where are the best little-known travel destinations for about a week of travel on a budget? prefer outside US?

it was the Dominican Republic, but travelers have caught on to how affordable that is. Costa Rica I think is pretty affordable too.

In general you might want to stick with Central America/Carribean, South America, and southeast asia, like Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam or even China. Check out wikitravel.org, theyve got great ideas of locations.

If you're on a budget, then anywhere in the Eurozone might be out of the question since the dollar is really weak against the Euro. For every dollar you spend, you'd only get 2/3rds of a Euro.

I would try Central America (Costa Rica, Panama) and Mexico.