Asuncion or Bust

I was hanging out over at Escape Brooklyn's blog and her post on Seattle hipsters flocking to Portland for better home prices made me wonder where the hell the cheapest place to live really is. Findlay, IL? Santa Claus, GA? No idea.

Turns out, Asuncion, Paraguay recently won the non-coveted title, five different times. That made me wonder what it cost to travel there. According to everyone from Samantha Brown on the Travel Channel to Frommers, South America is one of the few places that hasn't ripped us a new one in regards to cost of travel. And with all this talk of the gas, housing, and travel crisis, is South America our answer to overseas travel?



According to Lonely Planet, Ausuncion is dirt cheap, and a little bit dirty to boot. Author Rob Crossan quietly brags about shelling out the smallest note he had for some wine and getting the royal treatment accustomed to a celebrity.

But Paraguay doesn't necessarily conjure images of a relaxing or even traditionally adventurous vacation. Instead it has a reputation for squalor, corruption, and overt poverty. The only thing I know about the country is from Rosie, a cantankerous personal assistant in New York who fled Paraguay for a better life and recently had to denounce her citizenship there to get her Green Card over here. She currently spends her time insulting the staff, using cream in lattes for those on a diet, and asking female staff members if they're pregnant with a dismal look a their bellies, swollen from a hangover.

But to visit? Lonely Planet pegs it as a fantastic driving country with "winding asphalt that snakes through the empty savannahs and lonely ranches..."

On your adventure to do list: Itaipu Dam, religious artifacts, an a dry seabed called Chaco ideal for rare bird watching. As far as wallet logistics - a full Burger King meal (love that even Asuncion has been touched by the graces of the fast food industry) runs you upwards of $2, and beer under $1. While I'm stunned a room at a nice hotel runs a partly $5.60, Escape Brooklyn will faint when she reads a large downtown apartment rents for $190. Wonder what a mansion would set you back?

I'm thinking there aren't any press trips to Asuncion... that they're tourist office isn't necessarily handing out free rooms to writers and showing the sites. But my policy is I'll go anywhere once, so why not Asuncion?

Speaking of press trips, I'll be in Ohio next week, then off to the Caribbean. My hubster gets to tag along on both. He's got a hard life.


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