- 2 days ago
Travel feels more expensive than ever, and the real reason goes far beyond flight prices. From hotels and food to baggage fees, ATM charges, exchange rate markups, and new travel taxes, the hidden costs of a holiday can quickly turn an affordable trip into a much bigger bill.
This travel commentary breaks down why 2026 travel costs have climbed so sharply, using examples like expensive city hotels in Vancouver and Sydney, airline add-ons, and extra charges that appear only after booking. It also looks at the banking side of travel, including foreign transaction fees, cash withdrawal fees, and the value of using a multi-currency travel money card to manage spending abroad.
If you’re planning an international trip, comparing travel budgets, or trying to avoid unnecessary fees, this is a practical breakdown of where your money really goes. It’s useful for budget travel, family holidays, long-term travel, and anyone searching for smarter ways to pay overseas.
Created for viewers interested in travel costs, hidden fees, budget travel tips, airline baggage fees, hotel price inflation, foreign exchange, and travel money card comparisons. A helpful watch for anyone researching how to save money on flights, accommodation, ATM fees, and international spending while travelling.
This travel commentary breaks down why 2026 travel costs have climbed so sharply, using examples like expensive city hotels in Vancouver and Sydney, airline add-ons, and extra charges that appear only after booking. It also looks at the banking side of travel, including foreign transaction fees, cash withdrawal fees, and the value of using a multi-currency travel money card to manage spending abroad.
If you’re planning an international trip, comparing travel budgets, or trying to avoid unnecessary fees, this is a practical breakdown of where your money really goes. It’s useful for budget travel, family holidays, long-term travel, and anyone searching for smarter ways to pay overseas.
Created for viewers interested in travel costs, hidden fees, budget travel tips, airline baggage fees, hotel price inflation, foreign exchange, and travel money card comparisons. A helpful watch for anyone researching how to save money on flights, accommodation, ATM fees, and international spending while travelling.
Category
🏖
TravelTranscript
00:00Today's video is sponsored by WISE Travel Money.
00:03Use the link below in the description to sign up to WISE
00:06and claim your free WISE Travel Money card.
00:19Does it feel like travel has gotten increasingly expensive
00:23for everyday people over the last few years?
00:26Like, especially the last two to three years.
00:29I'm not talking about during COVID, even pre-COVID.
00:33It's way more expensive now than it ever was
00:36for a family to travel.
00:38Everyday people are going on holidays
00:40and spending double what they were five, six years ago
00:44for flights, accommodation, food, activities, everything.
00:49And it feels like what used to be accessible to everybody
00:54is now out of reach because it's so expensive.
00:57So in this video, I want to find out exactly what has happened
01:00to the cost of travel in 2026, because I can't be imagining this.
01:05Most people assume that flights are the reason travel
01:08has become more expensive.
01:10And to be fair, airlines have increased the price of airfares.
01:13And that's because fuel costs are higher.
01:16Airlines face higher operating costs.
01:18Demand has exploded after COVID.
01:20And millions of people who postponed travel suddenly wanted to fly again.
01:24But here's what's really interesting.
01:27Flights aren't actually the biggest culprit.
01:29Because once you arrive, that's where the real costs begin.
01:32Let's just take Vancouver, for example, where we visited last year.
01:36A city we know pretty well.
01:38If you open up booking.com today, you'll quickly notice something extraordinary.
01:43Ordinary downtown hotels can easily cost between three and 500 Canadian dollars per night.
01:49Not luxury hotels, not penthouse suites, just ordinary hotels.
01:55A week in Vancouver could easily cost you $2,500 in accommodation alone.
02:01Sydney, Australia tells a similar story.
02:04At the time of filming this video, it's becoming increasingly common to see standard hotel rooms listed at 300, 400
02:11or even more per night.
02:13And that's before you've even eaten a meal.
02:15Before you visited an attraction.
02:17Before you've even left the hotel.
02:1910 nights for $350 a night.
02:21That's three and a half thousand dollars.
02:23And suddenly, your accommodation budget is bigger than an entire holiday used to be.
02:33And this is where it gets a little bit frustrating because I feel like we are still doing the exact
02:37same thing when it comes to booking our flights and accommodation.
02:41Like we use Skyscanner to book all of our flights.
02:45And even just a couple of weeks ago, we were booking a flight from Siem Reap to Kuala Lumpur.
02:51And on the surface, it looked quite cheap. It was about $120 per person.
02:57But when you actually go to book the flight, then you come to realize that you have to pay for
03:01your baggage, which is like an extra hundred bucks or something.
03:04Then there's taxes and fees.
03:06Plus, you even have to pay for your own seat nowadays, which is an extra 20, 30, sometimes even $50
03:11if you want a good seat.
03:13So by the time you actually pay for your flights, you're looking at like three times what was advertised on
03:19the actual website.
03:20And even for this last flight that we took, we showed up at the airport and our luggage was three
03:26kilos over, even though I thought we had booked enough luggage.
