I'm very confused by this comment. Travel within Europe is insanely cheap compared with North America because low cost carriers exist and the distances are way smaller, not to mention you can take buses if you're really on a budget.

You're not finding flights in the US between major cities for less than 3 digits, and buses take several hours. In Europe you take a 2 hour bus ride and end up in a completely different country whichever way you go.

There's a reason your stereotypical university student backpacker goes to Europe.

Sorry. Typed in a rush and wasn't clear

I meant the total cost in Europe. Food, accommodation etc.

Huh, in my experience food costs around the same. Maybe fast food is cheaper in NA?

Looking at my bookings in northern Europe and US major cities, they're also roughly the same price, but there's a lot more cheap hostels in Europe if you're willing to go that route.

Southern Europe is cheaper by over 50% though.

Interesting how we could come to basically opposite conclusions given the same data.

I'm comparing Europe with Asia. (Typing on my phone which is never a good idea)

Oh gotcha, my bad, I totally misinterpreted your comment

> Travel within Europe is insanely cheap compared with North America because low cost carriers exist [...] You're not finding flights in the US between major cities for less than 3 digits

That's 'nuts', why's that? If £12 short haul flights between cities works in Europe why not in the US? Obviously the US is a lot bigger than the UK, but so's Europe, I could book a flight right now for today to (checks) Ibiza for £9.99, Milan or Barcelona for £12.99, and so on. Why's it 10x that (actually 29x for today, but ae little as 5x (mid two digits) if we push the date out and go mid week, call it 10x, whatever) for NY to Chicago? Naively I would think within one country it should be possible to run it if anything even cheaper.

I don't know either. Probably some combination of subsidies/taxes/income/wages

Lack of strong competition?

There's plenty of competition for domestic flights in NA imo, there has to be a reason they all charge as much as they do

There is a lot more budget carrier competition, often flying in and out of secondary airports, in Europe. The US does have a few like Spirit but nothing like Europe. In Europe, there are probably more subsidies, generally it's denser, probably a higher percentage of leisure travelers, more competition from trains, fewer people likely drive, etc.

It just adds up to a lot of competition among no-frills airlines because there's a sizable group of price-sensitive travelers who are fine with talking a budget flight for an hour or two.

Subsidies on fuel among other things. For some of us, for a trip of any length, it’s also hundreds of dollars to park or have airport transportation though that applies to domestic flights as well.

In any case I’m hundreds of dollars to fly in the US.

Flights are cheap. Hotels in Europe in tourist areas are insanely priced because they’re reliably booked.

They're not any more expensive than hotels in major US cities. But the original post was about Asia and South America, I just misunderstood.