How the Economy's Loss Can Be Your Gain

That is, of course, if you are lucky and relatively unaffected by the downturn...

The recent economic tailspin has had one positive affect - certain sectors of travel and tourism are getting ridiculously cheap. Sadly, air fare isn't one of those areas.

Hotels are the main area of savings. Travelzoo (if you aren't on their weekly list you're being dumb, go travelzoo.com and sign up for their top 20 email list - distributed on Wednesdays) this week has a 4-star hotel on Broadway (the Millenium, I've stayed there, it's nice, but security and I had a run-in. But that's a different blog) for 199$ with an upgrade to a superior room. $199 for that neighborhood in September is freaking ridiculous, like, I almost want to book it just so I can brag that I got that price, level of ridiculous.

Vegas is even better as it's not as insulated as New York by Europeans looking to take advantage of the weak dollar against the Euro (and according to all reports, also not tip their waiters on thousand dollar dinner checks, but that's another blog). There are several 5-star hotels right now on the Las Vegas Strip for less than $170 per night. These are five star, suite hotels. I stayed at the Trump last week (also 5 star) for $158 per night.

Mexico is in a similar boat as Vegas. Stay at an all-inclusive beach resort, WITH air from select cities, for 5 days at $499.

Now if only my holiday plane tickets would start to go down...