Estimating Meal Costs for Travel

One of the common questions I have seen posed on message boards is what to budget for meal costs while travelling. Unfortunately, these type of questions cannot be answered with a simple response. There are multiple factors that go into properly estimating this cost, the areas you will be travelling to (urban vs rural), the number of meals (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks), the expectation of the meal (counter service vs sit down), and the quality of the meal (mass produced vs custom created).   

In order to get an accurate estimate of meal costs for my own trip planning process, I follow the following steps:

1) Determine location. In other words, identify the cities or regions you will be in for specific days or meals. Geographical location will influence the cost of meals, cities or urban centers tend to be more expensive than rural areas. These locations should already be a part of your travel itinerary at this point. If they are not, err on the side of caution by estimatating where you think you will be and use the most expensive findings for your plan.  

2) Determine a pattern of meals. When I travel I try to stay away from three big meals and instead focus on a small to medium breakfast (included in a B&B), a snack for lunch (street vendor food), and a large dinner (three course set menu at a restaurant). This identification of a pattern provides a framework I can use to identify typical meal costs for an area.

 

3) Research dining options. Once I know the type of meals I will be purchasing I then start to research specific restaurants or dining establishments of interest in an area. I like to use TripAdvisor to locate restaurants with high recommendations that are convenient to where I will be staying or plan to be at a given time. For example, after researching Paris, I discovered people were raving about the hot chocolate at Angelina's. I visited their website and found they have a location in the Louvre, which I will be spending a day at. I reviewed their menu and was able to come up with an estimated cost for lunch. When you do your own estimation, I recommend you do so liberally and do not forgot to add the appropriate gratuity. That way if you spend less you will be able to use it later in your budget. 



4) Determine an acceptable level of service and quality. Will you be celebrating an important event or will you be pressed for time to fit a meal in? Will you want crepes from a street vendor or to sit down for a meal at a Michelin-starred restaurant? These are important questions to ask yourself as you design your travel intinerary. If you will be dining out to celebrate, I suggest trying to obtain reservations as soon as you can. That way you will not be dissappointed if the restaurant is filled or there is a long wait for a table. Because the purpose of this exercise is to identify a budget, not necessarily define exactly which restaurants you will eat at, identify a good sample of dining options. Take the time to read reviews and when possible examine their menus. From reviewing the available information, you should be able to determine what an exceptable level of service and cost for dining is for your specific plan.



I used these guidlines in my own travel planning and so far they have worked well. If you estimate liberally, the worst case is that you will come home with extra unspent money or have more money for beer. However, if you do not budget enough you will be stuck paying off those bills. In addition to setting up a good budget, you may find some great out of the way dining options you never would have found by wandering the tourist areas...