I’m not a globe-trotter by any stretch of the imagination, but I’ve visited a few places where the US Dollar isn’t the default currency. It hasn’t mattered - plastic worked everywhere I went, so I never needed any changing service.
I suppose if I was planning to spend a longer time in another country, I’d get some walking-around money, but as a tourist, my VISA has been sufficient. The only problem was once in England - my card didn’t have a chip at the time and the clerk didn’t know how to swipe the card. So I reached over the counter and did it for him, and all was good.
But to my original question - do you bother changing your currency when you travel?
Usually just for small things such as taxis and such. I would just use an ATM in the airport after I landed. Cards are used so many places that it just doesn’t take a lot of cash anymore.
Thanks for reminding me to buy a few euros before we leave on Friday! I like to land with at least a bit of cash. It’s a habit that came in VERY handy in Barcelona a few years ago, when, due to bank screw-ups and pickpocketing (combined with some issues with local places using a non-chip-and-PIN credit card), we were unable to use an ATM on arrival for a few days. At least we had some cash for groceries until we straightened it out.
ATM after arrival when I travel to Colombia. Lots of small shops do not take plastic.
The downside is that for some of the machines the maximum ATM withdrawal will net me 300,000 Colombian pesos, a fist full of notes that sounds impressive but adds up to little less than US$100 per withdrawal.
When I leave I try to save at least taxi fare for me next trip but that is just in case I plan a surprise visit. So long as Mrs Iggy meets me at the airport she will have enough pesos to cover taxi fare home and I can hit the ATM in a day or two.
Depends on the country. For my last trip to Australia and China I didn’t bother getting Australian currency. I thought (correctly) that Australia was actually significantly more advanced than the US about payment technology. My cards (and Apple Pay) worked everywhere.
China was a little different. Credit cards aren’t commonly used outside of hotels catering to foreigners, so I purchased enough of the local currency to get by from my bank about a week before my trip.
ATM after arrival. Depending on the country, cash will be more needed or less: in Sweden I only truly needed cash for some toilets, in the UK there are tolls where you can only pay cash and they have these nifty maps showing where you can find the nearest ATM.
Again this should depend entirely on the country you visit. There are a number of countries which have a difference between the official exchange rate and the black market exchange rate. Thus if you go to Venezuela you can convert your dollars much more to your advantage on the black market than officially.
I always did it at the exchange kiosks at the airport on arrival, back when I was traveling a lot. Haven’t done it for awhile, though. Never do it a hotel-- they rip you off. Go to a bank or official exchange place.
This thread reminds me of one of the biggest differences between travel then and now. In my first trip to Europe in 1964, about the cusp of the credit card revolution, I carefully calculated how much money I would likely need and got that amount of Traveler’s Checks. Since I was going for two months, this was delicate. Of course, I bought too much to be on the safe side.
In 1991, I was spending a couple weeks in various European countries. I made a $5000 overpayment to my Visa account and then went to banks and asked for cash advances. By that time credit cards were widely accepted but cash was still needed for lots of things and, except in England, you still could not put a foreign bank card into a cash machine and get money.
Since 2001, I have been going to Barbados every winter for two or three weeks. Credit cards are widely accepted there, but I still use lots of cash. But there are bank machines there and, in fact, one of my banks has a branch in Barbados just a few blocks from where I stay. It is still a good idea to give the bank a heads-up before I go.
When I was in Japan 20 years ago, bank machines were few and far between and may not have taken foreign cards. Fortunately, I got a considerable amount of money from the institute I was visiting. I did bring Y100,000 with me just in case. It has probably changed a lot since then.
I do some research before I go to find out which local bank is most likely to play nice with my credit cards.
Then, at the airport, if one of those banks is there, I get some cash from the ATM. (If not, I get a smaller amount of cash from an ATM - I’ve never had none of them work).
I generally get some foreign cash before I go, by mail from my bank. I know it’s a better deal to use an ATM after arrival or just stick with plastic*, but it’s just one less thing to worry about arriving tired in a new place. When I used to travel for business to places I already knew well where the ATM’s would take my ATM card, that’s what I’d do, or use some currency from last time.
*assuming the card has no foreign transaction fee, one of mine doesn’t and that’s the one I use overseas.
Several years in a row, the dollar was crap compared to the Euro in St Martin. So, I bought 800 worth of euros at the airport one year. Wouldn't you know it, that was the year the dollar rebounded a bit and shops all advertised = €, so I spent dollars, coming home with a wallet full of euros (that I used subsequent visits).
I just use an ATM. It is rare that I will need a lot of cash, but I try to have the equivalent of 100 US dollars on me at most times. Not so much that it will ruin a trip if it gets lost/stolen but enough to cover any situation where I can’t pay by card or Apple pay.
I don’t mind dealing with foreign notes and high value coins, but it is the small denomination coins that become a pain. In the UK, for example, anything under a 20p coin gets donated into a museum or church donation box ASAP. If I end up with a bunch of higher value coins (under 1 pound), I can use them to top up my Oyster card in London.
Some credit cards are brilliant for traveling with. In the UK, Halifax does a card with no fee for using abroad and an almost perfect exchange rate. It’s almost always cheapest to use this in an ATM provided you pay the balance on the card at the end of the month.
However I always try to bring another local currency to cover the first day (and especially the cost of getting my hotel) in case the airport ATMs aren’t playing ball. I also like to have $50US in the back of my wallet as a second emergency backup. It might not get touched but it’s come in very handy at airport stopovers.
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Travelling in SE Asia I try to take roughly the amount of spending money I will need in AUD and change the dollars into local currency as required, just saving the card for bigger expenditures like hotel etc. As it costs a few dollars each time the ATM is used, I like to avoid them as much as possible…the cost can mount up quite quickly. Also the sorts of places we like to eat and shop are highly unlikely to have any EFTPOS or VISA facilities to pay.
When our son took a trip to England, France, and Spain a couple years ago he took something like £50 in cash with him so that he would have cash to spend as soon as he walked off the plane; for everything else he used an ATM wherever he happened to be.
It’s my understanding that this gives you the best possible exchange rate, and allows you to carry a relatively small amount of cash at any given time. That way there’s less to lose to a potential pickpocket, and less to ‘lose’ when exchanging currency down the road.
How do you guys tip if you don’t have small bills? I get at least a hundred US dollars worth of the countries currency from my bank. I’m old and I don’t feel comfortable without a little cash in my pocket.