Money Issues
Cash
As someone once said, cash is king. Cash is the preferred medium of exchange throughout the world and is, in many ways, the safest. At present, the US dollar is still the world’s most widely accepted currency, although with its precipitous fall in the last few years many people wonder about the future of the dollar.
While it’s unwise to carry a large amount of cash on your person while traveling, it’s a good idea to keep at least some cash on you at all times. Don’t keep it all in the same place on you, but always keep some on you. In a pinch, having a few dollars on you (say, $100 in different size bills) hidden in different places on you can tide you over in an emergency until you get somewhere where you can sort out your losses and make necessary phone calls. For ideas on hiding valuables while traveling, see our Travel Safety section.
Traveling With An ATM Card
In our modern, interconnected world, it is easier than ever to get money on the road. Perhaps the easiest way to obtain cash while traveling is through your ATM card.
The advantages of using your ATM card are obvious. For one, you get as close to the interbank rate on foreign currency exchange as you can possibly get. The bank rates you see quoted on finance web sites and in the newspaper are rates for very large money transfers—such as a domestic corporation repatriating its profits from overseas operations back into its home currency. Unless you’re moving money around in the millions of dollars, you’ll never get the published rate. You will, however, get a rate fairly close to that and it will be a rate that is much closer to the bank rate than you’ll get from say, a currency exchange window in the airport or on the street.
Another advantage to using your ATM card is that you don’t have to walk around in a foreign country with a large amount of cash on your person. You can go to the bank, get what you need, and then go about enjoying your time traveling without worrying too much about getting robbed or pickpocketed. Of course, someone could steal your wallet or moneybelt or could rob you for your card. But it’s a lot easier to hide an ATM card on your person or in your hotel room than it is to hide thousands of dollars in cash. If your card is lost or stolen, most banks will only hold you liable for $50 of the total amount stolen.