03:30And the person at the counter told me it's $30 US per kilo that you're over.
03:35And because we already had our seven kilos of carry on, even though we had paid for, I think it
03:41was 45 kilos of Czech luggage, we had to pay an extra hundred bucks at the counter.
03:47So now our ticket price, which was originally about $120 per person, ended up costing like something like 600 bucks
03:55for us to travel.
03:56Just a short flight from Siem Reap to Kuala Lumpur, which seems kind of expensive if you ask me.
04:03Let's talk about Japan, one of our favorite countries in the world.
04:06Back in 2019, Japan introduced what's commonly known as the Sayonara tax, a departure tax charged to people leaving the
04:14country.
04:15At the time, it was a thousand yen per person.
04:17From 2026, that amount has increased significantly.
04:20Now imagine a family of four, that's another travel cost added to the holiday before you've even boarded your flight
04:26home.
04:27And Japan isn't alone.
04:29Around the world, we're seeing more tourist taxes, sustainability fees, entry fees and departure fees appearing every single year.
04:37Each one may seem small, but together they add up.
04:40And if you want even more proof of how expensive travel has become in 2026, look no further than the
04:45FIFA World Cup.
04:46Millions of fans dream of attending and for many people, the cost has become staggering.
04:52By the time you've purchased tickets, booked flights, secured accommodation and paid for food and transport.
04:57Even if you're traveling as a solo, attending a major sporting event can cost thousands and thousands of dollars.
05:04And that's really the story of modern travel.
05:07It's not one expense, it's dozens of expenses stacked up on top of one another.
05:11Let's start with ATM fees.
05:13In Thailand, for example, many foreign bank cards are charged around 220 baht every single time they withdraw cash.
05:21That's roughly 10 Australian dollars.
05:23Withdraw cash five times during a trip and you've spent about $50 simply accessing your own money.
05:29Then there's foreign transaction fees and many banks charge around 2-3% on overseas purchases as well.
05:36If you spend $5,000 during a holiday, that could mean another $100 to $150 just in fees.
05:43And then of course there's currency conversion.
05:45Airport exchange counters, banks, foreign exchange providers.
05:50Many travelers assume they're getting a fair rate, but the exchange rate you see advertised isn't always the exchange rate
05:56you're actually getting.
05:57A small difference in exchange rates can easily cost travelers $50, $100 or even several hundred dollars over the course
06:04of a trip.
06:05And because it happens gradually, most people never even realize that it's happening until it's too late.
06:10Like I remember when we first started traveling, if we were paying more than 200 Australian dollars for a hotel
06:17anywhere really, that was going to be a luxury hotel.
06:22Nowadays, that's pretty much the baseline.
06:24And I could be wrong, but I feel like back in the day when you booked an airplane ticket, that
06:30included your seat, that included baggage, that included a meal and included everything.
06:35And nowadays it feels like you have to pay for everything on top.
06:39And this is probably the part that frustrates me the most because most of us have become really good at
06:44shopping around for travel when it comes to flights and hotels and stuff like that.
06:49We'll compare airlines, we'll compare hotels, we'll spend hours trying to save $50 here or $100 there.
06:56But then we completely ignore what happens after we arrive, because once you're actually traveling, your money is constantly moving.
07:02You're buying coffee, you're paying for transport, booking tours, paying for hotels, withdrawing cash, converting currencies.
07:10Every single one of those transactions has the potential to cost you way more than you even realize.
07:16And because the fees are spread across dozens of purchases, they don't really stand out.
07:20You don't notice $5 here or $3 there or a slightly worse exchange rate on your card.
07:25That's until you get home and you look at your bank statement and you realize, wow, I've spent way more
07:31than what I thought I did.
07:32And that's exactly what used to happen to us.
07:34When we first started traveling internationally, we used our normal bank cards.
07:38If we needed cash, we'd just find a regular ATM.
07:41If we needed to pay for something overseas, we'd just tap our card and assume that everything was fine.
07:46And to be honest, that's probably how most people still travel to this day.
07:50But after years of traveling, we started paying attention more and more to our statements and where we're losing money,
07:56whether it was just a couple of dollars here and there or $10 or $20 on exchange fees.
08:02And that's when I realized there's literally fees everywhere.
08:04There's ATM fees, exchange fees, withdrawal fees.
08:08There's markups on the exchange rates.
08:10Like literally everywhere there are fees that you don't even realize are happening.
08:14And sometimes the exchange rate wasn't even close to what it said online.
08:17And I get it like none of them are big deals on their own.
08:20But when you add it all up, it does become a pretty big deal.
08:23And that's what led us a few years ago to start using Wise Travel money all the time for every
08:29single purchase,
08:30whether it's paying for accommodation through bank transfers, paying for our visas online, even receiving payments.
08:37We use Wise for absolutely everything now.
08:40And it's saved us hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in just a couple of years.
