Card for hotels and (some) restaurants, cash for everything else. Some parts of the world it's cash or nothing, of course. Next question, local or dollars?

My experience has been that I need three types of "currency":

1) A debit card (with Maestro or Cirrus affiliation) to use to get cash out of ATMs,

2) A small amount of local cash - typically enough to pay for a night's lodging, an evening meal, and a tank of gas, in case credit cards are not accepted, and;

3) A credit card. I use MasterCard, because my experience in over 70 countries on 6 continents has been that it is widely accepted. I carry an America Express card as an emergency backup - it's not widely accepted, but in a pinch (if the debit card & MasterCard are lost) I can get a hunk of cash at an American Express office.

I also find it prudent to stash a couple of hundred USD in $20 bills in some out-of-the-way place on my moto (for example, behind the battery or similar) just in case I lose my wallet or get robbed. No matter where you are, you always can swap USD for local currency, and USD 200 will keep you going for a couple of days if worse comes to worst.

A couple of "head's up" for novice travelers: Let your credit card & debit card issuers know ahead of time if you plan to visit abroad, and, if you are an American, make sure you have a PIN number + "chip-type" credit card if you plan to travel outside the USA (chips & PIN numbers are not yet universal in the USA).

Michasel

Even in Europe, you find lots of areas, where people don't accept credit cards for lodging or restaurants.

in this way, you have to look out for ATM a few times a day....

And in other areas in the world, it is even worse.
In some countries you are not able to get money out of ATM or cannot use creditcards...

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Hi Klaus:

Europe is an easy place to travel in so far as currency is concerned, because there is a common currency (Euro) shared by numerous countries. So if I am spending time in the Euro countries - and I usually spend about one month a year riding there - I'll carry perhaps €200 with me. That's more than enough for the items I mentioned above (one night's accommodation, a meal, and a tank of gas), and if I take €200 out of an ATM, it will usually last me about a week, because I primarily use a credit card for fuel, hotel & evening meal purchases. I pay for coffee breaks & lunch in cash.

In 20 years of touring Europe - from Ireland to Ukraine - I've never had difficulty finding an ATM. They are everywhere. The key point for non-European visitors to keep in mind is the need to have a debit card with the Cirrus or Maestro logos on the back of the card.

It is worth noting that one will normally get the very best rate of exchange when withdrawing from an ATM. Some ATMs add a transaction fee (typically €1 or 2), so it doesn't make sense to make a small withdrawal every day - better to make larger withdrawals less often.

Michael

Well, there are lots of areas, where people want cash.

Albania, Bosnia, Ukraine, Macedonia, just to name a few.

Sure, you find ATM, but if you just have enough in local currency for a night stay and gas, you need to go to ATM a few times a day.

And it happened to me already, that the internet did not work, and it was not possible to withdraw money from ATM, this happened even in Italy.....

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One thing to note is that there seems to be a move to reduce the number of ATMs in the UK - we seem to be moving towards a more cashless society particularly in these Covid times. So don’t be surprised if there are fewer ATMs around. On the other hand in the UK you can withdraw cash from shops when you spend at least £5 (?) but there are moves to eliminate the minimum spend requirement (currently I understand that it is a legal requirement to spend something).

I don’t know if this is being replicated though out Europe and North America but i could see it happening.

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You will have to do without pocket handkerchiefs, and a great many other things, before we reach our journey's end, Bilbo Baggins. You were born to the rolling hills and little rivers of the Shire, but home is now behind you. The world is ahead.

Yes, that is very true. I have travelled in all of those countries, and you are correct, many places don't accept credit cards - although my experience has been that I can almost always buy gas with a credit card.

In countries such as those for, I carry more cash. But, the problem is that it is difficult to get rid of any excess local currency when it comes time to leave the country. Often, neighboring countries won't accept it (e.g. moving from Ukraine a neighboring country), and it can be difficult to find a currency exchange counter at the border crossing.

In those kind of countries, I go to an ATM and withdraw just a little less than I think I will need for the duration of my planned stay. If I run out on the last day, I will change a small Euro banknote or USA banknote for some of the local currency (or attempt to pay for a purchase with one of those two currencies), and then just before I cross the border into the next country, I'll use up the last bits of local currency that I received in change to purchase fuel at a gas station.

I have never encountered problems using my Canadian bank debit card to make ATM withdrawals in any of those for countries - or, for that matter, in any country I have visited other than Sudan or North Korea, both of whom were under US sanctions at the time I visited. Heck, even up and down the east coast of Russia, from Anadyr to Vladivostok, my Canadian ATM card always worked at local ATMs.

When we're touring on a motorcycle, ATM availability is not really a problem - if one is out of service, there's always another one down the road. When I was working as an aircraft pilot, I wasn't quite as mobile - but I was always able to find an ATM to withdraw local currency either at the airport, or near the hotel.

Michael

I want to go just with the cards but I find I still need cash in some places and situations. I’m old so I still remember travellers’ cheques and I still take a small amount of local currency and a few thousand in US dollars, stashed away. If all else fails they usually do the trick and have got me out of situations.

Hello

To the original post of Louiz (Join Date: 14 Aug 2020, Last Activity: 17 Aug 2020, Total Posts: 1) postet in "Horizons Unlimited - The HUBB > Regional Forums > Europe"
Always have more than one card and some euros in case the cards don't work.
I tried 2019 in Sweden to go without cash, worked fine for a few days until I was at a gastation, gas allready in the tank, trying to pay by card at the counter but none of my cards worked.
IT-problems of the gas station company in Sweden at the moment, no international cards worked.
Across the street was a bank with a working ATM, so back to cash in Sweden 2019.



In generell:
2018 in Hokkaido, earthquake no power for several days in some areas of Hokkaido.
Stores were open and used $5 calculators and cash to sell food.
Would have been a few hungry days if I relyed only on cards, but I didn't and never will.

sushi

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it's easy to slide by with "cash machines are just about everywhere these days," or "every town's got one." But the fact is (leaving aside issues of technological failures, holiday runs on cash, and other similar stuff) if you're traveling remote places there are a LOT of places without cash machines. Little squalid towns; empty expanses of wilderness or undeveloped forests, grasslands and ranches; even here within a hundred miles of my home city

It's easy to get stuck if you're not carrying cash. Throw in a minor natural disaster or two--hurricane, tsunami, earthquake--or an un-natural disaster, e.g., presidential election or civil unrest, and sooner or later you may find yourself in trouble.

The upside to carrying at least some cash is pretty obvious, even if the need is rare, and I'm not seeing a downside. Hell, anytime I leave my house I've got at least a credit card, ID, and a hundred dollars or so. On the road I carry a lot more than that.

Mark

It's not a question of "or" but in what proportion.. and the answer depends on country. In some countries you can't pay with USD at all and exchanging is harder than finding ATM machine.

It is getting more and more common here in Sweden that you have to pre-pay the gasoline if you choose to pay at the register instead of at the pump.

As a Swede, I do prefer to use my card, since that is what I am used to. I have not carried cash when at home here in Sweden for the past 10-20 years. And the times it has caused "some" problems, i can count on one hand.
You more likely will have problems paying with cash, then paying with cards in Sweden, since more and more stores/shops stops accepting cash as payment.

However, when travelling, I do follow the norm in the country that I am in. A mix of cash, card and a dummy wallet is not un-common.