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Archive for the 'Foreign Currency' Category

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Some Tips to Help Guard Against Theft While Traveling

The Best Way to Exchange Money for a Trip Overseas

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Some Tips to Help Guard Against Theft While Traveling

Tuesday, April 1st, 2008

Let’s face it, when we’re tourists we can be targets of theft – even if it’s only petty theft. This is even more true when you’re traveling with kids: You’re more vulnerable since your eyes are on your kids, not to mention your bags, money and passports.

Don’t despair! Here are some tricks to help you safeguard your possessions.

Your pocketbooks and knapsacks should have zippers so you can’t be as easily pick pocketed. I purchased a special small pocketbook that has special straps that are difficult to cut (they have wire inside them). Two of the pockets inside zip and there’s an extra flap over the top that closes so someone can’t easily slip their hand inside of it.

We bought safety pouches to wear under our clothes to keep our passports tucked away. There’s one type that you wear around your waist and another that you wear around your neck under your shirt. We also kept photocopies of our passports on us in case we lost the originals.

Unfortunately, one of the pouch’s zippers broke before we even left our house (when my husband tried to fit in all 4 of our passports and zip it up), so we only had one to bring. So the lesson there is to test out your equipment a couple of days before you leave.

Beware of pickpockets! My husband was careful to keep his wallet in his front pocket.

Every nation has its own currency and it’s a good idea to look it over before you enter the country. I found the euros to be confusing to count because they don’t have bills for a 1 euro and a 2 euro. They’re both coins. So if you give someone a 10 euro note, you may be handed back a lot of change in coins. If you’re traveling with kids, it’s probably a good idea for either you or your partner to take responsibility for paying, while the other watches the kids. This way, whoever is paying can take the time to count the change. I was short changed a couple of times. The first time, in the airport after we first arrived, I realized it too late. I only lost a euro, but it was a good lesson to be vigilant. Another time, in a pharmacy, I was shortchanged a euro again. This time I was ready and pointed out the “error” and got the correct change.

I’m sure this happens to tourists in all countries. They’re obvious targets.

Below are some images of euros as a reference for people traveling to Europe.

Here are images of 1, 2, 5 and 10 cent euros. (The coins of the each denomination are lined up in columns.) You can see that the back of the euros can look different, even when they’re the same euro amount…

Here’s a photo of 20 and 50 cent euros…

Finally, below you’ll find a photo of 1 and 2 euro coins. You can see there are a lot of variations on the back of the 1 euro coins I got back for change…

What’s interesting to me is that when I lived in France as a college student, and then toured around Europe, someone only tried to short change me one time when I first arrived in France. This time there were several occasions where people made attempts to cheat me, either by shortchanging or overcharging. I wonder if having kids made the difference? Maybe we seemed more vulnerable. Fortunately, the amounts were small so we can laugh it off as an experience. I had a great time and I’d love to return to Europe tomorrow, but it is a good idea to be aware of your surroundings while there.

Here are some sites where you can find images of various foreign currencies, if you’d like to familiarize yourself with them. (These can be fun to look at with kids, even if you aren’t planning any travel.)

Currency Photos

Don’s World Coin Gallery (Select by Country)

More Coin Site Links

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Posted in Foreign Currency, Mama Lisa, Traveling | No Comments »

The Best Way to Exchange Money for a Trip Overseas

Tuesday, April 1st, 2008

We just returned from a trip to Europe. We toured around France, in the areas of Provence in the south and Paris. We learned some important lessons about dealing with money overseas.

First, before you embark on your trip, make sure you tell your credit card company and bank when you are going. This way, when you use your ATM card or credit card overseas, they will know that the charges are authorized and not think that your card has been stolen. Otherwise, they might put a hold on your accounts!

While you’re on the phone with the bank and credit card company, ask them what their charges are for using the cards overseas and also what their current rate of exchange is. This way you’ll know how you’ll get your best rate. Most people will tell you that the best thing to do is to charge everything. This may not be the case for you. It wasn’t for us! Our credit card company charges us a 3% fee on all credit card purchases overseas (regardless of whether or not we pay our bill on time). Meanwhile, our bank charges us 1% of money withdrawn from ATM machines overseas.

It appears that most banks will only allow you to withdraw an equivalent amount of $500 US dollars per day. Also, you may be charged a fee for the ATM machine you’re using overseas.

Whatever the current exchange rate is that you read in the newspaper, you can expect to pay a little more.

We converted some money to euros before we left. Many people do this at the airport, but we were traveling with our young daughter, and lots of bags, so we didn’t want the added pressure of one more thing to worry about before or after the flight. My husband works in New York City, so it wasn’t too hard for him to find a place to make the conversion there, a few days before we left.

The rate of exchange we got was $1.62/euro (which was worse than the then current rate of $1.55/euro). Plus there was a flat fee $5.00.

That rate was better than what you’ll get in many cases at a currency exchange place in Europe. One that we found had an exchange rate of $1.77/euro if you’re exchanging less than $500 and $1.65/euro if you’re exchanging more than $500. Plus they had a surcharge of 6%. That’s a rate you’d want to avoid!

We were never able to find a bank in southern France that exchanged money. The truth is that we didn’t want to spend our whole days searching for one. Also, in southern France, many businesses close at lunchtime from 12 – 2 pm making the task more difficult.

Even in Paris we had a hard time finding a bank to exchange dollars into euros. Finally, once we ran out of the euros we had brought from the US we used our ATM card to withdraw more and in a pinch we used our credit card.

If you’re planning on traveling overseas in the future, I’d recommend exchanging some money before leaving on your trip. The rate might not be great, but it will most likely be better than or equal to what you’ll find overseas. Otherwise, depending upon your bank’s policy, you’ll need to decide which is the best course of action for you.

For further reading, here’s an article on the same subject by CNN called Choosing the Right Currency for Your Trip.

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Posted in Exchanging Money Overseas, Foreign Currency, France, Mama Lisa, The Dollar versus the Euro, Traveling | 4 Comments »

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