As a European: how do you spend tens of thousands here on vacation?
A ringgit is equivalent to 0.19 Euro. Spending 20,000 ringgit would be about 4k euro. 4k for an international family vacation is probably a reasonable estimate.
That’d be a super cheap international vacation unless they’re just staying for the weekend.
I went with the smallest amount that qualified as “tens of thousands” to illustrate the point.
You spend most of it getting there depending on where you’re coming from. Family of 4 flying to Europe from the West Coast of the US? Yeah that’s gonna be an expensive flight.
Yep, what the other comment said. For example, according to this side, an average cost of inexpensive meal in German is 12euro, exchanged to MYR it would be RM61.92, a significant bump of cost, then including transportation, flight, stay, and souvenirs, it will get very expensive quickly. In comparison, an average meal in Malaysia is about rm8 to rm13.
The median household income per month in Malaysia is around RM6.4k, about 1240euro.
The average meal in Malaysia is more like RM20. It’s true that one dish may cost +/-12, but unlike in Europe, a dish here consists of only one part, e.g. meat. You want rice, a salad or something with it, you pay extra.
I’m literally just in this airport after travelling Malaysia for a solid month, looking for the best place to settle down for the next 3-4 years (which I decided would be Kuching).
I very much enjoy Asia and I’ve been to many places there, could you tell me why you decided to settle down for a few years in Kuching?
It’s the rainiest city in Malaysia, and one of the rainiest in all of South East Asia, so the climate is much more pleasant to me. And Malaysia is tax exempt for foreign sourced income and capital gains, just like Hong Kong or Singapore, but at a fraction of the living expenses.
I’m planning to visit family from the US this summer. For a family of four, flights are $1,200 per person. We are fortunate to stay with family most of the trip, but between hotels, food, train tickets, etc, we could easily spend that much.
We do have casinos. And parking in Amsterdam.
Are you saying parking is gambling in Amsterdam?
Edit: in some cities in North America, a parking spot makes double to triple the amount compared to a minimum wage worker.
Are you saying parking is gambling in Amsterdam?
No, but our family of four went on a visit to the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, and the by far most expensive part of the trip were neither the museum tickets nor the restaurant bill, but the parking: about €16 per hour.
Should have taken public transit!
Sometimes you learn things before, and sometime by doing them. This was the latter case.
Amsterdam is an amazing city. They also REALLY do not want cars in the city itself. When I was there, a lot of the time, I saw more trams on the roads than cars. There was also a huge number of bicycles.
The parking price doesn’t surprise me. It’s their way of saying “we don’t want cars!” while still allowing them is necessary.
Obviously this article seems out of touch when some of us are struggling to afford food, but our fight is the same. Rising prices, stagnant wages, and the owner class creaming off as much from our labour as they can.