The Faltering Economy and Travel

Every time I log onto CNN, MSN, or Salon, I'm faced with endless articles and nightmarish themes featuring the following:

• The housing crisis - every last person in America is defaulting on their loans and walking away from their homes. Every city will soon look like Detroit with boarded-up skyscrapers and crime rates will soar.

• Home owners are burning their houses to the ground, a ritual sacrifice to the mortgage Gods that could rival the final scene in The Wicker Man. (the original, not the Nicholas Cage version)

Nothing to see here, Officer, just a defaulted home burning to the ground

• Even if you're living comfortably and paying your mortgage, all your neighbors are jumping ship and your home's value is currently worth $2 and a button.
  

• Lenders are so freaked about about the mortgage crisis, aspiring homeowners will never get a loan again, even if you have sparkling credit.
  

• Private school loans are at an all time high. No one can go to school without spending about $4 million bucks and paying 80% interest afterwards, thus passing down loans to your children and grandchildren.
  

• Average Americans now must buy generic, near-spoiled milk and sugarless, cartoonless cereal and walk to work because gas is just too expensive.

• Starbucks will go bankrupt because no one is buying frivolous $5 lattes with vanilla flavoring, extra foam, and half-caffeinated. The culprit? The economy.
  

• The dollar is at such an all-time low that Europeans viciously mock us, buying up our real estate, retail, businesses, and restaurants with the allowance of a school child.

• Global warming will kill us before dawn. This somehow relates to the economy, too.
  

March 15th: Mortgage Due - March 16th: Burn down home to avoid paying mortgage

However, travel continues to increase, albeit slowly. My theory is that people are so overworked trying to pay for their near-defaulted mortgages (or that the news has them so fearful of the faltering economy) that they need a vacation to escape it all. Not to mention most families have two working parents who are trying to balance kids with work with domestic bliss, so when else does good old fashioned family fun take place?

I think it's irresponsible for the media to continually stalk us with doomsday information. I'm all for getting the facts, but countless stories about how we're all in hell is not good for our collective psyche. It'd be nice to balance some of these horror stories with success stories of people making it work and projected economical outcomes for the next 6, 12, and 18 months.

So should we spend any money at all on travel? It's an easy answer. No, if we don't have enough. Yes, if we can afford it and travel financially responsibly. My thought is that we can't stop living life and taking simple measures like going camping and having a bottle of wine for a total cost of $25 once in awhile. I've noticed people seem apologetic and make excuses when they spend money on travel. If they're compromising their mortgages to travel, they should feel guilty. But where's the shame in saving for a much needed break from our "current climate"?

This whole messy situation does concern me, though. With Europe's pound currently hovering over double to our dollar, I'm not sure how we'll manage our friend's Scotland wedding this fall. My plan is to use frequent flyer miles and get a press rate on a hotel room, then eat out sparingly. Every city has free attractions, so I' m not overly concerned with entertainment. I know we can swing it, but it could mean not being able to indulge on any other travel this year, and that's a problem for me.

Lately we've been considering a cheaper alternative to international travel: South America. It's one of the few areas where our dollar can stretch past a pack of gum. I'll be interested to see if their travel industry starts soaring because of our own faltering economy.

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