If you’re thinking about where to go on Christmas, you won’t find much frugality around here. Washington is the second-most expensive city to spend Christmas, according to a report by the travel website Kiwi.com. A hypothetical Christmas holiday in DC—consisting of a one-night hotel stay, meals, a “typical holiday drink,” and tickets to see a performance of The Nutcracker (there are at least five to choose from)—will set you back $589.44, according to Kiwi. Only New York, where a similar itinerary costs $762.34, is pricier.
When the individual costs are broken down, DC has the second-highest hotel rates and fifth-most-expensive Nutcracker shows. However, if you are only interested in the drinks, DC might be an okay place to stay—a “typical holiday drink” here costs $3.91 on average.
US Cities with Most Expensive Visiting Costs
Holiday shopping in DC is actually a bit less frightful than in other cities. Kiwi’s sample basket, including men’s and women’s fragrances, a Barbie, and a Lego Millennium Falcon costs $364.06 in Washington. Compared with other US cities, DC’s prices are either equal to or lower than the median.
US Cities with Most Expensive Shopping Cost
But with its higher visiting costs, DC is the second-most expensive city for the holiday, Kiwi found. Want a cheap Christmas? Head to Boston, which rated as the least-expensive US city, or Bratislava, Slovakia, which ranked as the cheapest city in the world. If you don’t have the budget to travel abroad, it might be a good idea to do the shopping in DC and then bring the gifts somewhere else.
US Cities with Most Expensive Visiting and Shopping Cost
Read the original report here.
Mandy is a web fellow at Washingtonian. She is a senior at Missouri School of Journalism. She focuses on reporting and visualizing news stories, in an effort to tell data-heavy stories in a more interesting and interactive way. Feel free to shoot Mandy an email or @ her at Twitter for ideas and thoughts.
