![\"Best](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trailheadproductions.com\/palette\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/CashInHand.jpg\")
<\/a>I\u2019m officially old enough to be able to use the phrase \u201cback in the day\u201d non-ironically. So\u2026 back in the day, money management for extended travel meant one thing – travelers\u2019 checks. Part of the routine in pre-travel prep was a stop by the bank to \u00a0 pick up enough travelers\u2019 checks to last the length of the trip. The whole process of signing and then later countersigning the checks, making sure they were stored in a safe place and confirming the hotel you were staying in would cash them was cumbersome, time consuming and mostly an inconvenient but necessary part of traveling. Even when ATM\u2019s became a normal part of daily life, there was that brief period when you still had to worry an ATM near you may not be connected to your banking network.<\/p>\n
I am well aware that after a setup like that, the next sentence any millennial should expect to read should mention how I would ride my dinosaur to the next stop on our journey, or how I had to walk uphill to school in the snow (both ways!) with a baked potato in each hand to keep warm.\u00a0 To this, I would just say\u2026 noted.<\/p>\n
It is, of course, much easier now. Before setting out on a production leg of our documentary<\/a>, we had so many last minute issues to deal with, getting cash for the trip was far down the list of priorities. Even though our itinerary included the Australian outback and the interior of New Zealand\u2019s North Island, the idea that we would be stranded somewhere without access to either cash or a way to pay for emergency supplies never entered our minds.<\/p>\n Doing this economically though, was a major concern, and the best way to travel with money overseas is do a certain amount of homework. It should be a major concern of yours, too, because while there are plenty of ways to obtain physical cash on the road, there are also many ways to be bogged down by exorbitant fees. I would urge you to take the steps we took, avoid some of the mistakes we made and craft your planning accordingly.<\/p>\n . If you plan to carry cash, the best way to travel with money is to \u00a0get it before you go. Your bank or ATM in your home country likely has one major advantage – it\u2019s free. While there\u2019s no doubt carrying cash involves a certain amount of risk, you have to weigh how much of that risk you\u2019re willing to take compared to how much money in extra currency exchange fees you\u2019re willing to pay. This is, by the way, the reason travelers\u2019 checks still exists, There is a modicum of safety built in to carrying those checks. You have to countersign them and show your ID before you can use them, even though there are fewer and fewer places that accept them or even know what they are.<\/p>\n While safety on the road is a future topic, I will tell you that for the cash we took with us, it was not only divided up and stored in different places, a very small amount of it was placed in a dummy wallet, a fake wallet with a few dollars and an expired credit card. Let the thieves steal that one, we reasoned, and we would be far removed by the time they realized they had stolen a useless decoy. Simply put, when it comes to cash, the\u00a0best way to travel with money includes not keeping it all in one place.<\/p>\n It’s very likely \u00a0you will find the best currency exchange rates in your home country. Start by getting the current exchange rates – I like to start with the easy to use Google currency converter<\/a>. Your own bank is likely to charge you a much lower currency exchange fee\u2026 or even waive it altogether\u2026 if you change your money there before you leave. For more common international currencies like the Euro, the yuan or the yen, it should not be a problem. This was one tactic I wish I had realized before we left. We needed to exchange some currency in Adelaide and had assumed any bank would do it for us. I was more than surprised to find this was a service only available to customers of the banks we tried to use. Lesson learned.<\/p>\n Most international airports will have very visible currency exchange stations in the concourse, but the best currency exchange rates are seldom at he airpot. It\u2019s a popular business, and the key word here is \u201cbusiness.\u201d They are not there to offer a charitable service. They make their money on your need to get cash quickly, and they are the only game in town. In the Sydney airport, this came to an uncomfortable eight percent of the total of whatever you\u2019re exchanging. Avoid this at all costs. If you are dead set on sacrificing money for convenience, about the only extra bit of advice I can offer is to ask if they will waive the exchange fee for your return trip. In some cases, currency exchange stations will, with your prior receipt, change your currency back into the original currency with a reduced or waived fee.<\/p>\n However, you should know that when it comes to the best way to travel with money, you will almost always pay the highest fees at the worst exchange rates at the airport.<\/p>\n You really need to know the lay of the currency land to find the best way to travel with money overseas. Dollars count. Cents count even more. Allow me to offer this one example when it comes to why you should do your homework, even if it\u2019s done at the last minute, when it comes to exchange rates. As we landed in Adelaide, I checked that day\u2019s, in fact I checked that hour\u2019s<\/i> , current exchange rate for U.S. dollars into Australian dollars. The current rate at that moment was 1.41\u2026 one U.S. dollar would get you $1.41 in Australian currency. Knowing this, it made the idea of paying the exchange rate fees at the airport even more undesirable, since they were also offering an exchange rate of only $1.36 cents to the U.S. dollar. This may not seem like a lot, but when you are potentially exchanging hundreds of dollars of currency, those numbers add up pretty quickly.\u00a0 It should only take a little research to find where you can exchange currency in the city to which you\u2019re traveling. Besides, if you\u2019ve been doing your prep work, you already have at least a little currency of the country you\u2019re in, which you may need for cab fare, tipping and whatever the local equivalent of a Cinnabon is.<\/p>\n This decision should be based on how the fee is calculated by the exchange service you\u2019re using. If, as we found, some exchange services charge a flat fee no matter how much currency you\u2019re converting, then of course you want to exchange the largest amount you feel comfortable carrying with you. If it\u2019s a flat percentage, just make sure you have what you need to get by, but do be sure that you know where and when you\u2019ll make your next exchange, and if the same rules will apply at that locale.<\/p>\n This all seems like antiquated advice, to be talking about cash, right? After all, there are ATM\u2019s everywhere. We\u2019ll deal with the myth of ATM\u2019s as travel sviors next week,\u00a0 but All I can say is that my mother was right. You should always have a little cash in our pocket for emergencies.<\/p>\n Just don\u2019t tell her I said that.<\/p>\nThe best way to travel with money overseas is to understand\u00a0the home country advantage<\/h3>\n
Exchange it before you go<\/h3>\n
Airports are not your friends<\/h3>\n
All at once or a little at a time?<\/h3>\n
RELATED CONTENT<\/h5>\n