First time leaving the country and everyone in my family has a different opinion, ranging from take nothing and use cards to carry a thousand in an envelope. Two weeks, mostly cities, plus a few days somewhere rural. I do not know what is normal or where people even get the local currency without being fleeced.
Split whatever cash you carry across at least two places, a small amount in your wallet and the rest in your bag or your accommodation. Same with cards, one in the wallet and a spare somewhere else. The point is not theft so much as the ordinary disaster of leaving a wallet in a taxi at the start of a two week trip.
And tell your bank your travel dates or at least know their number, because a frozen card at 9pm in a country where you do not speak the language is genuinely stressful.
A thousand in an envelope is a bad idea in essentially every country. If it is lost or stolen it is simply gone, whereas a card gets cancelled and replaced. Carry what you need for a few days at a time and top up as you go.
That was my grandmother's advice and I did not want to argue with her, but I am glad I asked here first.
Keep a small stash of low value notes accessible for the first hour after you land, for a locker, a bus ticket or a bottle of water. Arriving with only a large note is a surprisingly common minor disaster and it sets the tone for the whole first day.
For the rural days specifically, take enough for those days out with you before you leave the city, in small notes. Village bakeries, buses, small guesthouses and market stalls are exactly where cards fail, and a single cash machine in a small town can be out of service for the whole weekend.
@bias_bound_bea · last yr. · 3 replies
It depends heavily on where you are going, so look up how card friendly the country is before you decide anything. Some places you can spend a fortnight without touching a note, others still run on cash outside the big cities.
My default for a mixed city and rural trip: arrive with the equivalent of about 100 in local currency for the first day, then withdraw from a bank ATM inside a town rather than the machines in the arrivals hall, which almost always have worse rates and fees.
Two rules that matter more than the amount. When a card terminal or ATM offers to charge you in your home currency, always decline and choose the local currency, otherwise you take a poor exchange rate quietly. And carry a card with no foreign transaction fee if you can get one, because 2 to 3 percent on everything for two weeks adds up.
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@awkward_ash · last yr.
The always choose local currency thing is not something anyone told me and it sounds like the sort of trap I would have walked into every single day.
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@layover_lucy · last yr.
It is called dynamic currency conversion and it is the single most common small ripoff in travel. The terminal makes it look like a helpful option.
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