As Dollar Crumples, Tourists Overseas Reel

American tourists are feeling the burn on their European trips as items from Cokes to Dinner are pushing the limits of their wallets. Luckily those wallets are quite thick.

For Americans visiting Europe this summer, the steep decline of the dollar against the euro and the British pound has made eye-popping prices a lamentable part of the traveler’s tale. (The Kingsley family’s hotel room in London was $500 a night; five bite-sized chocolates at Harrods cost $10.)

“It’s O.K.,” said Mr. Kingsley, 59, with a resigned laugh. “I’ll just have to work a few extra years to pay off this vacation.” His wife, Laura, did her best to soothe him. “It’s just play money,” she said.

By now, five summers after the dollar began its long swoon against the euro and the pound, American travelers are used to $5 cups of coffee and triple-digit dinner checks in Europe’s great capitals. But the dollar’s latest plunge — to $2.05 to the pound and to a record of $1.38 to the euro — has turned mere sticker shock into a form of suspended disbelief for many tourists.

For Kaelon Kroft, a custodian from San Bernardino, Calif., it was the cost of Coke that shocked him most in Paris. “We just paid 9.5 euros for a can of Coke at a cafe,” he said. “At our hotel, the bar was serving a glass of Coke for four euros.”

“That’s over five bucks,” his wife, Kristi, added. Actually, at the current exchange rate, it is a fizzy bubble or two over $5.52.

The Krofts and the Kingsleys both scaled back their European holidays to limit the pain of the currency pinch. But neither family seriously thought of canceling the vacation, and their glass-is-half-full determination to make the best of things was echoed in interviews with American tourists from Ireland to Italy.

It is also reflected in the tourism statistics in France, Germany, Spain and other countries, which show that the number of Americans visiting Europe has increased this year, even as the value of the dollar has eroded. Travel experts say this speaks both to the resilience and rising affluence of American tourists, as well as to the perennial appeal of Europe as a destination.