Yes, and also, watch for the deals: immediately after the SARS pandelirium, I travelled to China for $1100 which included 10 days of lodging, food, travel (Shanghai, Wuhan, Chongqing, Beijing...), a nice long boat ride down the Yangtze, and flight from/to Newark. Of course if SARS is not your cup of tea, this plan may not work out for you. ;-)
I think currently Orbitz has ~ $400 RT (which I admit is expensive compared to the $250 RT from a few years ago) to various spots in Europe. If you can't find a hostel, find a penzione, camp, sleep on the beach ;-).
Or go visit Chris Doss and he will take you to some *kistan where your almighty dollar probably will still find a handsome return!
Which reminds me: I just returned from the less intellectual coast where I met up with two of its most intellectual inhabitants, which was a great pleasure. Keeping with Internet tradition, Chuck Grimes is quite a different entity in person. Unless you think long meditations on Strauss, FreeBSD on the one hand, and rock-climbing go hand in hand! And I thought, in joining LBO, that I had found mates equally lacking a life!
--ravi
Yes, $1100 is still a lot of money but, but... it was China!! Like, I mean, like, one of the ten places anyone has to visit before they die!! BTW, skip Shanghai if you go.
In case you are curious the other nine of course are (parts of): the USA (Utah, NYC, CA), Italy, Japan, Botswana, India, Russia, Belize, Egypt, Iran. Plus Austria if you can swing it.