OK, so they don’t all quite fit in my wallet as the stack of notes is about 3/4" high, so the Indian and Asian ones are kept in a separate small pouch that I carry around too.
The Euro has certainly made traveling around Europe easier without losing 2% in each new country, but I think we are starting to see the breakdown in it with recent situations in Greece, Portugal and to a lesser extent Spain, Italy and Ireland.
The CFA works well in Africa because the economies are much more on par with each other, but in the end, I think having to “share” a currency is a sign of weakness.
Germany and the Netherlands are of course the big losers in it all as they had very strong currencies. It’s just hard to mesh the economic propensities of Greece and Germany.
The GCC are talking about a similar union, but I don’t think it’ll happen… and I would not be surprised to see the Euro fail in the long run.
Paper. I know the polymer ones last longer but they are slippery and the ink tends to bleed or wear off after a while (at least on the Sri Lankan ones when I was there).
No dimes, sorry. I have a handful of UAE dirhams and a few Sudanese coins tho.
I will say one thing - I do like multi-colored notes. When dealing with USD, it is much harder to distinguish between all the green ones. I am American so grew up with that but it is a bit weird.
I do carry a credit card but more often find myself in places where they don’t work well (eg Sudan). I normally carry $2-3K, and (touch wood) have never had a problem. Most of my time in spent in Muslim countries where theft is very rare indeed.
Yeah, but that is a helluva lot of cash to be carrying around.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to get currency as you require it and only the amount you’ll need until the next potential bank stop? Why carry Canadian dollars in Sudan? Where can you use it?
I’m curious about the coins more than the notes, the notes you can convert, but (in my fairly limited experience) they don’t always take the coins… hence a couple of small piles of foreign denomination shrapnel at Rancho Remarkable.
So do you have a fishbowl full or have you managed to exchange them?
Banks are almost non-existant once you leave the capital and it is much better to change on the street or in shops in much of the Third World. I never saw a bank outside of Khartoum except in Atbarra on a Friday (so it was closed).
Some places don’t like USD so a variety of hard currencies are best. The CAD not quite as much (I don’t recall where I even got it as I’ve not been to Canada in a long time) but if I only have say 50s and 100s in EUR and need something very small, 5 or 10 CAD works well in some places. Most places in the Third World have a very good idea of what the exchange rates are.
Been carrying $2-3K for 8 years and just used to it now.
