melmc

Spare a thought for those of us travelling on the Australian dollar - better still, come to Australia for a holiday.

Herman_from_SA

At R7 to US$1, spare a thought for us South Africans who must live with EVERYTHING being 5X more expensive. No wonder all the Cape Town properties are owned by foreigners lately!

bettyk

We spend as much on a 10-day trip to Hawaii as we do on a 15-day trip to Europe. If it got to the point that I felt Europe was expensive, I'd probably just cut my vacation by a day or two rather than not go at all. But, I don't see that happening anytime soon!

Patrick

When will people get over the notion that the exchange rate between currencies is an actual cost thing? Why would someone say that in South Africa everything is 5 times more expensive because it takes 5 or their units to equal one of someone else's. Did people actually believe that everything in Italy cost 2,000 times as much as in the US when they were on the lira?

Cassandra

It's about there now, for me. Esp. given that our net worth is down and our salary hasn't risen in 4 years.

Two years ago, the Euro was at about 90 U.S. cents and we could afford 5 nights at X hotel. Now, it's only 4 nights, and everything else (rail fare between cities, food, etc.) is at least 20% more expensive. For us, the cost of the trip includes staying long enough to justify the airfare and get over the jet lag, so it isn't just whether we're willing to observe a budget of $3600 instead of $3000 but whether we can stay long enough to warrant the "cost."

Yes, you can tell me to step down a bit in hotel quality, etc. etc., but to me, there is a point beyond which I'll opt for a nice vacation here in the US and wait a year or two or three until things reshuffle.

For what it's worth, though, I was always surprised that the Euro was EVER below parity with the dollar, and I don't think that'll happen for a while, certainly not while we have such a huge deficit. A lot of the 1990's money here has gone "back home" to Europe (and to the Middle East) and we don't have another tech bubble ahead of us (according to my admittedly foggy crystal ball).

ira

>I was always surprised that the Euro was EVER below parity with the dollar,..<

If you look at the exchange rates for lire, FF, DM, etc just before the euro was introduced, you will see that at $1.18 the euro was priced higher than the values of its underlying currencies. That's one reason why it dropped.

RufusTFirefly

If you go back and look at the values of the currencies underlieing the Euro, right now the exchange rate is about average for the past 20 years.

judybarnes

I'm with WillTravel--I'd cut corners where I could to make any trip i want a reality. Life is too short and unpredictable to deny myself my heart's desire. As long as there are bargain air fares and hotel rates, I'm going!