Dollar less pummeled on the road less traveled

Twenty-five British pounds apiece for a round-trip shuttle train between London and Heathrow Airport didn’t sound so bad at the time.

Then Richard Johnson returned home to Santa Monica and opened the credit-card bill from the Thanksgiving getaway with his wife, Joyce, and realized that 50 pounds translated into $97 for two Heathrow Express tickets.

“It turned into an expensive 15-minute trip,” Richard Johnson said. Now, he said, “you can pretty much take prices here and double them in England.”

With the U.S. dollar recently trading at 53 cents to the British pound, that’s just about right.

The long slide of the U.S. dollar, which buys nearly 25% less in Western Europe than it did two years ago, isn’t expected to end soon, so penny-pinching vacationers may need to make a substantial shift in their thinking. In late December, the euro was worth more than $1.34.

And currency experts say we can expect higher prices in many, if not most, corners of the globe this year.

For Americans, the cheapest choice is to stay closer to home. But what fun is that if your heart is set on distant shores?

That leaves frugal wannabe wanderers with two options: Lower their standards or seek less expensive alternative destinations.

Arthur Frommer, the budget travel guru who has seen plenty of ups and downs in the dollar since starting his “Europe on $5 a Day” guidebooks in the 1950s, favors the first path.

“It is not a question of where do we go, but how do we tour,” he said. “When currencies turn sour, you simply drop your insistence on a certain category of accommodations and meals.”

You’ll need to go down two hotel categories, from deluxe to tourist class or from first-class to guesthouses, to offset the dollar’s fall in Western Europe, he said, adding: “I would have said ‘one category’ two months ago.”

Ouch.

Some travelers have devised other ways to stretch a dollar. On a May trip to Spain, Carl Cade of Los Angeles booked some time in nearby Morocco, where he stayed in what he called a “three-star hotel” for $35 a night. He figures he spent about $3,000 in his 2 1/2 weeks.

Cade, who works for a nonprofit, plans to tour Croatia, Slovenia, and Serbia and Montenegro in spring and maybe add Budapest, Hungary, and Venice, Italy, “if I have the time and the money.”

“The price of the euro is definitely tilting me toward places that are off the beaten path,” he said.

Globe-trotting John DiScala, who runs www.johnnyjet.com, a travel information website, shunned Europe last year. Instead, he headed for Southeast Asia: “In Bangkok, you take a taxi for 20 minutes and it costs like $2.”

Thrifty destinations

When it comes to thrifty alternatives to Western Europe, there’s good and bad news.

The bad news is that a partial list of countries where the dollar gained value between Dec. 14, 2003, and Dec. 14, 2004, looks like the “Tour de Travel Warning.” Indonesia (up nearly 10%), Kenya (about 6%) and Pakistan (about 4%) were, as of late last month, nations that the State Department urged Americans to avoid. Besides terrorist activity, Indonesia is also suffering the double whammy of the earthquake and tsunami that killed thousands.

Venezuela (up about 20%) wasn’t on the warning list, but the State Department noted that its capital, Caracas, “has one of the highest murder rates in Latin America” and described its airport as “dangerous.”

The good news is that some thrifty destinations hold more promise for tourists.

Among them:

* Eastern Europe: The dollar has lost 12% or more against some currencies here in the last year, but Eastern Europe is still a better deal than Western Europe, said Steve Loucks, spokesman for Minneapolis-based Carlson Wagonlit Travel Associates, an international network of travel agencies. That’s partly because prices started out lower in those countries.

A hotel room in Paris that commands $179 per night might cost half that in Budapest, according to Runzheimer’s Travel Management Network, a Web-based resource in Rochester, Wis., that benchmarks travel costs.

In Budapest and Prague in the Czech Republic, “you have fairy-tale settings that survived war after war,” Loucks said.

“We’re getting a lot of requests for Romania and Bulgaria,” said Pamela Lassers of Abercrombie & Kent Inc. in Oakbrook, Ill. The charms for clients of this luxury adventure company, she said, include recently restored historic sites.

