The following piece was put together by one of our regular contributors and Travel Ticker. Enjoy!
If you were always and continuously nagging and saying that living in your town costs way too much, you may be surprised.
We got together with our new friends from Travel Ticker to present you a list of the world’s most expensive cities.
Some of them might surprise, some of them not, but all of them are going to help you rethinking the way you are living for sure.
Are you ready? Let’s dive in…
1. N’Djamena, Chad
Chad might not seem like a country where living costs a lot of money, but its capital city N’Djamena belongs in this list no questions asked. Chad not so much time ago discovered their natural sources of oil. Therefore, there are some people who started making a living out of it. On the other hand, there is still a huge group of individuals who are living poorly. Accordingly, high crime rates are pretty natural in this town too. This is the main reason why it costs a lot to live there – here bills consists not only of electricity or water (which is pretty expensive and hard to get) but security as well. Also, to get foreign countries’ productions is pretty hard too, and that might also add up the bills.
2. Seoul, South Korea
Seoul is not only one of the most lived cities in the world, but also one of the most expensive ones as well. Probably because of a lot of people living there, finding a place to live might need to open up your wallet a bit more. But even if we can explain this logically, the fact that clothing and groceries there costs twice as much as in the United States are a bit more surprising. All that is due to international currency turbulence, which affects many parts of citizens lives and also directly affects costs of all necessities too.
3. Shanghai, China
Shanghai fits here as well as Seoul just because of the same two reasons. First, 17 million people are living there; second, the market there is messed up. For instance, you can quickly check online renting websites and find that a small two bedroom apartment not in the centre part of the city costs more than 2000 dollars… a month! While a simple and ordinary pack of diapers here are going to cost you around 30 dollars. Let’s not even begin with 8 dollars you are going to spend if you want to buy some cereal for breakfast. Indeed, Shanghai is expensive, and you need to earn pretty much to live there comfortably.
4. Singapore City, Singapore
As you might notice, most of the cities we are talking about today are located in Asia. All that is due to the same reason we mentioned them above – the vast population! But Singapore here stands in a slightly different light. The city and a country at the same time not only have a lot of people living there but various taxes which help to discipline them too. For instance, there even is a fee for chewing gum in public! Apartments there costs around 5000 dollars a month and forget about owning a car here if you earn little – due to very strict environmental regulations (which lead to a ban of chewing gum too), having a car in Singapore will make you open up your wallet a lot. For instance, if in the USA a BMW costs 34,000, here in Singapore you will buy the same car only if you have 238,000 dollars.
5. Luanda, Angola
The honorable title of the most expensive city to live in is, again, in Africa! Yes, Angola’s capital city is also rich in oil, and it is also one of the busiest seaports in the continent as well. There many foreign workers come to try their luck and earn their millions, so naturally a market started to adapt to wealthy people. For instance, a decent apartment in Luanda costs astonishing 7000 dollars a month. Any other valuable goods also cost hundreds of dollars. Let’s not forget such facilities like fresh water, electricity and other which also adds up to pretty big bills. A pair of jeans here costs 250 dollars, so even more expensive than the ones if the most high-quality Paris’ boutiques. Food costs double than in New York. However, if you are a smoker – there are some good news. A pack of cigarettes there costs only a dollar and a half. So, not everything there is so bad.