mstraveler

Our favorite New Yorker cartoon shows a couple sitting at a travel agent's desk saying, "We would like to go somewhere where the dollar goes far and they don't want to kill us." We had a good laugh, but have used the concept to help us use our travel dollar more wisely on some of our trips in the past several years. Went to Paris (after 9/11), Thailand (after SARS), Costa Rica, Argentina this year etc. Have stayed at the George V, the Pukhet JW Marriott, the Buenos Aires FS, Papagayao FS etc. by getting some very nice deals when they were out of favor or had great currency exchanges for the dollar.

Where would you go this fall (only time for 2-2.5 weeks) ? What are your favorites for the best values? Considering Thailand, Canada, Eastern Europe....

iluv2fly

Moving this to TravelBuzz! since it has nothing to do with UA.

iluv2fly
Moderator, UA

cj001f

consider canada again $1 CAD ~ $1 US

John Quint

Hey there,

Honestly, New Zealand and Australia. Currency worth is pretty good there, people do not want to kill you (unless you call someone from Australia a Kiwi), good industralized countries, etc.

IMOA

USD has collapsed very badly against AUD and NZD, if you're earning in USD I think you'll find aus a bit expensive now. Best bet is Japan I reckon as the Yen is about the only other major currency which has been falling as quick as the USD.

John Quint

Well, 1.28NZD to 1.00USD isn't as good as the 1.58NZD two years ago but it is better than many.

sdflyer1976

the problem is Japan was already expensive, at least IMO.

mstraveler

Sorry -- forgot the fact that we were going to be using UA frequent flyer miles.

terrier

I daresay the best place to stretch the US dollar is in the US these days. It's a miserable time to be travelling internationally with a USD-denominated bank account.

Not that it's stopping me from going abroad, but it's a real kidney-punch compared to the days of $0.85 euros.

Agree with a previous poster that Japan's about the only place looking good right now from an exchange-rate perspective. Yes, it's easy to spend megabucks in Tokyo but it's also possible to travel well on a budget if you're a little careful. Minshuku, izakaya are your friends.

mlshanks

The Philippines would be fine if you stick to Luzon and the Visayas (where they like Americans), and avoid Mindanao, Sulu, and Palawan (where they don't so much, and have some violence issues). While the $ to peso rate has slipped a little, at $1 to 46p. it's still a bargain.

jwrhn

As someone who has a household in the Philippines and must buy there everyday I dont find it to be much of a bargain. In Jan 2005 the exchange rate was 57 to 1, today its abit over 44 to 1 a drop of 23% in 18 months.

In my experience nothing has dropped in price there over the last 18 months and things are actually more expensive in relative terms.

Electricity, fuel airfare are all higher than Jan 2005

Same in most other asian countries except japan as noted before

RustyC

Yeah, I'd say parts of the midwest and plains states, and Alaska. Anchorage is getting a building boom with extended-stay places and is accessible at around 25K miles in most programs. Was shocked to get a suite earlier this year at $33++/night through Priceline. Alaska in September is a real sleeper of a great destination.

The Philippines is still good in absolute terms and I overweight it on my Asia trips because of that, but I liked the P56/$1 better than the P46. A bigger problem is that demand is overtaking supply on lodgings in some places like Manila, so the prices are going up. Hotels that were P999 three years ago at 56 are now P1,500 at 46, which is almost a doubling. It's still mostly cheap by U.S. standards, but not remarkably cheap.

Thailand, IMO, has been hit even worse, with the baht around 34 (32 internationally) vs. 42 some 3 years ago. Especially in Bangkok, prices have been going up and all the purchasing power gained in 1997 has been eroded away. Thankfully the price increases seem to have been more modest in other parts of the country.

MALAYSIA still has a lot going for it. The ringgit is around 3.4 (vs. 3.8 before), but I notice fewer price hikes on top of that. Air Asia also has very frequent sales, so Borneo is a lot more reachable and do-able than ever. The Perhentians are a wonderful beach destination in the summer. It's also possible to fly to Angkor from KL or Singapore cheaper than from Bangkok.

For the other end of the scale, try TAHITI. More expensive than Tokyo.

vxmike

Inflation has been way up in the US over the same time period we've lost against other currencies, so I think the hit is about the same anywhere you go. The of the main travel expenses (fuel, food and lodging) are all way up the last several years. Gas is double what it was earlier in the decade, eating out up over 25% in my opinion on average, etc.

Bad time to be in the USD since one can barely earn more than 5% interest At the risk of creating an economic discussion I don't think the USD is ever to regain status as a strong currency unless the Fed raises interest rates substantially.

blooman

I still vote SE Asia - anywhere, hands down - exchange rates aside, these are still relatively cheap countries to travel in, you generally don't need a visa, and you get very, very good service and accomodation for your travel dollar.

Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand - all very safe, cheap, and easy-to-travel in destinations. If you don't mind a little more trouble, then include Vietnam and Philipines in the mix. Yeah, these places may be a tad more expensive than they used to be, but c'mon, can you really get a fantastic, huge lunch for 2 in the U.S. midwest for only USD $12 these days? Or pay sixty cents for a bottle of beer? Ignore the naysayers who tell you to stay home. SE Asia is still a bargain.

mstraveler

This is always what we have found, although like others, I have been quite aware of the decline in our purchasing power even there. I have been traveling for many years since I was in college and I remember what now seem like the currency glory days past noted in previous posts: 85 cent Euros, 42 bhat/dollar etc. Clearly the falling strength of the dollar is not a patchy phenomenon, but a much broader problem which makes traveling quite expensive in many places and not much of a bargain in others.

Any thought about Hong Kong from those of you who have been there recently?