On a warm June night in 2018, more than a dozen members of Canada’s 2018 World Junior hockey team bypassed a long line of waiting customers, had their IDs checked and were funneled into Jack’s Bar in London, Ont. They wore T-shirts and several wore backward baseball caps. Some gave others fist bumps, and one draped his arm around another’s shoulder. Inside the bar, a group of the players gathered at a corner of a long counter, just beyond a packed dance floor, appearing to order drinks. Seven years later, five members of that team sat in a stuffy wood-paneled courtroom just a few blocks…

Our Frugal Travel columnist took a budget-stretching, four-day trip to one of the world’s most expensive cities. Would chasing bargains lessen, or enhance, her experience?