Food is usually the second largest travel expense after accommodation, and it is the one where cutting costs improves the trip rather than diminishing it. The cheapest food in most countries is also the food worth travelling for, which is a rare alignment.
The rule that does most of the work
Walk two streets away from the main attraction. Prices routinely halve and quality rises, because the restaurant is now serving people who will come back rather than people who will never return.
Related: a menu in six languages with photographs is priced for tourists. A menu in one language, or no menu at all, is priced for locals.
Eat where the turnover is
A busy stall with a queue of local workers is the best signal available, for both value and food safety. High turnover means fresh ingredients and short holding times. An empty restaurant with a tout outside is the opposite signal.
Shift your main meal to lunch
Across most of Europe and Latin America, set lunch menus offer the same kitchen and often the same dishes at a fraction of dinner prices. The Portuguese prato do dia, the Spanish menu del dia, the Italian pranzo di lavoro, the French formule. Eat well at midday and lightly in the evening.
Use markets properly
- Buy breakfast supplies for the next morning: bread, fruit, cheese, yoghurt.
- Cooked food stalls inside markets are usually the cheapest hot meal in any city.
- Shop late in the day for reduced prices on produce.
- Supermarkets in expensive countries are the difference between affordable and not.
Accommodation with a kitchen
In high-cost countries such as Norway, Switzerland, Japan or Australia, a kitchen changes the entire budget. Cook two meals a day and eat out once, and food costs drop dramatically without losing the experience.
Small habits that add up
- Carry a refillable water bottle. Bottled water is a large, invisible daily cost.
- Drink what the country drinks. Imported beer and coffee carry heavy markups.
- Skip hotel breakfast unless it is included, and eat at a local cafe for a third of the price.
- Check whether a cover charge, service charge or bread charge is standard, as it is in Italy and Portugal.
- Learn a few food words. It opens up places with no English menu, which are the good ones.
Where to spend anyway
Budget eating is not the same as never spending. One properly good meal in a country you have travelled far to see is worth more than a week of small savings. Do it deliberately, once or twice, rather than by accident at a tourist trap.
See also how to travel the world on a budget.