After the peso crisis of 2001, Argentina became the destination célèbre for Americans, who flocked to South America to revel in the astonishing buys that a devalued currency can yield. Time has passed, and now we're slogging through our own economic turmoil. So is a trip to Buenos Aires still a great buy, or have the locals caught on to the influx and jacked up rates to milk tourist dollars?

Michael Luongo, author of Frommer's Buenos Aires, visits WalletPop's studios to tell us that the answer is a little bit of both. He lets us know what the situation is in the storied colonial capital of Argentina, and he fills us in on how a first-time visitor there can still find deals without losing the authenticity of the local culture. Sure, you've seem washed-up reality stars do the tango on Dancing with the Stars, but is it feasible to dance it in the real Argentine milongueros?

As part of our ongoing series, WalletPop tells you how to go for less:

Milan and Florence weighed in at over $1.6 million for a home, on average; Rome just under $1.3 million. And that's dollars, not lira (which, of course, don't even exist anymore).

Also out of reach for many Americans these days are the pink sands of Hamilton, Bermuda, Bucaresti, Romania and Shanghai, all averaging above $1.3 million, not to mention Vancouver and Dublin at $1.1 million -- and Dubai trailing not far behind.

The most expensive market is not in Italy, however. It's in Singapore, where homes average nearly $1.9 million. Coldwell Banker points out that is "10% lower than La Jolla" but fails to mention it is also 10 times the average home value in everyday places like Phoenix, Mobile, Ala, Lexington, KY, and Syracuse, NY.

Time was when the sage advice was to "go west young man" in search of fame, fortune and nifty real estate deals. But in 2009, heading east may be a better idea. At least if you are starting out in the U.S. And, when I say east, I mean like all the way to Poland! Now hold on to your Polish zlotys while I explain this one:

Seems Poland, Krakow in particular, is a darn good place to not only indulge in a sausage or two, but also to buy up chunks of real estate at prices that are down anywhere from 9% to 17%.

Here are some serious stocking stuffers -- if you can get them: Always wanted to spend a Christmas in Washington D.C.? Your dream might come true, especially if you can score some free tickets to the 2009 National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony.

Free tickets for this event will be distributed via lottery system for the first time this year. The lottery system opened just after midnight on Wednesday November 4 and will remain open until 11:59 p.m. EST on Friday, November 6.

The National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony will be held Thursday, Dec. 3, 2009 at 5 p.m.

To participate, visit the event's website here, or call (877) 444-6777. The ticket lottery will include 2,800 ticketed seats and an additional 7,000 standing room tickets, which significantly increases capacity, and your likelihood of getting in on the event.

You'll be notified by email or U.S. mail (if you entered the lottery by phone) if you're a lucky ticket-holder. Tickets will be mailed by November 15.

What are you waiting for? Enter and get yourself in the holiday spirit.

Royal Caribbean's newest behemoth, the Oasis of the Seas, doesn't arrive in our waters for another couple of weeks, but pictures of the awesome cruise ship are already appearing in the news.

How could they not? She's the largest cruise ship on the planet, towering 20 stories over the waves and cutting a 1,180-foot-long profile against the horizon. On board, there's space for 6,300 paying guests, 2,000 crew members, a 1,300-seat theater (larger than some on Broadway), some duplex cabins, an ice rink, an indoor/outdoor park, and a cocktail bar that travels from deck to deck via an elevator system.

WalletPop will be on board for her maiden voyage out of Fort Lauderdale on Nov. 20, and our own Jason Cochran will bring you video proof of this astonishing new feat of engineering.

Survey after survey confirms what you and I already know: Staycations are stupid. You and I don't just hate the stupid word, which was dreamed up by opportunistic marketing departments to sell old things in a new way. We also hate the idea of them, and as soon as the money starts flowing again, we're outta here.

But there's also no doubt that more of us are staying closer to home right now. Due both to a downturn in personal spending and a cutback in business travel expenses, America's hotels and airlines are dramatically less full nowadays than they were three years ago.

