Toronto is a city that may be one of the most expensive places to live in, but it’s surprisingly affordable for visitors. Travel and Leisure magazine placed Toronto 12th on the list of the 20 cheapest places to visit in 2024. The city offers a wide range of activities and attractions, including a lively nightlife and sports events.
The list of affordable destinations was created by the travel search engine Kayak, which based its findings on flight searches from July 2023 to December. Despite being an affordable travel destination, many residents of Toronto are struggling financially. According to a report from Statistics Canada, 38.1 percent of Toronto’s residents are having trouble making ends meet. In fact, the average family of four needs over $5,600 per month to survive, not including the cost of housing.
The financial struggle in Toronto is further highlighted by the fact that one in 10 people in the city are relying on food banks, according to a report by The Daily Bread Food Bank and North York Harvest Food Bank. The number of visits to food banks in Toronto has seen a 51 percent increase over the previous year, with 120,000 new users accessing food banks for the first time.
Other Canadian cities, such as Montreal and Vancouver, also made the list of cheapest places to travel. However, the cost of living in these cities is also high. Montreal and Vancouver are among the cities in Canada with some of the highest housing costs, according to recent research. For example, homes in Vancouver cost 249 percent more than most people can afford, and homes in Toronto are 210 percent higher. Royal LePage predicted that housing prices in Montreal are expected to increase by around 5 percent in the next few months as well.