What's the cash exchange rate?

During these tough economic times travel abroad in most cases has become cheaper for US citizens. A year ago it took two US dollars to buy on Great Britain Pound (GBP). Yesterday the cost for a GBP was $1.29. So if you have the money now is the time to travel abroad, you will get some good deals. My guess is that it will only get less expensive during the next year. When we finally come out of the economic slump the world's currencies will probably start rising against the dollar again.

Some places will take your dollars instead of the local currency. If you use dollars that will probably make things more expensive for you. There a many ways to get local currency for your dollars. Probably the easiest is to get an ATM card from your bank or credit union. You will have to have a checking account for this to work. With your ATM card just go to an automated teller machine put in your card, key your pin, and enter the amount of cash you want. The machine will vend your cash and deduct the withdrawal from your checking or savings account whichever you took the money from. You don't need to have any US cash for this type of transaction.

Another method is to take US cash to a local bank and ask to exchange it for local currency. Banks in big cities will usually do this for you. Banks in "small" town usually won't. But even "small" towns have ATMs these days so use the card.

Don't generally exchange your money before you go. The US banks rip you off on the exchange rate. If you make purchases in larger cities you may be able to use a credit card for your purchases. That's also a good way to go as you don't have to use or carry cash and the transactions are "safe".

One last thing, be sure you tell your bank and the credit card company (s) that you will be traveling. Give them the dates and the places. It's pretty ugly to try to use an ATM or credit card only to find out the bank has blocked it because the use is outside of your normal pattern. While fraud protection is a good thing it can hurt you if you don't think of some of these things in advance.