Despite the advent of so-called budget airlines, travel is still not cheap. On flights you’ll be charged exorbitant sums for excess baggage (even for small amounts), a boarding pass (if you haven’t printed it at home and brought it with you), and for advance seat allocation.

Once you’ve stumped up all this money just to reach your destination, it’s nice to find out, as this book shows, that you don’t have to continue to fork out large sums to have a good time. This worldwide round-up of no-cost or low-cost things to do at your destination is based largely on cities rather than countries. At first I couldn’t figure this out, but perhaps it’s because only large civic centres have correspondingly large budgets and subsidies that enable them to offer attractions for free or at an affordable price.

Free things to do in New York include checking out art galleries in West Chelsea, taking the Staten Island Ferry and walking the exciting new High Line, a former elevated rail line now converted into a park. In Helsinki, visit the architecturally dazzling Kiasma Contemporary Art Museum, which was designed so that natural light, whatever the season, would play with the building’s interior space. Check out the Berlin Wall Memorial in Berlin and the Prado Museum in Madrid.

In Istanbul, for zero outlay, you can see the Blue Mosque, the Grand Bazaar (the world’s biggest and busiest market) and whirling dervishes. And in Mumbai, for no rupees at all, you can visit the Mani Bhavan, a museum dedicated to Mohandas Gandhi. Cemeteries are also a fascinating and free insight into the history of a city, and the book points you to graveyards in New Orleans, Lisbon and Paris. Safaris in Africa usually cost about $1000 per day, but you’ll find out how to do the Okavango Delta for about US$140 per day.

Reviewed by Tim Graham