A daily budget that actually holds

Most budgets fail for the same three reasons, and none of them is the exchange rate.

Daily-budget numbers from other people are close to useless on their own, because "£50 a day in Vietnam" describes a style of travel rather than a country. Build your own from the parts.

Build it from five lines

1. Bed. The easiest to research and the most stable. Check real listings for your dates, not an average.
2. Food. Estimate per meal, at the level you will actually eat. Be honest: most people plan street food and eat at least one sit-down meal a day.
3. Local transport. A couple of rides a day, plus the occasional longer one.
4. Doing things. Entry fees, tours, a dive, a ticket. This is the line people forget entirely.
5. Everything else. Water, SIM, laundry, sunscreen, the charger you left behind. Add 15% to the total rather than itemising.

The three things that break budgets

• Transport between places. Daily budgets cover being somewhere, not getting to the next somewhere. Flights, trains and long buses should be budgeted separately or the daily figure quietly lies to you.
• The first and last day. Airport transfers, an expensive arrival meal, a departure-day room you barely use. These cost far more than an ordinary day.
• Rest days. Bad weather and illness produce cafes, taxis and delivery. Assume one in seven.

Track it in a way you will keep up

Elaborate expense apps get abandoned by day three. What survives is a note on your phone with one number a day, entered at bedtime. That is enough to see a trend and adjust, which is the entire point.

Convert as you go rather than at the end of the week — the whole failure mode of travel budgeting is that unfamiliar money does not feel like money. Learn the rule of thumb for the local currency and every price you see gets converted automatically, without you deciding to.