About

Travel Market covers travel the way you actually pay for it. Entry fees, tourist taxes, timed tickets, cruise port charges, airline bag rules, the price of a beer at Oktoberfest. The stuff that changes between your last trip and your next one.

Every post starts from a photograph taken on the road: a fish market in Catania, the bridge to Mont-Saint-Michel, a chestnut cart on the Gaia quay. The picture sets the place. The post explains what it costs to stand there now, who's charging, and what's about to change.

Most of the coverage is European, because that's where the rules move fastest. Venice charges day-trippers. Lisbon doubled its overnight tax. Barcelona wants €24 from every cruise passenger who stays less than twelve hours. Sintra pushed the tour buses out of town. Knowing this before you book is worth more than another list of top ten sights.

The name works twice. Travel is a market, with prices, regulators and incumbents. And a lot of the best travel happens in actual markets, from Lisbon's Mercado da Ribeira to Bordeaux's Les Halles de Bacalan.

Figures are checked at the time of writing and dated where they move. If a price has changed since, tell us.