Canadian Exodus?

I remember when we were getting ready to retire from the Air Force in 2002 and looking at the dollar when it was 61.7 cents and wondering if it was worth buying our coach and if we would travel through the US to much. We decided we would just be a little frugal and do it anyway. Now the loonie is at 75 cents which is a lot better than what we thought it would be. When the loonie was close to a dollar we bough a piece of property here so we are not complaining. The loonies sweet spot is around 70 to 80 cents as far as the Canadian economy is concerned. Trade surplus etc etc. I think what is happening really in the case of the Texas snowbirds etc is there is a change of the guard with the present snowbirds to the next. There are lots of Canadian snowbirds here in California in their mid 50s to early 70's. The snowbird age group in texas seemed much older to us. We were stunned to see all these campgrounds with shuffle board and bag toss games etc. Like being in a time warp. Here is is golf, hiking , biking, tennis etc. Some of the parks there need to modernize a bit. Maybe put in a gym, non smoking RV parks etc. There will be more new snowbirds coming out of Canada soon enough but areas and parks will have to compete for them.

It is not only the dollar that is to blame, medical insurance keeps going up and medical conditions change making it more expensive for us to come down each year. So far we are fine but for how long...who knows.

There are a number of folks that did not return to our park this year, some Canadians most were for medical reasons although as it costs us 700 to 800 per month in exchange I am sure that this also comes into play.

Maybe a few park vacancies are due to the fact that right now a US dollar will pretty much buy a Euro or a Pound Sterling. Perhaps there are people who normally would be cooling their heels at the park who are instead Skiing Europe on the cheap.

We have a lot of vacancies and the previous tenants were from both Canada and the United States. It appears to be a generational thing as much as a citizenship decision. $1,300 to buy $1,000 is not fun, but nobody has mentioned it as a deal breaker.

Don't know if this will make any sense or if I can write it correctly, but it's nice to know. 3-4 years ago we would go out and kick up our heels. Now it's hard to suggest things like that because of the dollar value. Most are too proud to say it's an issue, and the last thing anyone would want is to strap anyone with an unneeded expense.

We have 4 Canadian couples in our circle of friends. The dollar is mention very seldom. In fact, their spending habits are beyond ours. Also the Park has an ample share of Canadians.

bgum wrote:
You only go around once.

I agree but we would like to at least get all the way around! :B

The dollar exchange costs in my post above is purely for campground fees. Over and above that, we typically deal with dollar exchanges for about another $1,500-$2,000 per year. My wife's a shopper and we enjoy eating out a lot. :C

... Eric

You only go around once.

No doubt the Canadian dollar is having an effect. From our personal perspective, we were spending 3 winter months per year in Myrtle Beach; we are now spending only 5 weeks. The additional issue for us is that we only have so much money per year that we can spend on camping. We enjoy having our trailer at our summer site in the NY Adirondackds wherever spend 3-4 day per week each season.

The total Canandian dollar effect for us is in the $1,200-$1,400 neighbourhood per year.