European economic woes
 

My wife and I are planning a trip for later this year. We can not decide between Greece, or Portugal/Southern Spain.

All of those countries are having severe economic issues. Does that make it a bad time to go or perhaps a good time to go? Or do the economic issues have no impact on the tourism trade? What are people's thoughts?

You do believe, you still have the money to pay for flight and accommodation later this year? What if, if you're as broke as they are. The source of their woes originates in the USA. The solution will come from the USA. No more free money for anybody.

What will be the economic climate for Greece and Portugal later this year? You can't know that now. Is it likely to get worse, stay about the same, or get appreciably better? What will be the internal repercussions if it stays bad or gets worse in those countries? Disruptions in services, including protests and strikes?

I would think these are some of the questions you have to ask yourself, along with the question: Can I travel somewhere else later this year where I don't have to put up with these uncertainties?

Give me a break. The countries in trouble have social services that they cannot pay for and never could. We can pay for our social services for another couple of years! If we go soon, we can have a lot of fun before the collapse.

To the OP: a falling euro is to your advantage as a traveler. A collapsed euro isn't, but the Germans won't let that happen.

We have been visiting Spain and Italy (from the UK) 3 or 4 times a year for over 15 years. We visited Greece last year for the first time in 30 years. Two issues shone out.

1. Our pounds converted into euros didn't seem to go far in Greece. Homogeneous products appeared to be far higher than the UK or Spain/Italy. Non homogeneous (meals etc) also seemed higher.

2. The locals (Greece) seemed generally to have far more visable ostentatious wealth than comparative areas of the UK/Spain/Italy.

Looking back it would appear that much of this "on show" wealth was funded by their newly accessed cheap debt following their entry into Euroland. Much of it lent by Germany and France. Flood a cash economy with cheap debt and the result is quite simply a recipe for disaster.

I will be very interested to see how the Greek goverment information manages its relationship with the people of Greece. Put simply the people have lived beyond their means and they don't like being told so. Clearly, the people of Greece don't have a history of passively standing by and being lectured....could prove interesting.

What will be even more interestig is what will happen when the people that saved all their money for retirement in northern Europe and elsewhere are told that it's all gone not only to finance empty houses in Detroit but also more than a few yachts in Piraeus.