These days when you’re traveling, most people do what they can do get currency at a place that has the best exchange rate. There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s actually very smart. Credit cards usually are the best bet when you’re purchasing items abroad, and most of the time you can find an ATM machine that’ll have a Star or Cirrus logo that you can get your local cash at. Traveler’s checks (or cheques if you want to be anal) are alright, but honestly, who’s even seen a traveler’s check in the past 10 years? I think the last time I used them was in 1999.
So all the plastic you have is fine in theory. Unless your cards don’t work.
So here’s the tip: Bring three days worth of cash with you. It doesn’t matter if it’s U.S. Dollars, Euros, or the local currency. Have something in paper. Maybe your card doesn’t work, or it gets eaten by the ATM; it doesn’t matter. You’ll want the security of a few bucks to either exchange or live off of. If it’s the weekend, and the banks aren’t open then you’ll want to have enough cash for a few days until the banks do open.
You don’t want to end up like me and my friends in 2009. The 6 of us all landed in Venezuela, each with a few bucks here and there, but all of us thinking, “We’ll grab some cash from the ATM when we get there.” That thought process usually works fine in Europe, but in South America, that’s a different story. So, one of us tries our ATM card at the kiosk. Result: Fail. The second person tries. Same result. So here we are, 6 helpless looking Americans who don’t speak Spanish and about 100 U.S. dollars. It could have been really bad. We even came really close to getting some folks back home to wire us some cash.
Luckily for us, we were going on a guided hiking trip with all meals included. And our housing was our sleeping bags and tents anyways – so we were able to make due for a while. You wanna know how we finally got money? Our guide (Liu Izquierdo, more about him and this great hiking company in Venezuela in the next post) drove a few of us across the border into Brazil where we used the ATMs there. Once we got Brazilian cash from those machines, we had to exchange like $1,000 worth of Brazilian currency into Venezuelan money in the back of Liu’s cousin’s restaurant in the kitchen (yes, it’s as shady as it sounds). I shit you not, we came back over to Venezuela with a ratty-ass Jansport backpack full of cash, which we used as our money for the rest of the trip.
So, if you’re going to go abroad – make sure to have a money belt with a few Benjamins on you.
Here and There 
This is a great tip, Andrew. When I went to London, I went with more than a few days of cash. My problem was that I waited until I was out of cash to try and use an ATM for the first time. So I was down to £10 when I found out my card didn’t work. Luckily I had friends to cover me and my Dad in the States with a POA to get my account in order, but I would add that even if you’re bringing the local currency with you, it’s still a good idea to test your card right away.