Where the Deals Are at the Tail End of Summer

Mexico, minus the scared people

A few weeks ago I took part in this article from Kiplinger’s Personal Finance titled 4 Sweet Deals for Last-minute summer travel .

I like this story because it emphasizes the contrarian traveler approach of taking advantage of an advantageous situation—one that may not last. The four destinations profiled are all ones that are suffering from too much 24-hour news channel time, so they’re being shunned.

Ireland and Greece have been all over the news since the spring because of their economic woes. The news channels, especially Fox News, love nothing more than telling us how scary Mexico is. (Hint, it helps pump up the numbers for those anti-immigration rallies. Never mind that we’re supplying most of Mexico’s guns and driving up the prices of all their drug exports.) The Gulf Coast of the U.S.? Well, when’s the last time you watched an hour of TV news without hearing about the BP oil spill?

So, there are deals galore in all these places, even though the pubs of Ireland and the islands of Greece are pretty much the same as they were a year ago—just cheaper. The beaches and towns of Mexico (outside the border zones) and the beaches of Florida (outside the westernmost Panhandle) are pretty much the same as they were two years ago—just emptier.

Turn off the TV and visit the spots the easily influenced are avoiding. The destinations could use your business and you will spend far less while avoiding the crowds.