Traveling Abroad? Need to Exchange Currency?

Here are a few tips to minimize the costs

Photo by Jason Leung on Unsplash

I love to travel, and have been going abroad since I was about 7 years old. At that age, I didn’t worry too much about exchanging my dollars for dinars, drachma or dong. I was just happy to be given leftover coins and a few bills when we got home to put in my stash. I loved how much more colorful foreign money typically is than the greenback, and I loved to see the faces of foreign notables such as Queen Elizabeth II or Gandhi.

As I got older, I started to manage my own travel expenses. Part of this included managing my own currency exchanges. Which is not that hard, but if you are not a fan of spending more than you have to, here are some suggestions:

Take a lesson from Lucy and avoid street corner exchanges

I used to love I Love Lucy reruns as a kid — who didn’t? One episode that was particularly funny was when Lucy was arrested for counterfeiting in Paris. She was innocent of anything but stupidity, but since she didn’t speak French and the gendarmes did not speak English… well, let’s just say the line of people translating for her created one of the funniest scenes that I can still laugh at even after watching it many times.