Is the weaker Canadian dollar keeping you from visiting the United States?

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Sixty-eight-year-old Valerie Anderson still recalls the rush of humid Florida air that greeted her in 1992, a stark contrast to the biting winter of her hometown in Calgary.

“I said, ‘Oh, this is beautiful because Calgary is so dry,’” she said.

That first family vacation with her husband and two young kids ignited a love for the Sunshine State. Thirty years and three grandkids later, the Andersons proudly wear the “snowbird” badge, escaping Canada’s harsh winters to a rental property off the Florida coast.

But they’re unsure how much longer they can afford to live out their dream. Like many snowbirds, they’ve been feeling a chill on their wallet as the Canadian dollar dropped about 4 per cent against the greenback in recent months, pushing up prices for everything from food to rent.

“It’s definitely getting to be very expensive – food has gone up everywhere,” Ms. Anderson said.

Compared with last year, she said it costs her and her husband about $25 more per person a meal. A recent glance at the menu of their favourite restaurant showed a single dish of sea bass priced at the equivalent of $80 Canadian. “We both just said, ‘I don’t think so!’”

Norman Seawright, who also decamps to Florida in the winter, owns a condo there and said he’s paying “easily 20 to 25 per cent more” for everything.

But while many snowbirds agree the weak loonie is weighing on them, most are reluctant to change their travel plans. Experts say those weathering the economic headwinds are offsetting losses with U.S. investments and getting strategic about taxes, exchange rates and insurance fees.

“The dollar just sucks right now – clients are asking a lot of questions,” said Carson Hamill, a cross-border associate portfolio manager at Raymond James Canada. “People come to us that are renting permanently in the U.S., they’re going, ‘Oh, is it worth keeping this place?’”

It might not be. Anyone who was renting a dozen years ago when the loonie was at par is now paying 40 per cent more, taking inflation and currency fluctuations into account.

The unfavourable numbers can work in reverse for snowbirds who purchased property back then. If they haven’t rented out their property before, now might be the time to start – they’d be raking in that 40 per cent more in Canadian dollars, Mr. Hamill said.

But homeowners have other worries. Their expenses are further weighed down by maintenance and insurance costs – the latter has surged by about 30 per cent between 2021 and 2023 in places like Florida, according to Insurify. Bankrate found that as of September 2024, the average insurance policy in Florida for US$300,000 in coverage was US$5,531 – 142 per cent higher than the national average.

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