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Same money. Different reality.
A currency converter tells you how much money you get. BuckAround shows what that money actually buys in another country or city, and plans your trip budget day by day.
✓ Today's exchange rates✓ City & state prices✓ Trip budget planner✓ Sources shown
How it works
Knowing the exchange rate isn't the same as knowing your buying power.
$300 becomes about €260 in euros. But if a lunch costs twice as much in Paris as it does at home, that money covers far fewer lunches. And Paris costs more than the rest of France.
01
⇄
We convert your money
Using today's exchange rate (European Central Bank where available).
$300→€260
02
🛒
Then adjust for local prices
Price levels for eating out, groceries, transport and housing, for the country and the city or state you pick, tell us how far that money really goes.
Same things→Different cost
Handy tools
Quick currency converter
Type in either box. Mid-market rates, updated every weekday.
Going somewhere soon?
Plan your trip budget.
Place to stay, food, transport and activities, estimated for your destination and style.
The problem isn't the money. It's what the money can buy.
This is the thinking behind BuckAround: the user, the needs we're designing for, the features that address them, and the evidence we still need.
01 / PROBLEM & EVIDENCE
Exchange rates show a conversion. They don't show a life.
Someone planning a trip or move may know their budget in a familiar currency but still not know what it covers locally. A currency converter answers “how much?”; it doesn't answer “how much can I buy?”
Evidence we have now: published city-price comparisons show that comparable everyday items can have very different prices. This supports the underlying price difference, but does not by itself prove that travelers need BuckAround.
These are published, crowdsourced reference prices, not a live quote or a complete cost-of-living measure. Expatistan flags the Vilnius–New York sample as sparse/inconsistent (219 prices from 36 contributors). We treat it as directional evidence and show its limitations.
02 / WHO & USER NEEDS
Start with a specific user, not everyone who travels.
Initial target-user hypothesis: a budget-conscious young adult planning international travel, study abroad, or relocation who needs to understand day-to-day affordability before making a decision.
We have not yet run a systematic validation study. The needs below are testable hypotheses, not claimed interview findings.
NEED 01
Understand what a fixed budget buys
Why it matters: a converted balance alone doesn't explain the everyday purchasing power in the destination.
Evidence status: underlying prices differ; user demand still to validate.NEED 02
Compare equivalent purchases
Why it matters: people need a meaningful comparison, not two unrelated lists or a generic city score.
Evidence status: product hypothesis; test with travelers.NEED 03
Relate prices to their budget and stay
Why it matters: price differences become useful when a user can judge them against an amount and trip duration.
Evidence status: product hypothesis; test whether it changes decisions.NEED 04
Know how much to trust the estimate
Why it matters: crowdsourced prices and dated FX rates can be noisy, stale or unlike the user's own choices.
Evidence status: source caveats are visible; trust needs user testing.
03 / NEED → FEATURE MAPPING
Every feature must solve a specific need.
We keep the first version focused. These features are included because they map to the four needs above—not because more features automatically make a better product.
User need
Exact feature
Why this feature helps
Understand buying power
Budget input + currency conversion + local price adjustment
Separates the foreign-currency amount from what local prices can buy.
Compare equivalent purchases
Matching baskets for eating out, groceries and transport
Compares like with like instead of only showing a generic cost index.
Plan around a constraint
Amount and trip-duration inputs
Connects the comparison to the user's actual budget and planned stay.
Judge trustworthiness
Item-level prices, sources, dates and caveats
Makes assumptions and data limitations visible instead of hiding uncertainty.
04 / PROPOSITION & DIFFERENTIATION
Not just “what is €300 in dollars?”
BuckAround: start with a budget you understand, translate it to the destination currency if needed, then compare the local cost of equivalent purchases.
Alternatives such as currency converters and city-cost websites already solve parts of this problem. Our hypothesis is that an amount-first, basket-based journey makes the answer easier to apply to a real travel or relocation decision. That's a differentiation to test—not a proven advantage.
01
Start with your amount
The budget is the anchor; users don't have to think in a foreign currency first.
02
Compare local costs
Equivalent food, grocery and transport items make price differences tangible.
03
Make a better-informed choice
The result can inform planning, while clearly showing what it does and doesn't cover.
05 / INTENDED IMPACT & NEXT TEST
What should change for the user?
We want the user to leave with a clearer, more realistic sense of what their budget may cover in a destination—not merely a converted balance.
✓
Can the user explain the local-price difference in their own words?
✓
Can they compare the same basket without doing manual calculations?
✓
Does the comparison change a real destination, duration or budget decision?
✓
Do they trust the data enough, and understand its limitations?
Next evidence needed: interview 5–10 people who recently travelled, studied abroad or relocated; ask how they actually estimated costs, what surprised them, which tools they used, and whether this comparison changes a real decision. Then observe 3–5 people using this prototype. Do not claim these tests have happened unless they have.
Enough theory — try the product
Let's compare a real budget.
We'll use published price snapshots and a dated exchange-rate reference, then show their limitations alongside the results.
Product walkthrough for the BuckAround prototype presentation. User needs are hypotheses unless explicitly described as supported evidence. Price data is crowdsourced and may be incomplete or inconsistent.
Your result
Prices in the shops
Where these prices come from
To live like you do at home
Handy checks
🏷️Price checkWhat a price from home costs there
€
💼Got a job offer there?A salary there in buying power back home
$USD
🍔The Big Mac testHow many burgers your money buys
Your trip
Prices across the country
Overall prices compared with the national average. Tap a place to see your money there.
How we worked this out
Your money
Exchange rate
After converting
Price levels compare what the same basket of goods and services costs in each country, in US dollars. "Feels like" is your amount divided by how much more (or less) things cost there. Country levels are national averages; pick a city or state to adjust them. Flights, tips and personal choices are not included.
Data sources, dates & limitations
Exchange rates: Mid-market reference rates, not a bank or card quote.
Price levels: World Bank International Comparison Program 2021 (by category), brought forward to 2024 with the World Bank's PPP and exchange-rate series. They are national averages.
Cities and states:US Bureau of Economic Analysis regional price parities; Indian state poverty lines (Planning Commission) brought forward with MoSPI price indices; INDEC regional baskets for Argentina; US State Department per diem rates elsewhere.
Trip planner: typical US daily travel costs for each style, scaled by the destination's price levels. A starting point to edit, not a quote.
Big Mac prices: The Economist's Big Mac index.
Prices in the shops: official prices where they exist: Statistics Canada average retail prices, the EU Weekly Oil Bulletin (petrol and diesel), Eurostat (electricity), UK government road fuel prices, and UN World Food Programme market prices in about 50 lower-income countries. Open Food Facts shopper prices fill in a few loose fruit and veg prices. Everything else is an estimate: the US Bureau of Labor Statistics average price scaled by the country's World Bank price level for that food group.
BuckAround uses daily reference exchange rates and national and city price levels. Not a bank quote or a promise of trip costs.
Trip planner
Plan a trip budget
Estimate what your trip costs day by day, then check it against your budget. Change any number to match your plans.
Going to
My money is from
Who's going?
1traveller
Travel style
$USD
One-off costs (flights, insurance, visa)
$USD
$USD
$USD
Estimated trip cost
Daily costs
Estimates from public price data. Real costs depend on the season, where you stay and your habits.
Saved
Trip plans
Saved comparisons
Recently viewed
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