The Terran carbon-based unit designating itself as "King"
<kingtutt1@earthlink.net> shared its ideas in rec.travel.latin-america
on Sat, 27 Sep 2003 03:32:28 GMT: 

> Hi,
> I'm planning on traveling the world over the next year.....
> One of my criteria is to travel to countries that have a good
> exchange rate with the US dollar.  That way I can get more for my
> dollar. 

        This is a fallacy, since exchange rates have little to do with 
relative costs.   You have to look deeper at the things you are 
interested in doing and purchasing, and comparing the actual costs of 
those items.  The exchange rate is really irrelevant.

        Your best resource for relative costs, might be the U.S. 
Government's Maximum per diem rates established for each country.  And 
for some countries, it is actually broken down into specific cities.  It 
is a long document, but fairly complete.  You can see these rates here: 
http://www.state.gov/m/a/als/prdm/2003/23594.htm.

> Anyone know a website where I can find this info? I've
> searched unsuccessfully thru google.

        www.oanda.com/convert/classic is one of the best Currency 
Converters I've found.

> Obviously I didn't put in the right words.  No use going somewhere
> where my money doesn't go very far  (obviously everyone is
> different......this is a matter of opinion).

        Again, exchange rates won't really tell you much about actual 
costs in the country you are visiting.

--Douglas