | ~$3,424 hotel · meals · transp. |
16🇲🇰 North Macedonia Skopje | 76.5 | 86 Meal ~$9 | 88 ☀ 21.7°C | 52 GPI #46/163 | ~$2,597 hotel · meals · transp. |
17🇷🇼 Rwanda Kigali | 76.5 | 93 Meal ~$7 | 77 ☀ 19.3°C | 54 GPI #114/163 | ~$1,991 hotel · meals · transp. |
18🇷🇴 Romania Bucharest | 76.4 | 82 Meal ~$10 | 87 ☀ 24.1°C | 59 GPI #45/163 | ~$2,969 hotel · meals · transp. |
19🇦🇲 Armenia Yerevan | 76.1 | 81 Meal ~$10 | 91 ☀ 25.9°C | 55 GPI #51/163 | ~$3,076 hotel · meals · transp. |
76.0 | 75 Meal ~$12 | 71 ☀ 24.7°C | 82 GPI #10/163 | ~$3,574 hotel · meals · transp. | |
21🇲🇩 Moldova Chisinau | 76.0 | 85 Meal ~$9 | 87 ☀ 22.9°C | 53 GPI #55/163 | ~$2,677 hotel · meals · transp. |
22🇦🇱 Albania Tirana | 75.3 | 77 Meal ~$11 | 93 ☀ 22.6°C | 55 GPI #36/163 | ~$3,353 hotel · meals · transp. |
75.0 | 70 Meal ~$13 | 97 ☀ 26.6°C | 60 GPI #53/163 | ~$4,011 hotel · meals · transp. | |
24🇲🇾 Malaysia Kuala Lumpur | 75.0 | 86 Meal ~$9 | 70 ☀ 25.5°C | 65 GPI #12/163 | ~$2,555 hotel · meals · transp. |
25🇰🇿 Kazakhstan Astana | 74.9 | 88 Meal ~$8 | 81 ☀ 19.8°C | 52 GPI #44/163 | ~$2,452 hotel · meals · transp. |
26🇦🇿 Azerbaijan Baku | 74.6 | 89 Meal ~$8 | 94 ☀ 25.0°C | 36 GPI #110/163 | ~$2,334 hotel · meals · transp. |
27🇲🇪 Montenegro Podgorica | 73.8 | 79 Meal ~$11 | 81 ☀ 19.7°C | 59 GPI #30/163 | ~$3,222 hotel · meals · transp. |
28🇧🇼 Botswana Gaborone | 73.8 | 88 Meal ~$8 | 65 ☀ 14.3°C | 63 GPI #50/163 | ~$2,376 hotel · meals · transp. |
29🇬🇮 Gibraltar Gibraltar | 73.7 | 55 Meal ~$18 | 98 ☀ 22.7°C | - | ~$5,332 hotel · meals · transp. |
30🇨🇾 Cyprus Nicosia | 73.7 | 67 Meal ~$14 | 95 ☀ 29.0°C | 62 GPI #80/163 | ~$4,317 hotel · meals · transp. |
Numbeo 2026 · NASA POWER MERRA-2 · GPI 2026 (IEP) · CPI 2024 (TI) · WGI 2023 (World Bank)
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Our methodology
How this ranking is built
Each country receives a composite score out of 100, calculated from 9 primary data sources from academic, governmental and intergovernmental institutions. No self-reported data, no traveller opinions.
⚠️
17 destinations excluded from this index. Russia, Ukraine, Syria, Yemen, Afghanistan, Libya, Iraq, Myanmar, Venezuela, Algeria, Nigeria, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Belarus, Cameroon and the Democratic Republic of Congo are subject to a do-not-travel advisory or a strongly discouraged recommendation for a large part of their territory, according to international travel advisories. They do not appear in this ranking.
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Why 80 destinations and not 135? Our full dataset covers 135 countries open to tourists (excluding conflict zones). We chose to publish only the top 80: those reaching a composite score of at least 68/100. Below this threshold, destinations either have a high cost of living (Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, Australia), unfavourable summer weather, or security concerns that make them questionable choices for budget travel. The full ranking (positions 81 to 135) is available on request at media@hellosafe.com. This index is updated each season (spring, summer, autumn, winter) to reflect current-quarter climate normals, the latest Numbeo data, and any security developments. Sign up for the alert below to be notified at each update.
CriterionMeasureSource
Budget
Cost of living
40 %
Cost of living index in the capital (daily meal, local transport, 3-star accommodation). Normalised on 0-100: 100 = cheapest country in the dataset. Baskets are expressed in US dollars (USD), the reference currency used by Numbeo, allowing countries from different monetary zones to be compared on a consistent basis. Mid-year 2026 edition.
Numbeo Cost of Living Index
Mid-Year 2026 · 152 countries
Summer weather
June, July, August
30 %
Climate normals 1970-2000 for the capital of each country: average temperature, monthly precipitation, daily sunshine. Optimal range: 22-28°C, below 80 mm/month. Months outside this range penalise the score proportionally.
NASA POWER MERRA-2
Satellite data 2001–2020
WorldClim v2.1
Climate normals 1970–2000
Safety
3 aggregated indices
30 %
Composite of three independent indices, equally weighted. GPI measures armed conflict and internal violence. CPI measures perceived corruption in the public sector. WGI-RoL measures rule of law and institutional trust. A country that scores consistently across all three dimensions ranks higher than one strong on only one axis.
Global Peace Index 2026
Institute for Economics and Peace · 163 countries
Corruption Perceptions Index 2024
Transparency International · 180 countries
World Governance Indicators 2024
World Bank · Rule of Law
Limitations and interpretation caveatsBudget data reflects median costs in the capital city: tourist areas may be 30–50% more expensive. Climate normals (1970-2000) do not predict actual conditions in any given year. The safety score measures structural trends, not isolated incidents. Countries without sufficient data on at least one index were excluded from the dataset. Next update: autumn 2026 : weather scores will be recalculated on September-November climate normals, and Numbeo data updated with the year-end 2026 edition.
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Frequently asked questions
Everything you need to know about the cheapest countries to visit
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