best way to manage money
 

i havent found a suitable post on the best way.

Coming from the UK, what would you advise....open a US bank account that will issue dollars?

Carry travellers chqs? How much would you reccomend carrying in cash baring in mind i imagine a severe lack of ATM's in the remote areas.

Thanks

Plastic
 

Hi
We rolled through all of Central and part of South America with nothing but visa and mastercards.. ATMs are abundant and if you plan just a couple of days ahead you should be ok :-)
Enjoy!
Louise:thumbup1:

agreed, atm's were available in all but the smallest towns...our bank cards are on the CIRRUS network, so at times we had to try a few different machines at different banks before we could get funds.

You DO need to plan ahead, especially for border crossings, but generally speaking we were OK carrying the equivalent of $200USD in local funds.

I believe you can get American dollars from ATM's in:

Costa Rica (certain bank ATMs in San Jose, anyway)
Panama (official currency)
Equador (official currency)
and El Salvador

So you load up with $$ before hitting the remote area; and being remote, you won't spend much money anyway. Even the most remote places are a few hours by motorcycle to the nearest ATM, the nearest gas, the nearest supplies, etc.

As mentioned, ATMs are found most everywhere. You can only open a bank account in the US if you have a social security number. But, I would not see a need for that anyway.

I try to keep a good mix of cash (local and US$), ATM, VISA and AMEX card. Personally, with all the before mentioned at hand, I find traveler checks outdated.

I don't really understand why the OP would want a bank account that is denominated in dollars for the purpose of this trip? The only possible reason i can think of is that having the exchange rate between US$ and whatever local currency you will pull from an ATM is always a better rate than if the account was denominated in GBP or even EUR. If that is your reason for asking, then the solution is to open a US$ denominated account in the channel islands from HSBC. You will be issued debt and credit cards for which the base currency is US$. This account can be opened by anyone with a passport from any country. If you were to open an account in the UK, it would necessarily have a base currency of GBP, but since the channel islands are not in the UK, they can issue US$ accounts.

Nevertheless, aside from this one single reason for having a US$ account, using debt cards or credit cards denominated in GBP and issued by a UK bank work just fine in any country's ATM machines in the world with minor exceptions like Iran, North Korea, etc. They will even work in Cuba.

If the OP's question is about getting access to physical US$ while traveling, it is irrelevant what currency your account is denominated. Your access to US$ will be dictated by the currency laws in the country you are traveling in. Some country's ATM machines dispense both local currency and US$, but many do not. Obviously the dollarized countries like Panama, Ecuador, and El Salvador do dispense US$ as that is the only currency in circulation.

Best solution if you absolutely need physical US$ currency? Carry a selection of US$ bills on your person which you brought from your home country (if available there, otherwise get them from a FX changer on the trip) Carry lots of large denomination bills and an assortment of 1s, 5s, 10s, and lots of 20s. Otherwise try to get local currency from local ATMs and spend that. To be honest, i rarely carry more than US$200 on me as i am that confident in getting local currency from ATMs. Of course i carry a much larger amount of local currency on me when i venture into remote areas. though i think will be surprised at how good the banking system and ATM locations are in Latin America. With great confidence, I can say that the retail banking infrastructure in Argentina, Brasil, Peru, Ururaguay, etc is vastly superior to UK or US systems. It is actually a result of the hyper-inflation of the 80s and 90s which necessitated the development of extremely efficient money movement and dispensing. Online banking in these regions is incredibly better than anything in the US & UK.

Charges!
 

On a side note, when traveling around Asia last year over a nine month period I was charged a total of £600 (for £20000) spend (Barclays UK) withdrawing from ATM's. I know Nationwide it's free in Europe but can anybody recommend a UK or offshore bank account that gives free money when withdrawing in the Americas?

Cheers
Pete

Caxton Card
 

Pete - I'm definitely getting one of these before I leave for my next trip : link : Prepaid MasterCard Travel Money Card | Currency Card | Caxton FX :yes:


cheers / Keith


.

