Methodology

How "now" is computed

The annual layer uses World Bank annual CPI and average FX (back to 1980). "Now" is estimated as today's FX × the latest annual CPI, so it is an approximation — a monthly-CPI nowcast ships in the next release.

The TripDip Score

TripDip = 0.6 × Ground + 0.4 × Flight

Ground = (1 − percentile of "now" in own 10y history) × 100
Flight = (1 − rank of fare ÷ expected fare for the distance) × 100

Two sub-scores blend into the headline 0–100 score. Ground (60%): how cheap on-the-ground prices feel right now versus the destination's own 10-year history (the original real-feel index). Flight (40%): the cheapest cached round-trip fare from Hong Kong (Aviasales data; distance-based estimate where no cached fare exists, labelled "est."), normalised by the expected fare for the route's distance and ranked across all destinations. Both sub-scores are shown on each card; only the latest edition carries the score.

Data sources

• CPI: World Bank FP.CPI.TOTL (2010=100)
• Official FX: World Bank PA.NUS.FCRF (period average)
• Taiwan CPI & FX: DGBAS (from 1981)
• Absolute price level: derived from World Bank PA.NUS.PPP
• Daily FX: open-source exchange-api (ECB/market data)
• Climate normals: NASA POWER (MERRA-2, 2001–2020, capital/major city)
• Visa (HKSAR passport): passport-index-dataset by Ilya Ilyankou (MIT)
• Languages & time zones: open country datasets (mledoze/countries, dr5hn)

Limitations

• Taiwan uses a different source (DGBAS, not World Bank) — labelled in the UI
• CPI start years differ by country and are labelled per page
• Pre-1999 eurozone FX spliced using official irrevocable conversion rates
• CPI is a whole-economy basket used as a tourist-price proxy
• Flights and hotel seasonality are excluded

Flight reliability statistics

The punctuality rankings, airline report cards and destination reliability tables are computed from official Airport Authority Hong Kong open flight data — every scheduled passenger departure and arrival at HKG. The public API only exposes a rolling ~91-day window, so TripDip archives every day permanently; the published statistics cover the window shown on each page.

• On-time means the actual time is within 15 minutes of schedule; early flights count as on-time. Departures are measured at gate departure, arrivals at gate arrival.
• Delay buckets are cumulative at ≥15 minutes, ≥1, ≥3, ≥5 and ≥6 hours — the last two match the delay thresholds where typical travel-insurance cover starts paying out.
• Cancellations are counted separately and are never mixed into delay percentages.
• Codeshare flights are attributed to the operating carrier only — the airline whose crew and aircraft actually flew the leg.
• Airlines with fewer than 90 HKG legs in the window are not ranked; destination tables also hide carriers with fewer than 30 legs on that route.
• Only HKG legs are measured: a delay on another leg of a multi-stop routing does not count.
• The typhoon page combines the live AAHK feed with Hong Kong Observatory warning signals; its "typical day" baselines are medians over the archived window.

Photo credits (Wikimedia Commons)

