What Do You Know About Traveling with Money?
When traveling abroad, most people convert their currency before they leave home. There are many reasons you shouldn’t carry large sums of cash when you are traversing the world. Some risks include becoming a target for crime and theft, the potential loss of cash, high fees, and general currency confusion . This makes figuring out the best ways of managing your travel money key to a successful vacation experience.
If you are unsure of the best way to hand your money while traveling, don’t worry you are not alone! This is a problem most people face when making travel plans. The following are tips that will help you stretch your money further, and keep it safe.
5 Tips for Traveling with Money
Avoid buying the currency you need at an airport while traveling with money.
While buying the currency while traveling with money,you need while you are waiting for your flight is convenient, it is also incredibly expensive. Currency purchases at airports should only be a last resort option. The currency exchange rates will never be great, so you end up with less spending money than anticipated. Which no woman wants while she’s on the road!
Check out the latest exchange rates
Do you know how much currency you can buy with your money? If not, it’s best to go online and see what the rates are for the day when making plans and traveling with money. For example, if you wanted to buy Canadian dollars, you could do a Google search such as “convert usd to cad.”
there are also currency exchange rate apps for Android and Apple devices. Downloading such an app for your phone is highly recommended and ensures a more streamlined experience when figuring out your finances. It’s always better to be armed with information when you are away from home and on the road.
Use credit cards that offer excellent exchange rates when traveling with money
It is never a good idea to only carry local currency around in a cash format when traveling with money. As you can imagine, if it got stolen, you could potentially be left stranded with no access to the money you need to get by on!
Instead, you should only carry a small amount of cash on you and use credit cards for purchases. The idea here is only to use a card that offers the best rates while you are abroad.
Pro Tip: Make sure that you pay the balance of your credit card off when you fly back home. Otherwise, you could end up paying interest on your foreign transactions.
Always pay in local currency
Let’s say that you are using a card to make a purchase while you are abroad. The vendor might ask if you want to pay using your currency or their local one.
It might seem counter-productive, but it is best to pay in their currency. Why? The answer is simple: the exchange rate will be better! Some card companies may also charge a conversion or admin fee, even though you are paying with your own currency.
Consider using a prepaid currency debit card
Last, but not least, if you would rather not use a credit card abroad for travel money, another option is to use a prepaid currency debit card instead.
The way that you use such cards is straightforward. You transfer money onto it from your bank account electronically. Doing so means that you have available money to spend abroad.
When you want to buy something while you are overseas, you use a debit card to make your payment. The transaction automatically gets converted, and often better than bank rates!
Making travel plans can feel overwhelming! There is so much to do. Don’t let organizing your currency be another item on your to-do list that stresses you out. Traveling with money is stressful, but the tips listed above make spending on the road easy and affordable. And they might even keep you safe! Now get that to-do list done, and get ready to fly.
READ MORE
