The worst offenders are hotels. As a rule of thumb, what you end up paying for a hotel in the US is about double the quoted price, mostly because of taxes. Th

The worst offenders are hotels. As a rule of thumb, what you end up paying for a hotel in the US is about double the quoted price, mostly because of taxes. The hotel chains take advantage, too, by adding "surcharges" that read like taxes but are in fact just part of the hotel's price. When I was vacationing in Germany I expected the same sort of thing and was pleasantly surprised to find I'd budgeted twice as much for lodging as I needed.