• Victoria Harbour — Haydn Hsin (CC BY-SA 3.0) ↗
• Mount Fuji — Suicasmo (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Wat Arun — Mastertongapollo (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Gyeongbokgung — 서울관광 아카이브 (KOGL Type 1) ↗
• Taipei 101 — Sinsyuan (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Marina Bay Sands — This Photo was taken by Supanut Arunoprayote. Feel free to use any of my images, but please mention me as the author and may send me a message. (สามารถใช้ภาพได้อิสระ แต่กรุณาใส่เครดิตผู้ถ่ายและอาจส่งข้อความบอกกล่าวด้วย) Please do not upload an updated image here without consultation with the Author. The author would like to make corrections only at his own source. This ensures that the changes are preserved.Please if you think that any changes should be required, please inform the author.Otherwise you can upload a new image with a new name. Please use one of the templates derivative or extract. (CC BY 4.0) ↗
• Petronas Towers — Unknown authorUnknown author (Public domain) ↗
• Hạ Long Bay — Taewangkorea (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Great Wall of China — Severin.stalder (CC BY-SA 3.0) ↗
• Tower Bridge ↗
• Eiffel Tower — Benh LIEU SONG (Public domain) ↗
• Zermatt — Chensiyuan (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Colosseum — FeaturedPics (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Neuschwanstein Castle — Thomas Wolf, www.foto-tw.de (CC BY-SA 3.0 de) ↗
• Sagrada Família — Canaan (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Golden Gate Bridge — Frank Schulenburg (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Sydney Harbour Bridge — Servite et contribuere (CC0) ↗
• Borobudur — Heri nugroho (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• El Nido, Palawan — Kalithecat00 (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Taj Mahal ↗
• Moraine Lake — Gorgo (Public domain) ↗
• Burj Khalifa — imran shahabuddin (CC BY 2.0) ↗
• Perito Moreno Glacier — Fernando (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Ahsan Manzil — Mahbub Hossain Shaheed (mahosha) (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Bahrain World Trade Center
• Christ the Redeemer (statue) — Arne Müseler (CC BY-SA 3.0 de) ↗
• Cotopaxi — Gerard Prins (CC BY-SA 3.0) ↗
• Great Pyramid of Giza — Douwe C. van der Zee (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Simien Mountains — Florian Fell (CC BY-SA 3.0) ↗
• Pha That Luang — Coalfruit1012 (CC0) ↗
• Sigiriya — Wrobell (CC BY-SA 3.0) ↗
• Ruins of Saint Paul's — GG001213 (CC0) ↗
• Koutoubia — Rol1000 (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Malé — Shahee Ilyas (CC BY-SA 3.0) ↗
• Le Morne Brabant — "dronepicr" (CC BY 2.0) ↗
• Zuma Rock — Jeff Attaway (CC BY 2.0) ↗
• Boudhanath — Sumitbhatt222 (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Milford Sound — Maros M r a z (Maros) (CC BY-SA 3.0) ↗
• Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque
• Badshahi Mosque — Romero Maia (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Panama City ↗
• Museum of Islamic Art, Doha
• Kigali Convention Centre
• Cappadocia — Arian Zwegers from Brussels, Belgium (CC BY 2.0) ↗
• Mount Kilimanjaro — Sergey Pesterev (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Table Mountain — Danie van der Merwe from Cape Town, South Africa (CC BY 2.0) ↗
• Torres del Paine — Karen Chan 16 (CC BY 2.0) ↗
• Registan — Ekrem Canli (CC BY-SA 3.0) ↗
• Kalandula Falls — Paulo César Santos (CC0) ↗
• Berat — Arianit (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Khor Virap — Diego Delso (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Hallstatt — C.Stadler/Bwag (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Flame Towers
• Grand-Place — Celuici (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Rila Monastery — Raggatt2000 (CC BY-SA 3.0) ↗
• Stari Most — Ramirez (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Mir Castle — Вадзім Новикаў (CC BY-SA 3.0) ↗
• Salar de Uyuni — Anouchka Unel (FAL) ↗
• Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque — Abdullah Geelah (CC BY-SA 3.0) ↗
• Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro
• Arenal Volcano — Rhododendrites (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Aphrodite's Rock — Diego Delso (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Charles Bridge — A.Savin (FAL) ↗
• Nyhavn — European Commission (CC BY 4.0) ↗
• Ciudad Colonial (Santo Domingo) — Desox7x (CC0) ↗
• Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Tallinn — Diego Delso (CC BY-SA 3.0) ↗
