Tokyo now cheaper to visit than inflation-hit NYC — world’s one-time priciest city a relative bargain

Got a yen to travel?

With Japan’s once-feared currency plummeting to thirty-year lows and the country quietly sliding into recession, Tokyo — which cratered more than twenty spots to 60th place on the Economist’s annual cost of living survey at the beginning of the year — is a relative bargain in 2024.

The news comes as New York heads in the absolute opposite direction. Last year, the inflation-ravaged Big Apple soared to number one on that same list. (It’s now the third most expensive, behind Geneva and Singapore — cold comfort to gouged Gothamites battling a cost of living that won’t stop rising.)

And while our subway stations may still be filthy (Jimmy Kimmel was right!) and our toilets still don’t sing to us when we flush them, scruffy New York is suddenly the lion, while Tokyo — for so many years seemingly out of our league — is now the easy, affordable alternative. Can you even afford to stay home? 

Don’t take our word for it — here are just a few cost comparisons that highlight the sometimes astonishing differences between the cost of existing in the two cities.

For prices, we’ve used mid-May, right after Japan’s Golden Week (a peak travel time, to put it mildly) and before our Memorial Day Weekend, when prices in New York have yet to kick into high gear. Not that this helped NYC’s case in the slightest.