Eardex - The Earth Index: A worldwide price comparison for travelers

I had a conversation with an American friend recently who was curious about the price of various items in Sydney Australia. She had read in the paper that Sydney is now considered one of the most expensive cities in the world and wondered if it were true. Rather than relying on trying to remember how much I paid for a can of coke from a supermarket or how much a movie ticket costs I should have just put her onto Eardex where she could compare prices on all sorts of everyday items. This free travel guide application gives you a pretty good idea of how much similar items cost the world over.
 
Eardex (which is short for Earth Index) is a free website where you can get an overview of and compare the cost of living in towns, cities, regions and countries worldwide. The Eardex database gathers and displays local prices of heaps of popular and internationally comparable products and services and, at the click of a button, you can immediately see the price of the item converted into your own currency. Eardex not only gives information and it asks you to put in the price of various items in your city such as hotel or hostel prices, eating out, many  different supermarket products, a Big Mac, a can of Coca-Cola, the cost of a taxi ride or a packet of specific cigarettes etc. It's known as the "wisdom of the crowd" principle which means that the data is provided by the Eardex users who enter the prices on www.eardex.com. It’s like a wiki for prices where anyone can access the system and input relevant prices.
 
Eardex - The Earth Index is a fascinating travel application that's hard to put down. It's the perfect travel tool for backpackers, tourists, business travelers, ex-pats and globetrotters of the world as it's easy to use and gives you a good idea how much money you are likely going to need for specific locations around the world. It really is just a question of choosing your currency, picking the location that you want to explore and all the prices are there in front of you. The exchange rates are all worked out on a regular basis so you can get a good ball-park figure immediately. A very useful tool.