Does anyone have any experience of using one of these? ?c?

Nice one Keith, bookmarked :thumbup1:

Dave - some opinions were posted on this thread last month, which is where I got the heads up about this card. But I agree with you, it would be good to get a few 'real life' reviews and opinions from existing Caxton users.


.

HSBC Premier refunds all ATM fees and has excellent FX rates.

The post office also do them..

I just applied for the Claxton card...

Terms and conditions:





I authorise Caxton FX Ltd, when considering this application, to contact my bankers or any other sources to make identity, credit reference, fraud and other enquiries.
I understand that if I choose to hold a large balance on my Prepaid Card (such as £1,000 or more) that I accept the risks of holding this large amount of money on my card. I understand that I may lose my e-money if Newcastle Building Society becomes insolvent, and that the Financial Services Compensation Scheme does not apply to my Prepaid Card. Caxton FX can only accept payment from a cardholder's own UK bank debit card in the cardholder's own name.

Fair FX
 

Fair FX have a 'Anywhere Card' that you can use, erm... anywhere in the world.

The only fee is a 1.5% transaction fee (ATM, shop transaction etc). This compares favourably with the platinum type bank accounts (for HSBC 2.75% fees + monthly charges for the service) and is also better than the Claxton FX card, which I believe is 2.5% (Ted: you may want to check it out!). The exchange rates are apparently good too.

I think the best option for managing money from a purley financial point of view is to use a good credit card. But I cant be arsed with credit cards - I hate em.

I will be in the Americas, so I have got the Fair FX anywhere card and am applying to get another 'normal' FX card for the N America portion of the trip as this has absolutely no charges for transactions in Europe and the US (the anywhere card will charge 1.5% even if you use it in your home country).

If you load it with £500, you even get £5 free! Here's where I found it:

Cheap Travel Money: NEW top card for spending abroad...

Ta

Posty office travel cards only work in countries using the EURO £ and US$. I'd imagine, that since we are in the latin america section, this would present a slight problem for most people!

True for a lot of other cards and services also - check before you order.

(Lets hope that someone reads this and saves themselves 1.5 hours of queing up at a post office on a saturday morning only to be very disappointed! doh)

Nat West
 

From what I've been told, Nat West have a very good & free account, and they don't charge any fees if you use your debit/credit card.

Other than that: the only countries I've been where I couldnt use my card were Iran and Uzbekistan (though there is one city/hotel in Uzbekistan where you can withdraw over the counter via visa).

Every now & then I went through a country where I could get US$ from a cash machine: Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Bolivia, Peru for example (in other words: even the so-called "less travelled" places)

All good suggestions worthy of further investigation :thumbup1:

Another challenge when trying to manage money on an extended trip is what do you do when your debit/credit cards expire? Are there any issues/gotchas with the banks/credit card providers sending cards to a relative in order for them to forward on? Will they even do thi? Any experiences or advice much appreciated.

Steve

Charles Scwabb?
 

I just opened a high yield checking account with Charles Schwabb and they say that all ATM fees are reimbursed. I bet other investment groups may do the same. I am from Alaska and will be leaving sept 6 to TDF me and a friend are both on 08 KLRs. I would be intrested to hear of anyone else with an account from Charles Swchabb.

Just phone your bank a couple weeks before you go and ask for a new card (you may have to claim that you lost it if they're a bit picky about it). They'll most likely stop the current card, so take some cash out to tide you over before the new card arrives. I think a card is valid for 3 years. If your extended trip is longer than this, your on your own!

One of the best sites I've found for up to date info on cards and loads of other cash saving is moneysavingexpert dot com.

As stated, ATM's are now almost everywhere.

I carry a few travelers checks stashed about in case of an emergency. Robbed, card failure, lost card etc. I bring a few copies of my VISA debit/ATM card & stash them all in different places. I have a secondary account with my bank that I use only for travel. I transfer money to this account in small increments so that I never have more than a hundred or two in that account. I also keep a $100 carefully hidden in each bag and a $50 under my boot insole.

I never use my card as a VISA card.