Joseph7820: Way to go, it's refreshing to hear success stories in this terrible financial climate. I feel so blessed that my parents had done the same and now that they are elderly, they are so happy that they chose to live within their means and had a precise plan for retirement. Consequently they still enjoy travel, even on a limited budget, and are planning to go to southeast Asia in '09. Kudos to you, keep on travelin'!

I went to Spain in May and have never seen so few American tourists. I spent a weekend in NYC in June and my hotel floor was packed with Scandinavians! I conversed briefly with a family of 7 from Oslo who got a heck of a deal at the hotel!

Yes my plans have definitely been affected. I was going to go to Santorini next spring and had found a very good deal on flights. I held off booking for a couple of days and then XL went bust. If I had booked my flights would have been with them. I heaved a sigh of relief as an independent booker I probably would have lost my money. I am holding fire now to see if the situation gets any worse before I make any decisions on travel.

I usually take 3 weeks in France each summer. I have already bought and paid for next years holiday in a cottage. I have spent two thirds less on accommdation for next year to take account of the Euro. I'd rather concentrate on getting the spending money together than spend a lot on the house.

We have scaled right down both at home and regarding trips. I have one teenager in college, her older sister will be out of work after christmas when her contract ends. My husband is getting no overtime and I lost my job a year ago due to government cutbacks. We think we are lucky to get away at all in the current climate. The biggest help for us regarding holidays would be for the Euro exchange rate to improve.

i booked our Alpine vacation that would take us to Germany, Austria and Switzerland 3 weeks ago. the money has been earmarked for this purpsose. i feel guilty tho' about going (not exactly sure why) but i already paid for plane tickets and a few hotel nights that have cancellation penalties. so we're still going. i am hopeful that our $$ will go a longer ways once we get to europe.

however, i will hold off on any future travel plans until i feel confident about our economic situation (both in our household and as a nation).

on another topic, i met up with some friends from hawaii yesterday. they are (who would have guessed??)in the tourism industry there, they have been experiencing some significant downturn in tourism for some time, way before the bailouts and financial debacle blew up recently.

I still plan to go on my winter trip to Great Britain and I will not spend any more or less.

Being retired with most of my funds in several different CD's and the fact that about 10 months ago I switched our 401K accounts from stock to Money Market funds has helped. Also, sold the last $100,00 or so of stock that we owned at the same time.

Our interest income will be a lot lower but it will not affect what we do as we have always lived well below our income.

I just don't travel as far...

Last year we vacationed for 120 days, this year we were preoccupied with building a new house and furnishing a new summer house so the only hotel days were enroute from one house to the other. We are financially secure, but seeing our assets lose value and with the weak dollar almost everywhere, we plan to simplify our travel and stay within the US for the next several years. The whole "staycation" idea is really long overdue. There are so many hidden gems that are close to home that we never take time to appreciate. The manic 10 cities in 9 days can be interesting, but there is nothing wrong with slowing down and appreciating an area more deeply. The amount you spend is not always directly related to how much you enjoy the experience.