Travel Budget Breakdown: 41% Hotel, 25% Food, 21% Activities

The hotel is two fifths of a trip. Across the AI-generated itineraries in the Trip Cost Index, the median accommodation share of an on-the-ground budget is 41%, and the other three categories' medians are 25% for food, 21% for activities and 9% for getting around.

The finding

Each trip in the Trip Cost Index carries a modeled expense breakdown across four categories, and the median share of each, taken across the trips with a full four-category breakdown, is accommodation 41%, food 25%, activities 21%, local transport 9%. The medians are taken per category, so they sum to 96, not 100; airfare is excluded throughout; and every figure is a modeled estimate, not surveyed spend, from a corpus in which 225 of 238 trips are for two and 225 were generated at the mid-range tier.

• Accommodation is the largest line by a wide margin, at a 41% median against food's 25%.
• Local transport is small, a median 9%, because airfare is not in it.
• On a $1,250 total the shares are worth roughly $510 hotel, $310 food, $260 activities, $110 transport.
• The index publishes one split for the whole corpus. It does not say how the shares move by country or trip length.

The split, and what the shares are worth on a total

Category	Median share	On a $1,250 total	On a $3,000 total
Accommodation	41%	$510	$1,230
Food	25%	$310	$750
Activities	21%	$260	$630
Local transport	9%	$110	$270

Source: Trip Cost Index 2026, pulled August 7, 2026. The dollar columns apply each median share to an example total, rounded to the nearest ten; they are illustrations, not measured lines. Each share is a share of the four categories' sum for that trip, which on the itineraries checked runs a little above the trip's headline budget midpoint, so the dollar columns understate each line by that margin.

What percentage of a travel budget should go to accommodation?

In this corpus the answer is 41% at the median, and the number is worth reading against what it is made of. Of the 238 itineraries, 225 are trips for two and 225 were generated at the mid-range tier, so the typical hotel line is a double room at a mid-range rate in the destination, divided across a trip that is most often a week. A solo traveler pays the same room alone and sees a bigger share; a couple in a hostel or an apartment with a kitchen sees a smaller one and a smaller food line too.

Two fifths is also the line that decides whether a trip fits a budget, because it is the line the traveler cannot eat less of. Food at 25% and activities at 21% flex day to day; the room is booked before the trip starts and costs the same on a slow day.

How much of a trip budget is food?

A median 25%, or about $50 a day for two when applied to the index's median cost per day of $207. The index's dish-price table shows why that share has to be read with the destination in mind: the median local dish is $2 in India and $22 in Switzerland, and a food line that is a quarter of a $1,250 total buys a very different number of plates in each.

Activities are close behind at 21%, about $260 on a $1,250 total. The index's museum table puts the median paid ticket at $15, so that line is roughly seventeen paid tickets on the median trip, eight or nine museum visits for a couple, or fewer with a tour or a day trip in the mix.

Why the medians do not sum to 100

Each share is the median of that category across the trips with a full four-category breakdown, taken on its own. The trip at the median for accommodation is not the trip at the median for food, so the four medians describe four different trips and add to 96. A single "median trip" with a split that sums to 100 would need one itinerary to stand in for the corpus, and no itinerary does.

For planning, the gap is a rounding matter. For citing, it is the difference between "the median accommodation share is 41%" (what the index says) and "the median trip spends 41% on the hotel" (a trip the index does not identify).

What the number is not

These are modeled shares. Each trip's breakdown is the expense split the planner produced for that itinerary, anchored to destination cost data, with each category divided by the four categories' sum. They are not receipts, not surveyed spending, and not independently verified. The index gives one set of medians for the whole corpus; it does not publish the split by country, by trip length or by traveler count, so any claim that a Japan trip or a two-week trip splits differently is a guess this page does not make.

The split is the shape to check a plan against, not a rule to plan by. A generated itinerary returns its own breakdown by category, converted to the traveler's currency; the 3-day Tokyo itinerary shows one at $1,100 to $1,400. Hold the hotel line against 41% and the rest follows.

Methodology

The corpus is the 238 AI-generated itineraries in the Trip Cost Index 2026 (of 240 generated by MonkeyEatingMango's planner; two lacked a budget range), covering 75 countries, pulled on August 7, 2026. Budget shares are each trip's modeled expense breakdown (accommodation, food, activities, local transport), each category as a share of the four categories' sum for that trip, with the median taken per category across the trips that carry all four categories; the medians therefore do not sum to 100. Airfare is excluded from every budget. 225 of 238 trips are for two travelers, and 225 were generated at the mid-range tier. The dollar figures on this page apply the median shares to a $1,250 and a $3,000 example total and are labeled as illustrations; the four-category sum on the itineraries checked runs a little above the trip's headline budget midpoint. The full method and the other tables are on the Trip Cost Index page.

Related reading

• Trip Cost Index 2026: the source table
• A 14-day trip costs $98 a day; a 3-day trip costs $333: cost per day by trip length from the same corpus
• How to plan the perfect trip: the planning sequence, with the budget step this split feeds

Last updated September 2026.