MIGRATING SNOWBIRDS

As the snow rises and the temperature falls you are probably re-thinking the hasty decision you made not to go to the U.S. given certain recent events there. Still, you want to get warm and travel to other sunny places typically involves planes and usually Pearson Airport and a lot of people in a very small space singing “Yellow Bird”. And the song is usually worse on the flight back and you know you will feel embarrassed about showing up at work with those corn rows you felt obliged to get.  Now you are thinking that perhaps things are not so bad south of the border and there have been no reports of it being clogged by people fleeing north.

     There is the problem, however, of the Hudson Bay Peso and the fact that you will almost need a toonie, rather than a loonie, to purchase just one U.S.$ This means you will have to find a cheap destination, stay in Motel 6’s on the way and dine only in Caucasian Barrels (that is a joke which involves a petition that went viral  and Cracker Barrels being containers for backward white people).  My purpose below is to steer you in the right direction to the low-cost options. If you are a member of CARP, you probably know all this. (For U.S. readers that acronym stands for the “Canadian Association of Retired People” which represents the basket of delusionals who read the publication Zoomer and think 80 is the new 40. It is like the AARP. For you Canadians, AARP stands for “Armed Angry Retired People” or “Angry Armed Retired People”, I can’t remember which.)

   Now you probably know that Manhattan, Kansas is likely to be a cheaper place to visit than the other one. But beyond that, your knowledge of American geography may be a little shaky and you may not know much about regional variations in prices. To use a Canadian example that will clarify things: if you are traveling to Inuvik factor in the price of limes for your G&T since they will cost more than even the ones in a Whole Foods in Vancouver.

   Last summer, the U.S. government introduced “Regional Price Parities” which show how prices vary in different areas. I will provide a recent chart that indicates where the weak loonie will be its strongest. Your top destination should be the one at the bottom of the chart. Oddly enough, Washington, D.C is the most expensive, place, but you probably weren’t heading there anyway.  

Sources:

“What $100 Can Buy, State by State,” Niraj Chokshi, New York Times, Aug. 8, 2016.

For the real data see the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis, which is where I found the chart.