No I do not spend that much money on a vacation... so what?

Yes I can do the math and flux is significant when a large amount of money... but what can you do about it?

3) If you are not a penny pincher you better allow for a much larger budget for food... accept our kind advice, it is meant to be helpful.

Since you say you're staying at 4-5 star hotels, did you book club level accomodations? Or do you have access to club lounges b/c of your frequent guest program status? That's the only way I can see the $1000 (or even 1000 euros) for 3 weeks food budget working is if you're relying on the free breakfast/evening hors d'ouerves in the lounge for 2 of your meals and just need to pay for lunch. Otherwise, I think at MINIMUM you should budget $100 per day for food for two people.

1000 euro = 1,202 USD/ 16 = $75.00 per
day. I think the way we eat, that amount will be just fine. To answer your question, Yes, our room level includes breakfast at most of the hotels
but we are not big eaters like most people are.

I thought the 1000 was already figured in Euro and I thought the trip was 3 weeks. Hopefully you are not big drinkers either.

One of my wife's favorite travel shows is actually on the Food Network. Rachel Ray globetrots to various cities trying to eat on $40 per day. Of course, she almost always manages, but rarely does she have any extravagant meals. And, to your original post, bigboy, most of these episodes were filmed when $1 US bought 1.15 euro.

Beachbum, I love that show, too. Her exuberance, smile and enthusiasm are kind of infectious.

Hmmmm....we spent 23 days in London and Italy last fall. Breakfast was included at every hotel. My recollection is that $75/person/day, for lunch & dinner, on average, would be enough.

The OP was talking about $75 for two people.

This morning the euro is back down to $1.20.

Actually not quite...

As of 0749 on 13/06/05 the euro was valued at $1.2056...If you use a credit card and don't pay the additional 2% you will pay $1.2177

If you use a credit card charging the additonal 2% you would pay $1.2417

The psychologically important $1.20 is in sight and if that happens, then the euro would be only 2.6% higher than it was when it was first introduced at $1.17....

Come on US greenback, you can do it!

The Euro will certainly go down, unless, of course, it goes up.

Listening to an economist last week talk briefly about the EU. He thought it would take 5-10 years for the EU to work out its kinks. Meanwhile it is quite possible the recent and possibly ongoing uncertainty will affect the value of the Euro against other currencies. I wish the EU no ill will but that would help with our travel budget.

The $ is =.83 euro as of now. Well, it's good news to me.

Foreign exchange dealers are saying that there are at least a billion $ worth of options sitting just under $1.20 and if euro plunges that level, all these options will be triggered and euro will be in a freefall towards $1.10. Some are even talking about parity before any major recovery. Well, only time will tell but I think the breach of the major resistance at 1.2020 is imminent (it's 1.2023 as I write and could happen overnight in Asia) and if the momentum is carried through, I can see 1.17-1.18 by the end of the month.

YES YES YES!!!!

There is hope (I hope):

$1 = 0.836501

The Wall St Journal today polled 56 leading economists for their take on various trends, including the dollar vs euro, for the remainder of the year. The lowest prediction was for 1 € = $1.04 by the end of the year, but most of them took the middle of the road course, saying that it would stay around $1.20. The worst prediction for the dollar was about $1.40 per euro.

Of course, all that proves is that economics is a very inexact science, and nobody really knows!

Even at $1.04 that sounds ok with me.

You can be assured that in the long haul the Euro will come way down!

What's the saying--if you placed all the economists end to end, you still wouldn't reach a conclusion.
I find it unlikely that the euro will drop to $1.04 in less than six months. $1.20 sounds about right.