Mid-year check: what got cheaper (and pricier) since January

Half a year is long enough for the map to shift. When we stamped the January 2026 edition, one set of destinations sat at the top of the value rankings; six months on, the currencies have quietly reshuffled the deck. Here's how the value map moved through the first half of 2026 — and why that movement is the whole point of doing this as a dated edition rather than a fixed list.

What got cheaper

• Japan — the standout. A soft Hong Kong dollar paired with a weak yen deepened an already-historic discount. The near-generation-low story didn't fade over the spring; if anything it got more extreme, and Japan spent the half-year cementing its place at the sharp end of the rankings.
• Currency-driven lows, deeper. Destinations whose value rests on a soft local currency — the Türkiye and Egypt sort of story, plus a record-weak Indonesian rupiah and Vietnamese dong — largely held or extended their discounts, keeping a cluster of them near multi-year lows for HKD travellers.

What got pricier

• Thailand. The baht firmed against a soft HKD, drifting Thailand up from the deep lows of recent years. It's still one of Asia's best trips and still good value — just less of an outright steal than it was in January. The window is narrowing, not closed.
• Switzerland. The franc stayed resilient near the strong end of its range, and already-high stayed high. No timing rescues it this year; it remains a splurge you take knowingly, not a value pick.

(These are directional reads — the app tracks the exact figures; the point here is the shape of the shift, not decimal places.)

Why a snapshot beats a verdict

This is the entire reason TripDip publishes dated editions instead of one evergreen list. The ranking is a snapshot, not a permanent verdict. The destinations at the top today are not the ones that led in January, and won't be the ones leading in December. "Cheapest countries" articles quietly pretend value is a fixed property of a place — Thailand is cheap, Switzerland is expensive, full stop. It isn't. Value is a moving relationship between local prices, the exchange rate, and your home dollar, and it drifts every quarter.

How to use the shift

• If a destination you already want just deepened its discount (Japan, this half), treat it as a nudge to stop waiting and book while the window's wide.
• If one firmed up (Thailand, Switzerland), that's not "never" — it's "maybe not this round." Point a flexible trip at a genuine low instead, and come back later.

The current standing is always live on the rankings, and if you want the logic behind the numbers, the methodology lays out how inflation and the exchange rate combine into a real-feel cost. Check back at year-end — the map will have moved again, and knowing which way is the whole edge.