Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Armchair Travel

The tidbit about banking in Maui is just one of many facts I gleaned from a recent travel-section binge. I had a number of Chronicles stacked up, and finally worked my way through them.

Speaking of banking, one other interesting thing I learned is that the dollar is surprisingly strong against foreign currencies these days. About a year ago, for example, one U.S. dollar was buying about one and a quarter New Zealand dollars. But now one dollar is worth almost two Kiwi dollars. This is about the rate I remember from my visit five years ago. The news about Australia is also pretty good for Americans. A year ago the currencies were very close to equal. Now a U.S. dollar is worth about half again the value of an Australian dollar. That will help considerably down under.

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