Travel to Greece and the "Grexit"

I am supposed to go to a conference on one of the Greek islands this summer. This talk of the “Grexit” has me worried, not the least because I’ve heard nothing from the meeting organizers about the status of the conference.

My airfare is already booked (but flying into a more stable country) so if the meeting is canceled I’ll go anyway and spend a week bumming around Germany and Austria.

However, I’m wondering what will happen if the meeting isn’t canceled, and the Grexit happens while I’m there. I’m assuming flights will be disrupted, ATMs won’t work etc…

Is this just going to be a major inconvenience? Or the Fall of Saigon? Again, I’m going to be on an island, so getting off and to a stable place might be trickier than if I was on the mainland.

I had to google “Grexit”.

It’s not happening, and if it was happening it would need months to prepare. Governments don’t just sign “ok, we’re changing our monetary system” at 8am with a due date of “noon today”.

Don’t worry about it. We’re talking about the possability of Greece leaving an economic union, not a zombie apocalypse. Society won’t collapse, and it certainly won’t happen overnight.

Off topic: “Grexit” ?! I find it strangely comforting that the creation of silly neologisms isn’t confined to annoying celebrity couples (eg, “Brangelina”).

Yeah, I don’t think we are talking an immediate zombie hordes level catastrophe. If it really does get very very bad on the street immediately (which it is unlikely to), you can just high-tail it out of town. Grab a ferry to Italy, Cyprus, or Turkey, or hit the road toward Bulgaria, Albania, Turkey, or another adjoining country. Presumably you will not be trying to travel on a Greek passport, so the other countries are unlikely to see you as a potential economic migrant. If Schengen (which is a separate treaty) is still in effect and you are worried about being held up at a non-Schengen border, just hop the ferry to Italy.

Just throw the word Grexit around a lot, that’s sure to help!

Can’t you just contact the organizers and ask some questions? Surely they have email and phones.

Nobody know for sure what will happen, it has become unpredictable. I would bring plenty of cash (Euros and maybe some Dollars in small bills). The Greek islands should be fairly safe. I would keep a low profile in the big cities and stay away from large gatherings.

I wouldn’t worry about it. People travel to far more unstable regions all of the time. Tourists are like walking ATMs, and even in the worst conditions, people find ways to serve them.

Bring a stash of dollars if you are really worried. Black market money changers will pop up immediately- your hotel staff will be happy to point you them. And I’d be shocked if there weren’t provisions for travelers.

Again, this is uncommon in Europe but it happens all the time elsewhere. Airlines, etc. know how to deal with this.

BTW, here are the official travel informations about Greece issued by the US government (however, not updated since October and thus not taking into account the recent change in government):

http://travel.state.gov/content/passports/english/country/greece.html

If you are even more worried, you could add a stash of another hard currency, such as Yen or Swiss Francs. Swiss Francs might go through the roof in a hypothetical Euro crash, so those might be nice. Yen provides access to another non-European economy that’s probably not going to follow the same path as either Europe or the US.

Thanks guys.

To be clear, I’m not really worried about armed insurrection in the streets (“Saigon” was just a joke). I just don’t want to get stuck.

I’m no stranger to Greece, I’ve been there about 15 times all over the country.

The most likely scenario would be after a Grexit the EU stops guaranteeing Greek banks. This would cause a bank holiday while the government puts out a new currency and tries to keep the banks from failing. As a tourist this probably would not effect you too much if you have credit cards and cash on hand.

I would doubt credit cards would work real well in the event of a surprise overnight Grexit.

Sure, the technological systems would all still work. But what amount of what currency should / would flow from the US card-issuing bank to the Greek merchant’s Greek bank when a charge is processed? Which Greek bank may be shut down or frozen out of the world payment system at the time. I’d bet a lot of merchants won’t be interested in taking foreign plastic, nor will their accepting banks process the transactions until some of the dust settles a few days later

Have cash, and plenty of it. IIRC the Greek citizenry is generally stocking up on both Euro & other currencies in the form of hard cash. Just in case.

Earlier today I heard some talk on the radio here in Holland about how large Greek companies are having a hard time importing stuff because foreign banks don’t trust the Greek ones anymore. So shortages of one type or another are absolutely possible. And yes, if something happens to the monetary system it will actually happen over the weekend. There has been some unrest in the big cities at some point. But that should be easily avoidable and bringing a nice big wad of cash will help solve most problems.

Good luck trying to buy something to eat, and safe passage on a fishing boat from a post-Grexit hellhole island apocalypse with a handful of Yen. USD, or even GBP, will be much more familiar to the locals.

In a normal circumstance, it’s true that Yen would be awkward to deal with. But in a zombie apocalypse level catastrophe (rioting in the streets, breakdown of most government services, etc.) of the level that the OP seems to be worried about, I would think that locals would value nearly any strong currency that’s not likely to devalue severely in the next coming year.

This. If things have gone so downhill so quickly that dollars won’t get you off the island and to the airport, then you probably won’t want to go back home to the razed cities of your former homeland anyway.

Dollars will be fine. I travel with enough to get me to an airport/border and a night of basic lodging and cheap meals. Enough to get out of trouble but not so much I’m scared of losing it.

I can’t imagine any reason why you wouldn’t be able to get by with Euros. The worst case scenario short-term is that something happens that makes the Grexit seem inevitable and you get a bank run of people trying to get their money out of the bank before they turn into drachmas. In that situation you’ll have zero problems spending Euros and in fact people will be clamoring to accept them from you.

Maybe long-term the Grexit will spell trouble for the Euro, but that’s not anything that’s going to develop in the next few months.

Perhaps a Grexit could involve a forced “turn in” of physical Euros to be exchanged for Drachmas.

That’s generally not how it works. How would you even begin to enforce that? Again, this sort of thing happens all the time. They wouldn’t be making up the process on the spot.

Basically, bank accounts would be converted over and strict currency controls would be put in place making it difficult to change money outside of the (no doubt thriving) black market. Nobody is going to come to your house with guns demanding Euros. They will just become very difficult to spend.

Considering that the Greek government can’t even get its citizens to pay their taxes, I find the idea of them trying to get people to hand over their Euros in exchange for new designed-to-devalue Drachmas quite funny.

Why would they become difficult to spend? The government would likely put in controls to make it hard to convert the new Drachmas into Euros, but there’s no reason for them to restrict spending them. Maybe some government-run services will start only taking Drachmas, but considering that all the individual Greeks are going to be wanting Euros to stuff in their mattresses, if you’re a tourist with a big wad of Euros in your pocket you should be able to have a grand old time.