Feeling Rich by Going Away

3/18/2009 11 comments

It’s easy to feel poor right now with the economy being what it is. So I thought it would be an appropriate time to pull out this excerpt from the book Make Your Travel Dollars Worth a Fortune. Often the difference between feeling flush and feeling broke is a matter of where you are standing.

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If you walk into the average bar in Copenhagen, Denmark, how much do you think you’ll pay for a draft beer? If you said anything less than eight dollars, you’re wrong. Now how much do you think you’ll pay if you walk into the average bar in Prague and buy a beer? If you said anything over $1.50, you’re wrong again. And you’ll get a better beer for a dollar in the Czech Republic than you will for nine dollars in Copenhagen. Looking at it another way, you could buy a round of the world’s best pilsner for yourself and eight friends in Prague for what you’d pay for a bottle of Carlsberg in Denmark.

Let’s go up a notch and look at meals for two in a restaurant. If you go traveling around the Southeast Asian countries of Thailand, Malaysia, Laos, and Vietnam, you can almost always get a good local meal for a dollar or two. You’ll have to go pretty upscale to spend more than five dollars per person on lunch. On the other hand, you can easily pay five dollars on one apple in Japan and you’ll be hard-pressed to even find a bowl of instant ramen noodles for that price at a Tokyo lunch counter. For what it costs to get a sub sandwich and a soda in the U.S., you can get a three-course lunch for two served to you in most of Latin America.

When it comes to hotels, prices between different countries can easily vary by a factor or two or three. For $35, about the price of the very cheapest Motel 6 in the USA, you’ll be lucky to get a private room of any kind in Western Europe, even at a hostel. In much of Latin America, that will get you a nice big hotel room with character, right in the historic center. In the lesser-known areas of Southeast Asia and the Indian subcontinent, it will get you the best room in town, complete with gracious room service, a bellhop to carry your bags, and a nice pool.

At the very top end of the scale, however, these differences can be moot. The average daily wage in Bhutan may be $2 per day, but that doesn’t stop Amankora Paro hotel from being able to charge $1,189 per night for a suite. Citizens of the Maldives are quite poor by western standards, but there are hotels in the Maldives with listed rates of $10,000 per night! If an area is “the place to be” for celebrities and the pampered rich, all bets are off.

Beers of the World, Travel bargains, Vacation deals, Work/Life/Travel Balance none

Comments

Written by Harold on 3/18/2009. Reply

Hi Tim,
I’m a big fan of your blog and writing, as much as I am a fan and evangelist of long term travel in countries whose currencies make that the most possible. I’m living in Japan partly to take advantage of the yen vs Asia. Yet I have a question for your moral side – your college philosophical, beers on a late night, experience recovering, travel enlightened side: Is there anything wrong about the inequality of currencies and, because they’re related, taking advantage of that inequality? I’m sure you’ve thought about it, and while I wish I could travel like a king among men without sacrificing my time to earn/scam the money, and not think about it, I suspect something needs to change and you’re one of the ones who could best inform the conversation.
Written by Joe on 3/19/2009. Reply

Tim,
While I agree with parts of the substance of Harold’s remark of Mar 18, 2009, I disagree with it’s tone. Yes, maybe it is time to stop measuring the worth of country and its economic climate in beer – albeit I understand your everyman common denominator approach. Having lived in four countries in the last twenty years, (one asian, three european) I, like you, have personally witnessed some giants of tourism fall from grace due to economic policies of not only the USA but of their own countries. Regardless, like Harold, maybe it is time to reconsider the tone of your wonderful articles, and more accurately gauge the average age of your readership. You’re a married man with children of a certain age yourself: at what point does one decide its more appropriate to take in to account all the positives and negatives of a country’s economy, rather than just give us the college backpacker’s POV?
Written by Donald on 3/20/2009. Reply

I disagree with both the posters before me.

Harold – price is relative and there are many possible reasons. For instance, goods are expensive in Iceland because they can’t grow much anything, don’t have the population or raw materials for a manufacturing base, and therefore have to import everything (which adds costs). It’s an expensive country (usually). Does that mean that I feel more moral for paying up for things? No. Nor do I feel less moral or immoral paying down in countries where things are cheap. In fact, if I was charged more than the “going rate” it would be the other party in the transaction being immoral.

