Dollar Hits All-time Low against Euro – Again!

Crap!

The US dollar has once again hit an all-time low against the Euro.

While this is hardly news these days, it makes me cringe every time I see this headline. And let me tell you, we’ve seen a lot of it in the last couple of years.

Things have dropped a long way since the glory days for American tourists visiting Europe when the euro was worth only 83 cents to the dollar. Since that point, the dollar has plummeted to the point where a euro is now worth $1.3927–a record established on September 13 for the European currency. As if this wasn’t bad enough, the dollar also hit an all-time low against the Canadian dollar on the same day.

It’s gotten so bad that LA Times journalist Tom Petruno jokingly refers to the currency as the “American peso.”

While this is great news for American exporters whose products are now considered deals in Europe, it remains horrible news for us travelers in search of adventure abroad. It also means that my next holiday is going to be domestic. Kansas here I come!

Dollar Crumples But Tourists Still Come to Europe

The latest plunge of the dollar (more than 2 dollars to the British pound now and 1.35 to the Euro) caused many Americans in Europe to scale back their vacations, July 19 NY Times article reports. Apparently, these things are all relative. It has not significantly influenced the number of Americans traveling to Europe. Just as people are getting used to the nearly $4 gallons of gas, they are getting used to $5 cans of soda and $300 mediocre hotel rooms in Europe.

What it has changed, however, is the number of Europeans–with strong currency to their advantage–traveling to the US. It was cheap for Europeans to buy clothes and electronics in the US before (because of the low sales tax) but now with the exchange rate, it is super-cheap. Last time I was flying from London to NYC, they actually handed out magazines advertising all the real estate bargains in the world. One of the bargains was Manhattan, NY. I had to laugh.