European Travel Cheaper Than Domestic?? YOU BETCHA!
Aug 14 '00
This year is one of the best times ever to take that European vacation you've been promising yourself! Fall and winter prices are dropping to rock bottom levels, exchange rates are very favorable to Americans, and surprisingly to many people -- travel taxes are often cheaper in Europe than in the U.S.!
You can easily save 30-50% off usual airfares, 30-50% off hotels, 10% off everything through lower exchange rates, and 10% more off hotel rates due to Europe's cheaper hotel room taxes. Do the math. It's easy to travel to Europe for half what other people pay! Not only that, but a European vacation can actually be cheaper than staying in the United States!!!
Forget that Disney World nonsense! We're going to Paris!!
Cheap Airfares, Cheap Hotels, Cheap Package Deals...
It's no secret that travelling off-season is the way to get the biggest travel discounts. While airfare to Europe this summer is currently costing about $500-700 (or more) for a restricted coach fare, those prices drop below $500 after September 1 and sometimes below $300 after November 1.
According to Arthur Frommer's web site (www.frommers.com), Virgin Atlantic has already announced fares as low as $250 round-trip from New York to London. Icelandair, one of the big names in low-price trans-Atlantic travel has, for each of the past few winters, had rates of $338 round-trip from Baltimore or Boston to Amsterdam -- odds are good they'll do it again this year.
Sometimes you can find rates not much higher than these from inland destinations. I saw a few killer deals last winter from Houston, so I'll be looking again this year. Most of the best prices, though, seem to be out of New York. If you can get to New York cheaply, chances are good you can find a cheap flight to Europe.
Hotels are probably the biggest expense in most vacations, and contrary to what some people would tell you, hotels in Europe can be dirt cheap! If you read my epinion about my trip to the Mosel Valley in Germany, you'll see that I stayed in a lot of smaller inns in the countryside. These ran me $40 or less per night. About what you'd pay at a Motel 6 in the U.S., but for much nicer rooms in more unique properties, and at places that usually included a light breakfast (another budget saver)!
Get out to a newsstand and pick up the current issue of Arthur Frommer's Budget Travel magazine (a great magazine that every frugal traveller should read -- see my epinion about it for more info). (And no, Arthur does not pay me to say nice things about his stuff.) In this magazine you'll find an excellent article about a French hotel chain that offers thousands of rooms at 57 different properties throughout Paris for prices from about $46 per night. This isn't out in the sticks, you can make reservations, and it doesn't require you to hunt down rooms in unpublicized inns. Not at all, some of these places are nearby major tourist centers right downtown!!
Exchange Rates
A lot is often said about how exchange rates can make a place more affordable, and it does make a difference. The exchange rate matters because everything you buy overseas becomes cheaper for you when the dollar is strong. Like it is now. Before you go on your trip, take a look at the exchange rates to see if things are generally going to be expensive for you or cheap. When the Euro was created a year or so ago it was pegged at parity with the U.S. dollar. Today, according to the currency exchange calculator on Yahoo finance (finance.yahoo.com), one dollar will buy 1.10 Euros -- a 10% increase in the value of your U.S. dollars. That means you automatically get a discount on every meal, bus ticket, souvenir, hotel bill, and restaurant meal you buy. Every one!
Hotel Taxes Make Europe Cheaper than U.S.
With more and more cities implementing "rape the tourist" taxes to pay for their latest convention center, stadium, or public works projects, taxes on hotel rooms are quickly becoming one of the biggest "hidden" expenses of travel (though still not quite as bad as taxes on rental cars), especially in the United States.
Many U.S. cities currently have outrageously high hotel room taxes of 10%, 15%, or more. Foreign governments do too, but surprisingly, not usually in Europe (except for in London, where they rape you worse than just about any major U.S. city).
According to the hotel reservationist I just spoke to at Marriott, rooms in Washington, D.C. now pack a 14.50% city room tax! It's 13.25% plus $2 (huh?) in New York City. Wow! I can't afford domestic travel anymore...better go to Europe!
Most European cities are veritable hotel tax havens compared to U.S. cities. The hotel room tax in Paris is 5.6%, Barcelona 6.5%, Geneva 4.1%. Wow! I can save 10% off my travel budget just in hotel room taxes! Incredible!!
Tip: Watch Your Credit Cards
In the past, a lot of travel guides have told you that the best way to get the best currency exchange rate was to use your credit card for purchases. That used to be true. Within the past year or two, many U.S. banks have built in "screw you" features in their foreign currency clauses. Most will either charge you a conversion fee of 1-2%, or they will charge you other fees just for using your card. No matter that it costs the bank exactly nothing to convert currency, and that it's not even a technical issue since it's been done throughout the monetary system ever since there was such a thing as currency conversion.
The bottom line is that you should carefully examine each of your credit card's terms of service to see how badly they will screw you on currency conversion. Sometimes bank debit cards are better, sometimes worse. If they are better, just load up the checking account with money before you go and leave all the credit cards at home.
Oui, Oui!
This winter I'm cancelling any U.S. trips and heading to Europe. Airfares are cheap, hotels are cheap, and with the favorable exchange rate coupled with naturally lower hotel taxes, the trip is going to cost less than any domestic trip I'd want to do. Figure it out yourself, you might reach the same decision I did! Paris, here I come...
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