How to make sure you have access to enough cash while travelling

When you travel, you need to make sure that you have enough cash on you. Plus, a bit extra to enable you to deal with an emergency. You want to be able to buy a last-minute flight should you need one. Or, pay for a hotel room that is more expensive than you were expecting. Here are a few tips to help you to be able to do that.

Familiarise yourself with the various options

Before you leave home, familiarise yourself with the different ways you can receive emergency cash while you are abroad. In most countries, you will be able to use international money transfer services to have friends or relatives send you money. You need to know which firms offer this service in the countries you are planning to travel to.

Ensure that your valuables are properly insured

Regardless of where you are travelling to you need to buy a good insurance policy. It has to cover your valuables, including your debit and credit cards. If they are lost or stolen you will want your policy provider to make arrangements to have them replaced quickly and do so free of charge. As well this, you want them to provide you with some emergency funds to tide you over while you wait for your replacement cards to arrive.

Sometimes your bank or credit card provider offers this type of service as a part of their deal. Don’t just assume that their cover is adequate. This article will help you to decide whether you can rely on them or if it is better to buy a travel insurance policy that includes lost credit and bank card coverage. 

Always carry more than one bank card

It is not wise to travel with only one way of getting money out of the bank or paying for goods. At the very least you should have two cards. Make sure that you do not store them in the same place. Have one on your person and consider leaving the other hidden in your hotel room. Or better still have three cards. One in your wallet, one in your room and the other one hidden on one of you. That way if you are mugged, you can use the hidden card to get some money out and get back to your hotel room. This backpacker shares some great places to hide some emergency cash and a spare card, while travelling.

If your credit rating is not good enough to enable you to have more than one credit card or bank account, consider getting a pay as you go card. There are fees but it is better to have one of these with enough money sitting on it to pay for a hotel and food for a couple of days than it is to be stranded. 

Find out what the cheapest way to pay is before you start your travels

Before you arrive in a country, work out the most cost-efficient way to pay or change money is. Sometimes it will cost you less to pay for products in shops rather than draw the cash out and buy things using that. Counter-intuitively, in some countries, it is cheaper to pay in the local currency rather than the currency of your credit card.