One Of Rick Steves' Favorite Places In Europe Has A Lower Cost Of Living

Travel expert Rick Steves has been to so many places overseas — from incredibly quaint cities and small hidden towns to the regions that are most expensive to visit in Europe — so it might be hard for him to pick just one place to call his favorite. But in a Facebook post, Steves actually listed his four favorite European cities as London, Paris, Rome, and Istanbul, with the metropolis in Turkey having a lower cost of living than one might expect.

Nomads calculated that the cost of living in Istanbul is incredibly affordable as of 2025, with the monthly expenses for locals coming to 16,805 Turkish Liras (TRY) — that's the equivalent of $411, while expats are looking at 37,700 TRY ($922), and a family can make ends meet off of 58,800 TRY ($1,438). In the United States, the average household has $61,334 annual expenses in 2025, according to World Population Review, with about $1,748 each month going to home related costs. That means what you might pay in American rent would cover all your food, transportation, housing, and more in Istanbul.

If you are looking to visit Istanbul, Rick Steves' can tell you all of the amazing places to go for history, culture, and local attractions that are highly affordable, unless you are planning to take a one-way overnight trip from Paris in a Grand Suite on the Orient Express, one of the world's most expensive tourist attractions. However, if you're thinking of moving to Turkey or just taking a trip with a limited budget and have your eye on Istanbul, you can do so very cheaply.

Global Citizen Solutions noted that as of 2025, the monthly cost of groceries for one person in Istanbul is between 6,133 and 8,177 TRY ($150 and $200) per month, while utilities on average tend to add up anywhere from 2,044 to 4,088 TRY ($50 to $100), and a transportation pass for buses, trams, and ferries is only 1,635 to 1,840 TRY ($40 to $45). For anyone eating out, a regular cappuccino or 0.5 liter of domestic draft beer is less than 122 TRY ($3), and a three-course meal at a mid-range restaurant for two people comes to about 1,431 TRY ($35) total.

Istanbul is similar to  Budapest, another European city with one of the lowest costs of living, but it might not stay that way for much longer. Turkish Minute reported that in June, 2024 there was an increase of more than 4% to the cost of living in Istanbul, with basic goods like toilet paper having a 106% price hike and olive oil going up 112% from where it was in the summer of 2023. Though there might be signs of economic relief on the horizon as Turkey's inflation fell to 33.5% in 2025, the lowest it has been in four years.

Find A Way Abroad wrote in an expat's guide to living in Turkey, that the cost of living in Istanbul had gone up recently, though there are still some tricks to finding ways to cut costs, such as living on the Asian side as opposed to the European side or avoiding housing in the center of the city, with rents for one bedroom apartments ranging from 25,000 TRY ($611) to 40,000 TRY ($978) depending on location. That said, the secret about how affordable it is to live in Istanbul seems to be out and if more people move there because of it, the cost of living might not be low for that much longer.