Everywhere I look it seems that travel has become temptingly cheap. Hotel rooms in Manhattan that were going for $400 last year at this time are half that price now. You can once again stay in Manhattan, in high season, for under $100, according to rates I found at a hotel discount site. Still, $200 a night for a decent hotel room or $100 for a pod room doesn't tempt the average home exchanger, who would rather stay for free in a nicer, larger apartment.
On the other hand, the same hotel site shows five-star hotel rooms in Las Vegas readily available for under $100. Three-star hotels in Sin City are offering rooms for under $20. There are two-star rooms in casinos on offer next month for $12. That is not a typo.
I would almost always rather stay in a swap home than in a hotel. In some instances, however, I would warn swappers away from exchanging. This exception would be when the swap homes on offer are inconvenient, unsafe or more of a hassle than an equivalent hotel room.
When it comes to the current fire sale in Las Vegas, I would argue that all of these factors are likely to be the case. People visit Las Vegas to see the famous "Strip" but few people have homes located anywhere near the Strip. Las Vegas also has the highest foreclosure rate of any real estate market in the United States. If you swap there you may find yourself in a "ghost town" neighborhood where the houses around you are vacant and in foreclosure. This is not a secure, pleasant way to vacation. If you are headed to Las Vegas, don't both to set up a swap.
You will almost never hear me say that again. Except in the case of one other US destination: Florida. I don't recommend that anyone visit Florida because it has extremely bigoted laws and practices, thanks in large part to a majority of active voters unsophisticated enough to recently uphold an obsolete law banning Asian immigrants from owning property.
My Florida readers hopefully did not vote for this kind of ignorant policy position, but the fact remains that their state is dangerous for many families to visit. And it is true that a handful of other US states also bar gay partners from visiting dying spouses in the hospital and/or prevent gay foster parents from creating "forever families" by adopting the children they are raising. However, compared to the droves of people who travel to Florida, relatively few people want to vacation in those other states (for the record, they are: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin. Don't go there.)
I used to love to visit Florida in January or February because the weather is a lot nicer than winter where I live. It's a great place to avoid during the June to December hurricane season, no matter what your politics.
There a far more politically progressive and ecologically appropriate places to vacation than Las Vegas and Florida. These two destinations, at least at today's lodging prices, are also the rare examples of places where it may be more advantageous to pay fire-sale prices for a stay at a hotel near an attraction you want to visit than to home swap. You may never read those words here again.
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