Joe – while there may be things in this blog that seem “backpacky” to you, this post wasn’t one of them so why choose this one to make that point. Tim gives examples of restaurants and many classes of lodging here. Backpackers tend to not eat out much and use hostels and campgrounds rather than nice hotels. Therefore, I don’t see your point at least pertaining to this post.

Tim – Keep it up. Airfare is expensive to get nearly anywhere overseas. Keep reminding us that once you land, you make that cost up and more by saving on everything else. We all could use the encouragement to get out there.
Written by Joe on 3/20/2009. Reply

My apologies, Tim, if I have somehow offended you and your blog. I sometimes forget why I usually don’t post to blogs; there’s always someone who can misinterpret anything said and use it for their own purposes. Yet another example of why I should actively pursue self-restraint early in the a.m.
Written by tim on 3/20/2009. Reply

1) Ignoring the massive budget impact of currency fluctuations is like ignoring what’s on sale at the supermarket, which bank is offering the best interest rate, or which mutual fund is best at picking long-term winners. It’s got no more to do with morals than does shopping at Big Lots or Family Dollar. I didn’t blame anyone for flying to the U.S. for a shopping spree when our currency took a dive. That’s just taking advantage of a great opportunity—and the merchants were thrilled.

2) As I’ve stated on here repeatedly, I’m not a long-term backpacker anymore. But I don’t hesitate to take my family to cheap places or go there myself on writing trips. The Economist uses the Big Mac to discuss relative prices; I use hotels and beer. (And yes, I do still drink beer. I didn’t know that stopped when you left college…)

3) I would argue that it’s not all that expensive at the moment to fly overseas: the price of the average monthly car payment for many destinations. Less than the cheapest HDTV. So it’s a matter of priorities up front, but then a matter of being far better off financially after arrival.
Written by Carlson on 3/21/2009. Reply

“More appropriate” or “taking advantage of that inequality”? I think any person running a hotel or store in a cheap currency country would have a real problem with anyone telling them tourists should go elsewhere for moral reasons. Is spending lots of money in Italy and being all mature about it better than spending 1/4 that amount in Honduras and helping to feed and clothe an extended family? They need your money far more in the places this blogger writes about than in mature, first-world nations with more stability. (That includes the bar owners too.)
Written by Harold on 3/23/2009. Reply

Tim,
I think there is a difference between checking which pasta is on sale at the supermarket and researching which country is a bargain. Natural price fluctuations across the Canadian/American border are one thing – but the relatively fixed inequalities/bargains that let us live luxuriously in Thailand, for instance, keep most Thais from ever dreaming of visiting our respective countries. Is that ok?

I didn’t mean to suggest any of the other arguments interpreted by other commenters. Again, keep up the wonderful travel evangelism.
Written by Carlson on 3/23/2009. Reply

Harold, tourism is, by most estimates, the #1 industry in Thailand, employing a huge percentage of its workers. How many Thai people wish we would all stay home and stop taking advantage of the “fixed inequalities/bargains”? Their tourism board touts the value proposition for a reason: it’s one of their key selling points.
Written by Ares Vista on 7/15/2009. Reply

Travel is one of the most rewarding advantages of having money. We should be careful to take advantage of opportunities, but taking a vacation is a great way to celebrate all your hard work and successes.
Written by download music on 7/15/2009. Reply

There are so many opportunities to take a wonderful vacation on a much smaller budget, and you can do something positive for the people of that region with the money you save!
Written by intering on 11/17/2010. Reply

One thing I like about planning a trip is sourcing places were the beer is nice and cheap. I have always wanted to go to Copenhagen but I will need to put in some more hours at the office to prop up my beer tokens if it is over $8. The Czech Republic sounds great, not only is it a nice Country, not only is $1.50 for a beer – my footballing idole (Dado Prso) also happens to come from this country, the Czech Replublic it is for me. I would also love to experiance the diferent cultures in the southeast Asian countries you mention but again I will need to put in a few more ours at the office. Thanks for the post, it was an interesting read, I must now go to the Czech Republic and see for myself if the beer is only $1.50 :-)

Feeling Rich by Going Away

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