The urge to explore, being an inherent and eternal quality of mankind, hasn't left us; only the means to explore have. Still, it's also true that the longer this mess persists, the more travel will be changed forever. Some shifts have already been cemented into place.

Dear WalletPop:

On Oct. 8, Karl and I checked into our Southwest flight to Vegas. The man at the counter was totally distracted -- carrying on a conversation with another employee behind the counter. I really didn't think much of it at the time but ... he carelessly placed our tickets back on the counter and continued his conversation. I picked up the tickets and noticed that we ONLY had a boarding pass now.

We originally had handed him lavender oaktag tickets we received in the mail three weeks before, and those tickets were for our flight to Vegas as well as our return trip. When he handed us back a plain-paper boarding pass, I asked if that was all we needed. He stopped his conversation mid-sentence and told us we were free to proceed.

In the next generation of Disney Cruise Line ships, the windowless inside cabin may be the ones kids beg their parents to book. In a boon to budget travelers, the cheapest, least desirable cruise stateroom category will be getting a major sexing up in January of 2011, when the Disney Dream, now under construction, is christened.

All inside cabins on the new Dream will be equipped with an oh-so-Disney innovation: the "virtual porthole." Above the bed, a round TV window will be embedded in the wall, made to look like an old-fashioned ship's porthole. Through it, the tenants in the modern equivalent of steerage will be able to watch live, streaming high-def images of the ocean outside, just as the guests in more expensive cabins see it for real.

Americans, we have something of the caveman in us. We, like our furry forebears, regularly gather the family around an open fire, where we roast meat for ritual consumption. From flaming pit to flaming pit, fierce rivalries have developed between clans over the right way to prepare and devour the kill.

Yes, when it comes to cheap meals that satisfy our bellies, there's nothing quite as fundamental, or as all-American, as barbecue. Despite its long preparation time and complicated and guarded seasoning methods, BBQ is also one of the most reliable budget meals available.

It won't be cheap, but more elbow room will soon be available for some passengers of WestJet Airlines.

The carrier, which does not offer business class, is debuting a trial program to cut out seating passengers in the dreaded middle seat in the first eight to 10 rows of its single aisle planes. For now, the extra space is only proposed on flights between Calgary and Hawaii, and those between Edmonton and Hawaii. The proposed fee to stretch out: $20 per leg.

Although the plan will certainly please passengers, it's not necessarily altruistic. The carrier doesn't have any long-range planes in its fleet. Cutting down the number of passengers on board (and presumably their corresponding overloaded luggage) the mid-range Boeing 737-700's will reduce the weight load and maximize fuel. Perhaps most importantly, it will comply with aviation safety regulations.

The new seating chart, scheduled to take effect with the March 2010 schedule, could lead to a happier flight for all on board. In recent years there have been numerous verbal spats among cramped passengers battling for a place to rest their arms.

If the plan is successful, it will interesting to see if it catches on with other, larger carriers.

If you had the option, would you pay a surcharge for more room? How much do you think an empty arm rest is really worth?

I can still hear myself at the age of 10, whining "There's nothing to DO!" The designers of the new web site Goby.com must have had the same experience, and created this tool for just that purpose. Unfortunately, like many fledgling sites, it isn't ready for prime time yet.

Goby.com's search feature is pleasingly simple. It asks three questions: what (do you want to do) where (do you want to do it) and when. The first field, what, has a drop down menu for categories including places to go, food and drink, events, fall fun, places to stay, family fun, etc. With a few clicks, I found out that

• Mute Math is playing in Columbus, Ohio, this weekend
• I can get a room at the Holiday Inn in Marietta, Ohio, for $86
• There is a playground in Klein Park in Las Cruces, N.M.
• The American Museum of Radio and Electricity in Bellingham, Wash., is $2 per person
• A ghost tour in Tuscon, Ariz.,. apparently is taking place at Voyager RV Park, which claims a "special feeling of a real community, wonderful friends, neighbors, and the endless array of things to do and places to go..." but few ghosts.

