Travel Ideas

by: Steve Gillman

My first time overseas, I had to exchange cash in $200 of travelers checks to pay a mountaineering guide who hadn’t heard of American Express. The bank charged me $8. During the same trip, I used my debit card at an ATM to get $200 from my checking account. Once home, I saw that the charge for this was one dollar, and that was the last time I used traveler’s checks.
Debit And Credit Cards When Traveling
I usually carry a debit card and a credit card when I travel now. I keep them well-hidden in two separate places. If they are stolen, which has never happened yet, they have either zero liability, or a fifty dollar liability limit for any unauthorized charges. Ask your bank or credit card company about this.
When an Automated Teller Machine (ATM) won’t take one of the cards for some reason - and this will happen - I use the other card, which usually works fine. Credit cards may be less trouble than debit cards. Your liability could be zero on your stolen debit card, but you probably won’t have access to your account until the matter is sorted out.
Of course, on longer trips it’s a hassle to pay the credit card bill on time, which isn’t a problem with debit cards. Carry both, and on longer trips you can wait until you’re a few weeks from home to use the credit card. That way you’ll get there before the bill does.
An important advantage credit and debit cards have over travelers checks, is that when you need the local currency, you’ll almost always get a better exchange rate with your cards. Also, the cash you get from the local ATM will truly be accepted everywhere, something even American Express Travelers Checks can’t promise.
I have nothing against American Express. Once, when I was robbed in Mexico, they quickly and curtiously replaced my stolen traveler’s checks. Also, at times it is appropriate to carry money in several forms, including theirs. However, times change and ATMs are everywhere now, so my policy is : Travelers checks; don’t leave home with them. You can take an American Express credit card instead.

About The Author

Steve Gillman hit the road at sixteen, and traveled the U.S. and Mexico alone at 17. Now 40, he travels with his wife Ana, whom he met in Ecuador. To read their stories, tips and travel information, visit: http://www.EverythingAboutTravel.com.

by: Gerron Woodruffe

It?s summer. And for some lucky Americans, this means going vacation to a far off land in hopes of relieving the stress of everyday life. In general, it is a very happy couple of months for the regular American family but it can also be an even happier time for credit card companies. This is because of the fact that credit card companies are making a killing off the money Americans spend on their foreign vacations through questionable fees.
Imagine this situation. You and your family are in Paris, France on vacation. Your wife sees a lovely pair of shoes that she ?must have? and so being the good husband that you are, you purchase the $300 pair of shoes using your credit card. Two weeks or so later, your credit card statement shows up and instead of you seeing a charge for $300 dollars, you statement shows a charge for $309. How did this happen? The answer is that you were charge 1% foreign currency-conversion fee by Visa or Master to convert your foreign-currency purchase into American dollars and were also charged an addition 2% foreign transaction fee by your credit card issuer.
If you are form the U.S., when you make a purchase abroad with your credit card, your credit card issuer will convert the charge to U.S. dollars before it appears on your statement. Usually, this is done through the Visa or MasterCard networks, which charge a 1-percent foreign currency-conversion fee for converting your foreign-currency purchase into American dollars. According to Kristin Arnold, a writer for Bankrate.com, this is a good deal since changing your money in almost any other manner will probably cost you a lot more.
What is unsettling, however, is the additional foreign transaction fee which your credit card issuer charges. This fee can range from 2-3%. According to Linda Sherry, the editorial director for Consumer Action in Washington, “Banks have been making a profit off their customers for a long time, while providing no service.” In Agreement, Ed Perkins, a syndicated travel columnist and author of “Business Travel When It’s Your Money,” says that these fees are ?pure gouging that credit card companies know they can get away with?. Foreign transaction fees do not relate to any service that the credit card issuer provides but instead is buried deep in the fine print of the credit card agreement between the issuer and the customer. So in retrospect, while Visa or MasterCard may have done you a favor by converting your foreign-currency purchase into American dollars for a fee of 1%, your bank?s additional charges were driven by pure greed.
So what can you do to avoid these fees? The answer is to do your research. Currently there is no standard rate at which all banks and corporations charge, so you could possibly find a card that does not add on any additional fees for overseas purchases. For example Bank of America, Citibank, MBNA and JP Morgan Chase all charge 2 percent on overseas purchases while Household Credit Services, Providian Financial Corp and Capital One do not.
Another way that one can protect themselves from being overcharged is to know and keep up with the latest currency exchange rates. Visiting currency conversion sites like http://www.gocurrency.com is a great way to do this. Having a general idea of the exchange rate will help you make more informed decisions when you purchase goods and services from local vendors.
In the end, credit card companies are in the business to make money, however, it is up to you whether they get it from you honestly or through underhanded practices.