• Gergeti Trinity Church — This Photo was taken by Supanut Arunoprayote. Feel free to use any of my images, but please mention me as the author and may send me a message. (สามารถใช้ภาพได้อิสระ แต่กรุณาใส่เครดิตผู้ถ่ายและอาจส่งข้อความบอกกล่าวด้วย) Please do not upload an updated image here without consultation with the Author. The author would like to make corrections only at his own source. This ensures that the changes are preserved.Please if you think that any changes should be required, please inform the author.Otherwise you can upload a new image with a new name. Please use one of the templates derivative or extract. (CC BY 4.0) ↗
• Santorini — Pitichinaccio (CC BY 3.0) ↗
• Hungarian Parliament Building — Kilyann Le Hen (CC BY 4.0) ↗
• Cliffs of Moher — Bjørn Christian Tørrissen (CC BY-SA 3.0) ↗
• Great Mosque of Samarra — Fakhri Mahmood (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Kirkjufell — Anjali Kiggal (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Dunn's River Falls — Breakyunit at English Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0) ↗
• Petra — Azurfrog (CC BY-SA 3.0) ↗
• Bayterek
• Issyk-Kul — Қайырқан Әсем (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Angkor Wat — Bjørn Christian Tørrissen (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Kuwait Towers
• Trakai Island Castle — Skelanard (Aleksandr Petukhov) (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Luxembourg City — Cayambe (CC BY-SA 3.0) ↗
• House of the Blackheads (Riga) — Diliff (CC BY-SA 3.0) ↗
• Chichen Itza — Daniel Schwen (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Church of St. John at Kaneo — kallerna (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Valletta — Mandyy88 (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Shwedagon Pagoda — Bjørn Christian Tørrissen (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Sveti Stefan — Marcin Konsek (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Genghis Khan Equestrian Statue — Vaiz Ha (CC BY 2.0) ↗
• Bazaruto Archipelago — Earth Science and Remote Sensing Unit, NASA Johnson Space Center (Public domain) ↗
• Sossusvlei — Ikiwaner (GFDL 1.2) ↗
• Granada, Nicaragua — Guillaume Baviere from Uppsala, Sweden (CC BY-SA 2.0) ↗
• Kinderdijk — Lucas Hirschegger (CC BY-SA 3.0) ↗
• Preikestolen — Clementp.fr (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Machu Picchu — Draceane (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Wawel Castle — Monika Towiańska (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Belém Tower — Alvesgaspar (CC BY-SA 3.0) ↗
• Saint Basil's Cathedral — Tsy1980 (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• African Renaissance Monument — Tafsir207 (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Church of Saint Sava — Npps90 (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Bratislava Castle — C.Stadler/Bwag (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Lake Bled — Canadianhockey91 (CC BY-SA 3.0) ↗
• Stockholm City Hall — Julian Herzog (Website) (CC BY 4.0) ↗
• Sidi Bou Said — Mohamed Moslem Mosbah (CC BY-SA 3.0) ↗
• Saint Sophia's Cathedral, Kyiv — Rbrechko (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Punta del Este — Марсело Кампи (CC BY-SA 3.0) ↗
• Victoria Falls — Diego Delso (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Okavango Delta — Joachim Huber (CC BY-SA 2.0) ↗
• Mount Cameroon — Yona Tientcheu (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Cartagena, Colombia — Sgonzalezb (CC BY-SA 3.0) ↗
• Casbah of Algiers — toufik Lerari (CC BY-SA 2.0) ↗
• Helsinki Cathedral — Manster323 (CC0) ↗
• Cape Coast Castle — Rjruiziii (CC BY-SA 3.0) ↗
• Tikal — Mundo Maya (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Copán — Adalberto Hernandez Vega from Copan Ruinas, Honduras (CC BY 2.0) ↗
• Plitvice Lakes National Park — Zysko serhii (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Masada — Godot13 (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Maasai Mara — Danijel Mihajlovic (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Nativity Cathedral, Chișinău — Pelin Oleg (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗
• Avenue of the Baobabs — Pat Hooper from Chicago, IL, USA (CC BY-SA 2.0) ↗
• Panteón Nacional de los Héroes — Felipe Antonio (CC BY-SA 3.0) ↗
• Bran Castle — Dobre Cezar (CC BY-SA 3.0 ro) ↗
• Hegra — Ali Lajami (CC0) ↗
• Santa Ana Volcano (Public domain) ↗
• Pigeon Point, Tobago — Kp93 (CC BY-SA 3.0) ↗
• Murchison Falls — Rod Waddington (CC BY-SA 2.0) ↗