08:44If you've never heard of Wise before, it's basically a multi-currency account designed for people who travel internationally or
08:52move money between countries.
08:53Instead of only having one currency sitting in your bank account, you can hold multiple currencies in the same account.
08:59So if we're heading to Japan, for instance, we can hold Japanese yen.
09:03And then we just transfer a little bit at a time and we can see exactly how much yen we're
09:08spending rather than going back and looking at US dollars or Australian dollars.
09:13And having to do this conversion every time in your head and figure out how much you've spent for the
09:17day.
09:17Everything's right there in front of you.
09:19Everything is managed inside the app, which makes it really easy to keep track of what you're spending.
09:23And the card works exactly the same way any other Visa or MasterCard would work.
09:28So like you can tap it or you can insert it into an ATM and it'll work absolutely fine, absolutely
09:34anywhere.
09:35We've had no problems.
09:36And there's also a security feature.
09:37So like if you get in a position like I have before where I couldn't find my card, you can
09:42just freeze it.
09:43And you can freeze it for half an hour or you can freeze it for a whole day.
09:47It doesn't matter.
09:48They're not going to block your card permanently.
09:50You just open up the app, freeze it.
09:53And then if you find your card later, unfreeze it, totally fine.
09:57Or if you discover that your card is missing or God forbid it's been stolen, you can unfreeze it as
10:03well.
10:04So what I really like is that I can see everything in the app itself, all of the fees.
10:10So before I make a transfer or something like that, it'll actually come up with how much the receiver is
10:17going to get and then how much I'm going to be paying in fees on top of that, which is
10:22usually not much at all.
10:23But then I can make the decision whether or not I want to use that payment method or if I
10:28want to use a different one.
10:29And there are a bunch of different payment methods you can use on wise.
10:32And that might sound like a small thing, but when you are moving large amounts of money, the fees can
10:36really add up.
10:37So a good example of one way you can save money is if you are booking through Airbnb and stuff
10:44like that, sometimes you can actually message the owner directly and you may be able to get a slightly cheaper
10:50rate.
10:51And we found that we've been able to do this quite often.
10:54In fact, especially if we're staying longer term, like one month plus, a lot of the times you find somewhere
11:00really good to rent and it'll be on Facebook marketplace.
11:05Now, if you're renting a place for a month directly through the owner, chances are you're not going to be
11:11able to pay using a debit card or a credit card.
11:14And you're probably going to have a lot of issues transferring money to this individual through a traditional bank.
11:20But if you have wise set up, you can transfer money to pretty much any country in the world at
11:27the click of a button.
11:28And we've had to do that a bunch of times and it saved us a ton of money.
11:31We've got to be realistic.
11:33Just having a travel money car like Wise isn't going to magically make travel cheaper.
11:39It's not going to make flights cheaper.
11:41It's not going to make hotels cheaper.
11:43It's not going to make restaurants cheaper.
11:45But those things aren't really in your control.
11:49We don't set the prices for hotels or flights or restaurants, but what it is going to do, it's going
11:55to save you a few hundred bucks here and there on fees.
11:59And if that's all we can do to make travel cheaper, then why not?
12:04And it costs nothing to sign up.
12:07You can get a free wise travel money card if you use our link below in the description or your
12:13first transfer will be fee free up to a thousand Australian dollars, which is a pretty bloody good deal.
12:19So hit the link in the description and check out wise for yourself if you're interested.
12:23The thing that really surprised me after investigating for this video was that not that travel has increased, but just
12:30how many different things have increased all at the same time.
12:33I'm talking about flights, hotels, transport, fuel, food, taxes, and even the way we move money around the world.
12:42So why has travel become so expensive?
12:45The answer is actually fairly simple.
12:47Everything costs more.
12:49Hotels pay more for staff, more for utilities, more for insurance, more for maintenance.
12:55Airlines face higher operating costs.
12:58Governments introduced new tourism taxes and millions of travelers continue competing for the same hotel rooms and airline seats.
13:07The result is higher prices almost everywhere.
13:10The honest truth is travel hasn't become expensive just because of one thing.
13:14It's been death by a thousand cuts.
13:16Flights cost more, food costs more, hotels cost more, and taxes cost more.
13:21Even visas cost more now.
13:22And then there's all the things that travelers don't even notice like banking fees.
13:26But the thing is people are still traveling just as much as they would in previous years.
13:31Like numbers haven't really dipped at all.
13:33I think the difference is today travelers are smarter with the way they spend their money and they're able to
13:39save money in certain areas such as banking or hotels.
13:43Because honestly understanding the costs is probably the first step to reducing them.
13:48If you don't know where your costs are, then you're just going to keep spending more and more and more.
13:52You really need to know where you're getting hit the hardest.
13:55Thanks for watching guys.
13:56And if you liked this video or found it helpful at all, please hit the subscribe button and like, and
14:01we'll see you in the next one. Cheers.