Tale of Two Torontos: Expensive to Live In, Cheap to Visit

The Toronto skyline is shown on June 21, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/ Tijana Martin

Toronto may be one of the most expensive cities to live in, but it’s one of the more affordable places in the world to visit. The city was ranked 12th on a list of 20 cheapest places to visit in 2024 by Travel and Leisure magazine.

“For an average flight and hotel cost of $692, Toronto offers even more to see and do, from lively nightlife and sports events,” the article says.

It lists some of the main attractions of the city, including Old Town, Kensington Market, the Distillery District, and Casa Loma.

The list is created by the travel search engine Kayak and is based on flight searches from July 2023 through to December.

“The top 250 most-clicked destinations with the lowest average combined flight and hotel price were considered, excluding outliers based on certain criteria such as travel restrictions and security concerns,” Travel and Leisure said.

While the city was pegged as one of the cheapest for travellers, those who call Toronto home are financially struggling.

A survey by Statistics Canada released in November 2023 found that 38.1 percent of those living in Toronto indicated they were having trouble making ends meet.

The average family of four would need just over $5,600 each month to survive, and that does not include the cost of mortgage or rent, according to Numbero, a crowd-sourced data website. For a single person, that amount drops to $1,556 per month.

The Daily Bread Food Bank and North York Harvest Food Bank, two Toronto-based non-profits, published a report in November 2023 that said one in 10 people in Toronto was relying on food banks. That number is double what it was in 2022, the report said.

Between April 1, 2022, and March 31, 2023, Toronto food banks saw 2.53 million client visits—a 51 percent increase over the previous year. The report said it was “the highest annual increase ever reported,” adding that the number could climb to three million visits by the end of December if the usage rate continued.

In the same time period there were also 120,000 new users who had accessed a food bank for the first time, the report noted, which is a 154 percent year-over-year increase.

Other Canadian cities that made the list of cheapest places to travel include Montreal and Vancouver.

Numbero estimates the cost of living in Montreal for a family of four to be $4,999 per month, not including rent or mortgage payments. For a single person, the cost is $1,536 a month, the website said.

In Vancouver, a family of four would need $5,747 a month, while a single individual needs $1,576 to cover their costs.

Housing costs in all three cities are some of the highest in Canada, according to recent research.

Mortgage comparison website Rates.ca published numbers in October 2023 that show homes in Vancouver cost 249 percent more than most people can afford, and homes in Toronto are 210 percent higher.

Royal LePage predicted housing prices in Montreal to increase around 5 percent over the next few months.

Jennifer Cowan contributed to this report.