Everyone knows money alone won’t make you happy. But then again, feeling depressed while sitting in a spa at a luxury hotel, drinking champagne and waiting for your 5pm massage, is slightly better than feeling depressed sitting in a lousy hostel and waiting for the shower line to die down.
We took a dive within our billion-plus annual travel searches to show you how to get fancy without taking a chunk out of your wallet. We compared average prices per night in 5-star hotels across Europe and discovered some cities offer five star accommodations for the price of three.
Top 10 cities for affordable luxury
Average price per night of a five star hotel
- Warsaw, Poland = $134
- Thessaloniki, Greece = $139
- Bucharest, Romania = $156
- Athens, Greece = $166
- Lisbon, Portugal = $180
- Budapest, Hungary = $182
- Brussels, Belgium = $195
- Prague, Czech Republic = $220
- Berlin, Germany = $231
- Madrid, Spain = $246
In contrast, if money is no object you can always splurge in the cities that have Europe’s most expensive 5-star hotels:
Top 10 most expensive cities for five star luxury
Average price per night of a five star hotel
- London, United Kingdom = $513
- Florence, Italy = $511
- Paris, France = $490
- Milan, Italy = $485
- Nice, France = $404
- Rome, Italy = $394
- Munich, Germany = $394
- Edinburgh, United Kingdom = $337
- Amsterdam, Holland = $334
- Copenhagen, Denmark = 305
To put it in perspective, for the price of one night in an average 5-star hotel in London you can stay almost four nights in a similar hotel in Warsaw. With a little planning, you can be living large – regardless of your budget.
*Our research is based on KAYAK hotel searches in 2013/14 for EU cities with more than 300,000 citizens and a minimum of 10 hotels with five-star ratings. Prices quoted are per room, per night and were correct at the time of collation on 22nd August 2014. Image source: Escapio Hotels, www.flickr.com, images licensed under Creative Commons CC BY-SA 4.0.