* Mexico and the Caribbean: “There’s so much bang for your buck in Mexico,” Loucks said. The dollar held steady against the peso last year, after gaining about 10% on it the year before.

Loucks said Carlson-Wagonlit agents had been booking more vacations to Mexico and, to a lesser degree, the Caribbean.

“In Jamaica and Barbados,” Frommer said, “the dollar -- for some strange reason -- has improved in value against the local currency.”

* Southeast Asia: Traveler’s Bookcase in L.A. has been selling nearly as many books about Thailand and Vietnam as it has books on Spain, said owner Priscilla Ulene, although it is still unclear what effect the recent tsunami will have on tourism, particularly in Thailand.

The dollar held its own against the Thai baht last year. In Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, a taxi ride downtown from the airport costs about $9 and lunch averages less than $6, according to Runzheimer. Hotels are inexpensive too. Both countries offer fascinating historic sites, exotic cultures and breathtaking scenery.

* China: The dollar remains stable here. The Chinese want to keep their yuan, well, wan to encourage Americans to buy their goods, said Robert K. Ryan, managing director of foreign exchange at the Bank of New York.

Prices vary widely in this increasingly popular destination.

“You can spend $2 for a sumptuous meal,” Loucks said, “or pay over $100 at a five-star hotel that is Western.” To save, eat like the locals.

* Argentina: The peso dropped precipitously three years ago, when the nation’s president devalued it by 40% during an economic crisis. It has never really recovered.

On their last trip there, in October, Mark and Vanessa Wittenberg of West Hollywood always ordered the best wine in the house, he said, after discovering that just $5 would buy a “really nice bottle.” A fine pair of Italian-made dress shoes that might cost $150 in the U.S. went for about $30 in Argentina, he added.

Such savings come at a price. Argentina’s economy remains unsettled, and, according to the State Department, street crime in Buenos Aires and other large cities “is a serious problem.”

Europe or bust

If you’d rather buy those Italian dress shoes in the country that crafted them, you’ll have company. Which brings us to a third option: Open your wallet wide and go to Western Europe anyway. Plenty of Americans are doing just that.

CIE Tours International, a Morristown, N.J.-based tour company specializing in Britain and Ireland, just finished its best year since its founding 73 years ago, said Brian Stack, its president.

Stack said CIE Tours sent more than 40,000 travelers to the British Isles in 2004, and he expects even better sales this year.

“There’s a pent-up demand,” he said, as a result of foreign trips that Americans delayed after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Some tips for the Western Europe-bound:

* Go off-season, which is November through March in most places. Braving the cold won’t slim down your restaurant bills, but it may take 40% or more off airfares and you may sleep cheaper. You don’t need nice weather for museums or theater.

* Book an air-hotel package, a cruise or an escorted tour. The more of your vacation you buy in advance, the less you’ll be at the mercy of the local currency when you arrive months later. You may also pay less because tour companies usually negotiate prices well in advance, Stack said, and contract to buy foreign currencies at fixed rates. They pass some savings on to clients.

* Use travel bidding and discount sites such as www.priceline.com and www.hotwire.com.

By winning bids on Priceline, Keith Jacob Hoffnagle of San Clemente paid $399 round trip for LAX-London airfare and $75 a night to stay at a Prague hotel that was charging walk-ins nearly $300.

The recent UCLA graduate also said he stayed in hostels, took the train and used intra-European airlines. He figured his total trip tab for 2 1/2 months was less than $4,000.

For 50 tips on saving in Europe, visit www.ricksteves.com/plan/tips/thrifty50.htm. It’s a perennial list that is regularly updated by Rick Steves, a guidebook author and founder of the Europe Through the Back Door tour company in Edmonds, Wash.

“When the economy is jittery or the dollar is down, we need to travel a little smarter to turn our dreams into smooth, affordable reality,” Steves writes on the website.

For 2005, that may be “a lot smarter.”

Times staff writer Beverly Beyette contributed to this story.