[ How they see us: A cheap vacation for Europeans ]

Europeans are flocking to America this summer, said Germany’s Nürnberger Nachrichten in an editorial. The weak dollar has made the U.S. a shockingly cheap place to visit—at least for anyone with euros to spend. Last year, the number of German tourists to the U.S. was up 9 percent and is expected to increase even more this year. But it’s not just the low prices that attract Europeans: “It is also the prospect of a political change.” The Bush era is finally drawing to an end, and Europe is ready to forgive America for its warmongering, torture-promoting ways. “A dam is breaking right now,” said one tour promoter. “An intense longing for the U.S. has built up and is now finding an outlet.”

The French, too, are heading westward, said F.J. and B.M. in France’s Le Parisien Économie. Tour operators who specialize in the U.S. say their reservations are up 50 percent this year. French tourists are “bringing their kids and staying in more expensive hotels” than in previous years. And they’re staying longer, too: The average French stay in the States this year is projected to be 17 days, compared with 12 days just three years ago.

With so many Europeans around, shopkeepers in major American cities “have actually begun accepting euros,” said Marie Julien in Germany’s Hamburger Abendblatt. One New York antiques dealer said that last weekend, “fully half his customers were Europeans.” He’s saving the euros he takes in to spend next fall, when he heads to Europe on a buying trip. Other storeowners simply accept euros as a courtesy to their customers; they later have to exchange them for dollars at a bank. As a result, these storeowners charge a big markup on the euro price. So Europeans who really want to save money “should be wary” of spending their own currency. It may be convenient to plunk down euros at a Boston bar, but you’ll get a better rate by exchanging them at the nearest bank.

There’s one thing that hasn’t gotten cheaper in the U.S., said Chris Haslam in Britain’s Sunday Times, and that is gasoline. British tourists tend to book “fly-drive” trips to the U.S., renting a car and motoring from spot to spot rather than staying in a single city. But with gas prices at an all-time high, “the open road will be less attractive to tourists this year.” The popular “trans-American adventure,” a drive from New York to Los Angeles, would have cost you just a few hundred dollars in gas last year. This summer, it will break you.

Fortunately, Brits can take advantage of the weak dollar in a different way, said Stephen Adams in Britain’s Daily Telegraph. Instead of vacationing in the States, we are buying investment homes there. The new army of “Barbies”—from BARB, the term for those who Buy Abroad but Rent in Britain—has targeted the cheap property flooding the American market as a result of the mortgage crisis. In parts of Florida, “developers have cut condominium prices by up to 40 percent.” Young British professionals who couldn’t hope to buy a condo in London can snap one up as an investment property, or even a vacation home, in America. The credit crunch may be a tragedy for the locals, but for us, it means “a host of trans-Atlantic bargains.”

Source: theweekdaily.com