Money makes you go
around the world.
Picture this- You are
travelling to a country of which you have faint ideas. You do not know what
you'll do if you run out of cash, so you carry a whole lot of cash; and you
carry your cash like a Babu Bhaiya would.
Carrying cash is not the
solution, and the world has moved on. However, it’s extremely important that
you take care of what you have with you, especially your passport & money.
These are your lifelines, and Europe's not so safe; I'll tell you about it on my
post about Rome.
There are certain
essentials you ought to plan for, and one thing makes it to the top of the
list:
1. A HIDDEN CASH &
PASSPORT POUCH
including the others
like:
a. A Multi-currency
forex card
b. Some Dollars &
EUROs in cash
As we've already arrived
at how you would like to budget for your food, while having already taken care
of your bookings for Stay & Flight, you would now need to start budgeting
for your requirements of cash & card.
2. Cash
What would I need cash
for in this virtual world? considering I'm visiting advanced economies, do i
really need cash?
Well, yes you do!
As much as we've like to
think that countries are progressive, cash remain what it always has been- Quintessential!
a. Food you buy on the
streets
b. Souvenirs / Simple
& quick buys
c. Tickets for the
Metro/Bus/Ferry
All require Cash in
hand.
How do I plan for it? No
one can answer that but yourself! You know yourself.
For simple travelers
like us i would suggest 80-100 Euros per day per couple. Should take care of
your Metro/Travel and Food. For everything else ... there's Mastercard!
3. CARD | Forex
We got one from
bookmyforex and it was convenient considering that it offered 3 free ATM withdrawals
per card (i.e. No ATM withdrawal charge- this will be charged if you use your
normal international debit cards)
To increase our convenience
and decrease our dependency of carrying a lot of cash, we got two cards, one in
my name and one in Sneha’s. Hence, we got 6 total ATM transactions (call it
being baniya, but i respect that community for being champions of frugal engineering)
The budgeting of digital
money has a major dependency on your shopping estimations, since we've already
arrived at Food + Per day kharcha. Feel free to top up according to you wishes
and upload the correct amount.
Since these modes of
payments are very convenient, you can just give a call back home or log-on to
the internet- Most cards can be topped up from very easily in case you need the
money!