About The Author

Gerron Woodruffe is a contributing writer for GoCurrency.com. GoCurrency provides information on global exchange rates, movements and news related information.

by: Nathan Tyree

I tried not to lean against anything. Leaning, I Feared, would give the wrong impression. It could seem too casual. Sitting was also not an option. I also did my level best not to make eye contact. This was harder than it sounds. When you are surrounded by people with dentition that resembles broken picket fences and forearms adorned with jail house style tattoos (some apparently made by carving shapes into the skin then pouring India ink into the wound) it?s very difficult to look anywhere other than their eyes. Fear causes this.
The name of the bar was ?Twisted Sisters.? I?m serious. I wouldn?t lie about something this deep. The place was run by two little old ladies with deeply wrinkled faces and Tom Waits voices. When they handed you a mug of beer the obligatory ?Here ya? go hon? came in a voice that sounded like it was sculpted by cheap scotch and cigarillos.
The place was peopled by extras from ?Hells Angels on Wheels? and every bad prison movie ever made. This woman kept bumping into me. She was medium height, slender, had long brown hair and three teeth. Her face looked a little like it had caught fire and some caring person had tried to put it out with an ax. Every time we collided I apologized nervously and she walked away. From behind she could have been Miss America. I swear.
I was in this dive because my old buddy Murphy had invited me. Murphy?s the type of guy who actually enjoys this sort of thing. The fellow is something of an enigma. He looks like he belongs in the back room of a place like Twisted Sisters, but those who know him know of his masters degree and the years he spent teaching at community college. Murphy?s a tough guy; did a little stretch in prison and another in the navy. Then he used the GI bill to obtain an education. Now he hangs out in places like this.
Murphy kept buying me beers and trying to get me to talk to the other patrons. I busied myself pretending to be an anthropologist studying some exotic tribe. I didn?t belong, but maybe I could learn something.
I had just started on another beer when someone dropped a few coins in the juke box. The music was bad country. To my utter disgust the first song that played was that ?I wanna stick a boot up your butt? super-patriotic, ultra-jingoist thing by the guy in the Ford truck commercials. The people around me began to sing along loudly.
What the hell? Why would these people, this underclass, this despised minority, feel a kinship with a singer that represents the right wing status quo? Shouldn?t these guys be listening to Steppenwolf (or at least Eminem)? Lets face it, the main stream of America doesn?t hang out in places like this. In fact, most suburban middle class goons would prefer that these people simply vanish from the planet. So why would the customers at Twisted Sisters get behind this new super nationalism? This was like seeing Jewish kids singing Deutschland Uber Alles, for god?s sake.
I decided to conduct a little experiment. I sauntered (or tried to saunter, it?s hard to truly saunter when you fear that you could be shivved at any moment, or worse: have your glasses broken) to the juke box and looked over the selections. I was hoping for Randy Newman or Bruce Cockburn or maybe even the Dead Kennedys. No such luck. Then I saw it. A CD by The Dixie Chicks. I dropped my money and chose four songs by the Dixters (I can?t bear to type ?Dixie Chicks? more than once… Damn. I just did it twice). Then I went back to my spot near Murphy and waited.
When my songs started I half expected a riot to begin. I thought that if these folks loved that Ford truck guy they might revolt at the musical stylings of those un-American girls. That didn?t happen. After the first few bars someone started to sing along. Then a second voice joined in. Then a third. After a minute or so everyone in the place was singing along with these traitors with the same fervor and joy they had exhibited in response to that earlier song.
I quickly came to a startling conclusion: people will sing along to anything. The content of the song doesn?t matter. Politics simply don?t enter into it. People are really singing along to the melody, or the bass line or something. What the words actually mean is immaterial.
A little later I waved my hand around in front of my face to clear some of the smoke and give myself a line of sight. I drained my beer and told Murphy that I had to bail. He slapped me on the back and headed toward the old scarred pool table. As I walked out into the sunlight I was thinking that I?d never have to see the inside of that place again.

About The Author

Nathan Tyree is a freelance writer living in Kansas. His work has appeared in a variety of magazines, including Bare Bone, Flesh and Blood, Lost Souls, Gorilla, and The Journal of Modern Post. Vist him on the web at:

http://www.geocities.com/nathanctyree

nathanctyree@yahoo.com