Talk of recession from one economist, fears of inflation from another. A declining dollar facing the rising euro and pound, sub-prime mortgage headlines, a three-billion-dollar run on an English bank and fallout across the European banks and world stock markets.

What does it mean to the traveller? Where are people going . . . or are they going?

With more fallout yet to come, it's a hard question to answer. For starters, in an election year tradition says "people pull in their horns", uncertain about what could be ahead. But our continuing survey reveals some surprises.

Those who have flown recently find planes and airports crowded as ever. But we found many empty business class seats on our early August return via American Airlines from Frankfurt, Germany. Those were wisely filled with military families, a compassionate use of seats that hadn't sold.

This is being written from a two-room, water's-edge villa-cottage at Gordon Lodge outside Bailey's Harbour in Wisconsin's beautiful Door County Peninsula. It's a property much like the traditional Bermuda cottage colonies; we've written about it here before.

The wall-to-wall picture window view out over the totally unspoiled shore of Lake Michigan's North Bay is mesmerising. And its 130 acres of wooded shoreline are a delight to hikers. It's mid-September, weather is lovely and colour change beginning.

We considered ourselves lucky when calling a couple of weeks ago after returning from France to find if any space was available in our favourite unit . . . and, happily, six days were. The usual $255 daily rate had fallen to an off-season $192, including full breakfast. A total of $1,280 including tax.

It was a full house on our Saturday arrival, complete with a garden wedding. But now we were among a scant handful of guests until the next weekend brought an influx.

All over the Peninsula one sees vacancy signs, not typical for this early autumn date. And when our family doctor returned from his annual visit to the area a month ago, he had reported how quiet things were in general.

Every autumn Northwestern University has an Alumni Association special event presenting travel offerings of the upcoming season. Held at a local country club or hotel near the campus, it attracts a devoted following of people who love to travel, and many frequent these luxury offerings.

The most recent one was no exception. Between sampling foods of assorted countries and learning about current itineraries, brochures were being eagerly snatched up and reservations being made on the spot.

"I'm leading a trip to China only days from now," enthused a member of the gifts and endowment department. "It's a total sellout." We'd chatted with her at my brother Jim's Northwestern Kellogg's Graduate Business School reunion in spring when she'd been enthused about Alaska travel.

"Somehow my year seems incomplete without a trip to Bethel where a member of my family teaches. There's something so special about Alaska that it keeps luring one back." We totally agree and are already planning yet another encore there next year.

It seems everyone we encounter at these reunions is in perpetual motion. Anna Louise Gaspar was a perfect example. Daughter of an artist acclaimed for outstanding church and hotel decoration, she has been to both the Khyber Pass and Tibet twice, Timbuktu, St. Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai, Sri Lanka and Macchu Pichu, for starters, and always on premier trips with the likes of Lindblad and Travcoa. Exploring the world is this retired teacher's main interest in life and it's obvious nothing will stop her.

That's what sets travel apart from other expenditures. It's like an incurable virus. There will always be an economic segment of the population with resources to travel regardless of what's happening. And who they are is often surprising. It may not be the free-spending young executives who could have mortgage problems.

One might think the exchange rate of the euro and pound might dissuade some travellers. That doesn't seem to have deterred those we talked to. And that covered all income brackets. Mediterranean cruises were very high on their popularity list, as were Tuscan and Provence villas.

"We've saved for this all our life and we intend to continue going to Europe every summer, and taking our grandchildren to Disney World and other places several times a year."

This comment came from a very hard-working, diligent saver who had served as a police department secretary married to a retired police officer.

"We invested in our department's pension plan, made conservative but consistent investments, were never extravagant, and now we intend to enjoy what people call 'the fruits of our labour'."

We chat with her at local estate sales where she and her husband help out, and are always impressed with her level-headed, saving ways. They're a perfect example of how moderate-income workers who handle money well can now be in a better position to travel than those who appear more affluent.

This couple take very good package tours to Europe, sometimes two a year and many state-side trips, carefully seeking out travel bargains.

People like them sometimes have more fluid assets than a woman in my village I overheard tell a merchant she'd actually taken out a home-equity loan on her very expensive, probably mortgaged to the hilt, new "McMansion" to sail off on an around-the-world QEII cruise. One wonders about her current financial status in this challenging real estate market.

This trip we met one of the most colourful travellers we've encountered in some time. Dale Sequist owns 1,000 acres of cherry orchards near the northern tip of Wisconsin's Door County Peninsula.

In an area noted for cherries, we've often stopped at his very popular, colourful and prosperous, family-owned market where every conceivable product made from cherries is sold. But we'd never met him.

He'd offered us samples of apples from another of his orchards, and observing Jim's Alaska T-shirt, had asked if we'd ever been there. Turns out he'd enjoyed a unique trip there.

He led us into the orchard's very large warehouse where an elaborate maroon motorcycle, the Rolls-Royce of Harley Davidsons, was parked. "I rode that up to Winnipeg, on to Dawson Creek and then up the Dalton Highway out of Fairbanks with another cycler friend. Then we got a freighter from Alaska down to Prince Rupert," he said.

"Now I'm planning a trip down to South America. Want to stop in Panama before heading on to Chile."

It's impolite to ask someone's age, but we'd estimate him to be a very youthful seventysomething. He's absolutely fearless cycling into remote areas, with no pre-planned reservations.

"I'd be cautious about driving something like that Rolls-Royce model down through parts of Mexico noted for bandits, and Colombia, which accounts for 50 per cent of the world's kidnappings," I counselled.

"You're right on," he agreed. "I'm considering joining a group of other cyclers on that trip." He's certainly a man who enjoys adventure, even though he can obviously afford any style of transportation he chooses.

He's the fourth generation of hardy Swedish pioneers who came to this area in 1860. "I still have the family's original log cabin. It's been dismantled to replace needed logs and I'm going to reassemble it," he said.

We returned to his shop later to buy four ten-pound buckets of frozen, pitted Montmorency cherries for $48. That, plus 25 pounds of dried cherries for $205, will be put to good use until the next visit. It's interesting how on the one hand you meet cautious travellers, nervous about venturing too far off-trail, and others for whom no adventure is too challenging.

A couple recently encountered on our travels were celebrating their 20th wedding anniversary. "I went on the next to get some ideas, then talked to our travel agent and came up with a surprise destination my husband loves," the wife told us.

"Our annual summer family trip with children involves fishing, canoeing totally focused on outdoor adventure in places like Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe area. So I wanted this to be really different.

"He didn't have a clue I'd made reservations at this really posh resort until departure day." An ear-to-ear smile showed his pleasure at the surprise.

At the same resort, we'd encountered a wedding party of 14 who had assembled from Arizona, Canada and Minnesota, deciding to be married in a location that had everyone smiling, tourism officials included.

Yes, some destinations are already "confronting challenges". A recent article in Travel Agent magazine reported Hawaii occupancy figures at just over 74 per cent for the first six months of 2007. Caribbean cruises have seriously declined in popularity, with ships diverted elsewhere.

Class reunions definitely draw students back to campus and distance doesn't seem to matter. A series of spring and summer reunions involving three of Jim's university graduations brought alums from as far away as Japan (wearing purple suede shoes, no less, the school's colour). Others made long trips from Korea, Hawaii, Argentina, Spain, Mexico, the Czech Republic and Slovakia. My favourite was Glynn, a Kentucky colonel, busy planning a driving trip through Wales especially to listen to the country's famous singers and trace his family's Welsh roots.

Probably not travelling any time soon are two men who took out home equity loans for cars . . . $40,000 for a Volvo, $60,000 for a Corvette and now find their mortgages in trouble.