Would it make sense to bring travelers checks or just a lot of cash? Will $1000-$1200 be enough for a month?
Posted in Southeast Asia
Pompous Rhombus, May 26, 2008
Traveler’s checks are safest, but also the most hassle. I’ve generally used a combination of ATM’s/cash, although the increasing availablity of ATMs in Cambodia and Laos is making it less necessary to bring your own currency in. (Also, if you have USD you can use them in Cambodia/Laos)
Falco, May 26, 2008
Definitely don’t bring $1000 in cash over with you. You don’t want to be carrying around that much money at any one time. Just bring about $200 in cash with you and use your ATM card the to pull more money out. Just remember that you will get nailed with a 3% conversion fee from your bank, so pull out a fair bit at a time. I’ve been doing about 3000baht or $100 at a time, but could probably do a bit more.
My biggest piece of advice from my travels so far, is don’t bring near the amount of clothes that you might think you need or want. That is the biggest complaint of most travelers. You really only need a couple of t-shirts, a couple pairs of shorts, one long pants, 3 socks and underwear and that’s about it. Clothing is cheap over here if you decided that you absolutely needed more.
Pompous Rhombus, May 26, 2008
I can pull out 10,000 baht a day (call it $330) from my bank account in the US, which is a pretty decent sum. No need to carry it all on you at once, I usually have a few thousand here and there in my bags to cover all eventualities.
The clothing advice is spot on, you can buy clothes over here for a lot less, and considering laundry is generally done by the kilogram (50 cents to a dollar per, usually) it’s not that big a deal to get it done more frequently.
December 4th, 2009 at 12:49 am
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December 10th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
i once brought with me $1000 on my trip to singapore, malaysia, thailand. Things could go wrong and you need cash. Although i must say after travelling around south east asia, its best to bring half cash, and just leave it to the atm cards the rest. i haven’t used traveller’s cheques but just be on the look out with your money. so far so good, didn’t lose any money, nor did my money got stolen. dollars are well accepted in cambodia if that’s where you’re going. bring smaller bills instead and always, i mean always check out the exchange rates, believe it or not the people you see outside your hotel will exchange your money way higher than in banks. but just be careful whenever you’re changing your money.