The key facts

  • Prague topped the Solo Travel Index: an average day costs €134.33
  • Kraków is second, Istanbul third, thanks to the lowest hostel bed prices
  • A day in the 10 worst cities costs an average of €252 versus €153 in the top 10

Who topped the ranking

Radical Storage has published the Solo Travel Index — a ranking of European cities for solo travelers. To compile it, 48 of Europe's most visited cities were analyzed across 11 factors: average daily spending per person, the safety score according to Numbeo data, the number of hostels, and other indicators. Each factor was rated from 1 to 10 in comparison with the other cities, after which the scores were averaged. This was reported by euronews, citing the study.

Winners and losers

Prague took first place: an average day there costs €134.33 including accommodation, food, transport and entertainment, while the city has the eighth-highest safety score in the list. Second place went to Kraków in Poland — the second cheapest city in the ranking — and third to Istanbul, where hostel bed prices turned out to be the lowest among all the cities considered. The top ten also included Lisbon (4th), Gdańsk (5th), Berlin (6th), Porto (7th), Seville (8th), Barcelona (9th) and Riga (10th). Portugal and Spain each have two cities in the top ten, as does Poland.

Why prices matter

Zurich was named the worst city for solo travel: accommodation there costs €168.13 per day — the highest figure in the study — while spending on food and transport also ranks among the three most expensive. Reykjavik came second to last, followed by Venice; both cities, like Zurich, lag behind because of high prices, which hit solo travelers especially hard since they cannot share accommodation costs with anyone else. The bottom ten also included Aarhus, Cologne, Geneva, Frankfurt, Nice, Marseille and Dublin. According to Radical Storage's calculations, a day in the ten worst cities costs an average of €252 — almost €100 more than in the top ten, where the average figure is €153. For readers planning a solo trip, the ranking's practical takeaway is simple: the difference between the leaders and the laggards comes down almost entirely to the cost of a day, not to safety or infrastructure.