Recently the Los Angeles Times showcased a problem that more and more iPhone users are running into when they travel; expensive data roaming charges. The article profiles the plight of Nathan Oventhal to get a $550 data charge removed from his AT&T bill after his iPhone connected to the Internet while traveling in Paris.

According to Oventhal, when he turned his iPhone on in Paris he didn't make any calls or use the Internet; opting only to take some pictures, but when he got home he found a bill for 20 MB worth of data. In the States 20MB of data wouldn't make a difference, but the exchange rate for data use is incredibly high, which resulted in his $550 welcome home gift.

Halloween is coming, so I'm going to kick off festivities by saying one of the scariest phrases in the English language: roadside motel.

Norman Bates may be the drag queen emblem of all things horrifying, but across America, the stained bedspreads and mildewed corners of our country's motels are, unfortunately, not the stuff of fiction. The cheapest hotels in our country are, often, the most terrifying. It's been this way for so long that many of us refuse to set foot in any hotel lower on the price scale than a Hampton Inn.

Time was, pinning down Jason Cochran meant playing a serious game of "Where's Jason?" The travel writer for outlets such as Frommer's.com and Budget Travel magazine was never in one place very long.

These days he's easier to locate, based at AOL headquarters in New York City, writing travel and consumer articles for WalletPop and hosting its popular Shark Tank series. But he's still got the travel bug.

And this weekend, his peers acknowledged it. Cochran was awarded the Best Guidebook of 2009 by the Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Awards/Society of American Travel Writers. The lucky book? Cochran's "Pauline Frommer's London," published by Wiley earlier this year.

The judges said reading the book "is like traveling through London with a street-smart, savvy best friend. The book is exceptionally well-organized and features a wealth of insiders' secrets for making the most of your London experience....Altogether, the book appears to contain nearly everything you need to know to plan a safe, entertaining and meaningful trip."

That sound like our man. After years as an entertainment reporter, Cochran decided he wanted to see the world and test his chops as a travel writer. So he set off on a two-year hiatus with backpack. When he returned stateside he sent clips of his adventures along with his resume to all the travel magazines and websites, never really expecting to hear back from any of them.

And he didn't, for about six months, until the website for Frommer's called him. "I went in and interviewed with Aruthur Frommer himself," he said. And of course, being Jason Cochran, he got the job. Later he moved on to the senior editor slot at Budget Travel Magazine and worked as a freelance travel writer before being snatched up by Walletpop, where he gets to blend his love of travel with his pop culture jones.

Doesn't he miss the glamorous life of a freelance travel writer?

"It beats a stick in the eye," he says, "but it's hard work. There are days you want to just sit at home with a pizza and get a video but you can't. You have to get out there and research out the next club or hotel."

Yeah, yeah. we know he likes to keep busy. He's written two other guide book for the Pauline Frommer's Spend Less, See More series; Walt Disney Orlando and San Francisco. Between keeping these updated and his very busy schedule with Walletpop, we know he still doesn't have time to get out for pizza.

Congratulations, Jason. We'll stand you a cold one next time we're in London. And we'll never tell you where we keep the sticks ...

I recently spent a night at the Comfort Inn in Marietta, Ohio, where I found this envelope on my desk.

Our blogger Jason Cochran wrote an excellent piece last year posing the question, should you tip the housekeeper at a hotel? After receiving this envelope, I had a couple of additional thoughts on the issue, specifically about one-night stays.

1. Did the hotel management know of this plea? Note that this envelope makes no mention of the hotel, and could easily have been printed at home by an entrepreneurial room keeper. If I had left some money for Jackie, I would have given the manager the envelope to deliver.

2. Expecting guests to tip room staff is part of the very very annoying "baffle them with B.S." strategy other industries (the worst offender, airlines) have taken to disguise the true full price of their products. The quoted room price of $75 did not include local taxes (11%), nor did it include this tip. How far will this plague of atomizing charges spread?