Ten Cheap Destinations

According to Air Fare Watchdog (www.airfarewatchdog.com,) there are 10 cities or countries that are good value now but may not remain so. Some of them are familiar, like Bucharest, Romania and Sofia, Bulgaria, while others, such as Greece are returning to the cheap list.

For many years people were advised to favour Turkey over Greece, but since the financial crisis the latter is once again affordable. One that was new to me is the Dominican Republic, claimed to be one of the least costly destinations in an expensive region, the Caribbean. My local newspaper, the Montreal Gazette (www.montrealgazette.com) even featured the Dominican Republic's neighbour on the island of Hispaniola, Haiti, in a front page travel story just this past weekend. Haiti was long considered a place to be avoided by tourists, but apparently that is changing.

Mexico City rates with Air Fare Watchdog as a good option for relatively cheap luxury hotel rooms, which cost an average of $210 per night compared with $730 in New York City. Lisbon, Portugal is another relative bargain, as is Riga, Latvia. Nicarague and India round out the selection of good value destinations.

In order to access this story and other interesting blog posts, you seem to have to sign up for Fare Alerts with Air Fare Watchdog, but it is worth the trouble.