What are the Various Options for Carrying Money When Traveling Overseas?

Traveling to foreign countries is a vacation for some, and work for others. Either way, money management is often an issue many people find hard to deal with. For starters, how do you carry the foreign currency? What’s the best option?

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Generally speaking, there are only 4 options when it comes to carrying a foreign currency. These are:

1. Credit Cards
   Credit cards convenient and accepted in all corners of the world. Since they are “postpaid”, you don’t have to worry about running out of cash either.
   Also, with a travel credit card, you can enjoy many travel-related features such as discounts in hotels/restaurants, free baggage clearances, travel miles that can be redeemed for future flight tickets, etc.
   An important thing to remember about using credit cards in foreign countries, however, is that they do attract different types of charges such as currency conversion charges, transaction fees, etc. Most importantly, you need to be careful when withdrawing cash in a foreign currency as that attracts a high charge up to 2% to 4% of the withdrawal amount.
2. Debit Cards
   An alternative to credit cards are debit cards with the disadvantage of limited funds. This is because you can spend only as much as the amount that’s in your account. On the plus side, you don’t have to pay high withdrawal charges when using an ATM.
3. Forex Cards or Prepaid Cards
   Forex cards are the cheapest option next to physical cash to carry foreign money with you. These are prepaid cards on which you can load as much as foreign currency as you want in advance. You can even loan multiple foreign currencies if the card supports the feature.
   Forex cards are great if you have to travel to multiple countries. Plus, you can save a lot of money on currency conversion rate by loading the card when the fee is the lowest.
4. Physical Cash
   Of course, the simplest and most straight-forward way to carry foreign currency is to, well, “carry” it in the physical form. However, it’s best to keep only a small portion of it with you for emergencies and do most of the payments with the options above.