Travel Tip of the Week

How to be cost effective?

Have you ever considered travelling but have thought you couldn't afford it? Well we shared this same thought, and came up with a few ideas along the way on how to be cost effective, you do not have to follow this step by step but this is what personally works for us.

Step 1 - Changing money up

We personally take our money in 2 formats in case of emergencies, we have our bank cards and cash.

NEVER change your money up on the streets. For example - We had an occasion in Amsterdam where someone actually tried coming up to us while we were queuing to change our money, saying he had better rates and tried to convince us to exchange our money with him. Obviously we did not fall for his tricks but you never know how convincing someone may be one day. When you're travelling, along the way you will begin to notice who you can and can not trust.

NEVER change your money up late at night, with any of the 24 hour exchange places. They give you the worst rates, and the customer service is very poor. For example- We had a time in Prague, where we had little money left so we were forced to change some up late at night and we sure did pay the price heavily. We encountered two quite rude and abrupt gentlemen who spoke very poor English, who gave us some rates that weren't very good. We accepted because we needed the money, however when we asked for our receipt he could not provide us with one, we knew then that we had been mugged off massively with an awful exchange rate which did not match the boards. Maybe this was our fault for not double checking before we handed our money over, oh well lesson learnt!

After this occasion, cash points from international banks have some of the best exchange rates, and you know you can trust them as you have proof of the exchange being made just like when you're exchanging money in an airport or a larger train station. However, please note some of your banks may charge you to withdraw from abroad and you should inform your bank before you go anywhere abroad.

If you are going to be in one country for a longer period of time, we truly advise you change your money up in larger exchanges, as you get a much better rate for doing this. If you are concerned about carrying a large some of money around with you, then stay tuned in further posts on places to store your money.