Places where a buck still goes a long way

DESPITE the weak dollar, places still exist where U.S. currency has retained its strength and where Americans can travel relatively inexpensively. The following are typical.

Slovenia: Eastern Europe is still far cheaper than Western Europe -- except for popular Prague, where even basic hotel rooms now cost well over $100.

To see a splendid Baroque city on a par with Prague but without the crowds or inflated prices, head south to Slovenia’s capital, Ljubljana. The lakes, castles and Julian Alps of Slovenia are similar to what you’d see in southern Germany, Austria or Switzerland but at greatly reduced rates.

Croatia: The Croatian coastline meanders for almost 1,000 miles above the Adriatic’s crystalline waters, weaving in and out of more than 1,000 islands. It is scattered with fishing towns that recall the Italian Riviera before the tourists arrived. Cathedrals glitter with mosaics, and the morning catch of the day costs $2 at a table by the docks.

Croatia is where the ruins of the Roman Empire and the Venetian Republic meet the exotic charms of the East. The Emperor Diocletian’s palace ruins are the center of Split, and the Viennese Beaux Arts beauty of Zagreb invites you to sit in a cafe, sip coffee and imagine you’re a Hapsburg prince on holiday.

Argentina (Buenos Aires): The Paris of South America is still the continent’s capital of chic, but the collapse of the peso has sent prices spiraling downward.

A Buenos Aires break, once costlier than a trip to Europe, now rings in cheaper than a weekend in San Francisco. Steak dinners cost less than $10, top-flight hotels go for well under $100, and you can buy a tango lesson for $5.

Visitors find the fashion and style of a European capital. Street performers and artists line the pedestrian Caminito in La Boca neighborhood. The Recoleta district has innumerable cafes and chichi restaurants; even the cemetery is interesting, with Eva Peron and many aristocrats as long-term guests.

Vietnam: Now that you can fly directly from the U.S. to Vietnam, it’s easier than ever to explore this coastal Asian country, where prices are spectacularly low.

Some highlights: the temples of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, the imperial splendor of Hoi An on the Perfume River, the river paddies and floating markets in the Mekong Delta, sailing a dragon boat between the hundreds of jungle islands of Halong Bay and learning about the other side of the Vietnam War by crawling through the Cu Chi tunnels alongside a former Viet Cong.

Guatemala: This Central American country has jungles like those in Costa Rica, Maya ruins comparable to Mexico’s Yucatan and beaches as beautiful as those in Belize. But past civil strife, the drug wars of the 1980s and State Department crime warnings have kept it from being overrun with the holiday masses that visit its neighbors.

Backpackers and other intrepid travelers have rediscovered this inexpensive tropical paradise, which means it can’t be long before the beaches begin to resemble the wall-to-wall coastline of Cancun and the gorgeous temples of Tikal high in the jungle become as popular as Disneyland.

Laos: This sliver of a country landlocked between Thailand and Vietnam in Southeast Asia receives a fraction of the visitors of its neighbors. Its fans want to keep it a secret: It’s like Thailand or Cambodia before tourism, the most unspoiled and least expensive part of Indochina and a land of unsurpassed beauty.

Elsewhere: China, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and other countries have currencies that sell at a major discount against the U.S. dollar and are therefore reasonably priced to the U.S. tourist.