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Do you prefer walking around with cash or card while travelling Do you prefer walking around with cash or card while travelling
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Europe Topics specific to Western and Eastern Europe, from UK to the Russian border, and south-east to Turkey.
Photo by Marc Gibaud, Clouds on Tres Cerros and Mount Fitzroy, Argentinian Patagonia

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Photo by Marc Gibaud,
Clouds on Tres Cerros and
Mount Fitzroy, Argentinian Patagonia



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  #1  
Old 17 Aug 2020
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Do you prefer walking around with cash or card while travelling
Hey there! Do you prefer walking around with cash or card while travelling? I use a card most of the time. Cash is just a security issue.
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Old 17 Aug 2020
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Both is needed today in europe, for travelling purpose.

If you had to choose between, is cash is still the option number 1.

Soon you get more remote, the bars/restaurants dont can process cards, or the unit dont work... For City tripping a card will work well..

Surfy
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  #3  
Old 17 Aug 2020
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If it's possible, I always prefer to use a bank card as I find it more convenient and I don't need to carry cash, especially coins with me after getting the change. But when you travel, you can find a many places that don't accept cards or require minimum amount of transaction even if in your country they would have accepted without any doubts. Now I keep the main amount of money on the BlackCatCard. That's a great card but still not very popular. The main currency is the euro, no setup and maintenance fees. At home or travelling, paying or withdrawing cash from an Mastercard ATM isn't a problem as well
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Old 18 Aug 2020
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Can't we have both..? I use cards for major purchases, but carrying a bit of cash in pocket is always very useful.

As mentioned above, what if you encounter an issue where your card isn't accepted, or just plain doesn't work? I have that happen here occasionally right in my hometown, never mind in a country on the other side of the globe!
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Old 18 Aug 2020
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Nice of Louiz to bring up a subject I’d never given a second thought to

Those of you with long memories in the U.K. may remember an advert for Access (now MasterCard) way back where the strap line was “Access says more about you than cash ever could”. The implication was that paying by card portrayed you as some kind of sophisticated, well heeled individual. How times have changed. In this track and trace era where your spending habits plug straight into an advertising database I’m much more of the “cash says less about me than Access ever could” persuasion. That is if I can find anyone to take my disease riddled coins.
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Old 18 Aug 2020
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Hey Louiz, your first post.
As for Africa (Sub-Saharan) you need both. In the towns you'll be alright with a credit card, but - even in South Africa - in rural areas many small shops, B&Bs etc. don't have card facilities.
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Old 2 Nov 2020
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I want to go just with the cards but I find I still need cash in some places and situations. I’m old so I still remember travellers’ cheques and I still take a small amount of local currency and a few thousand in US dollars, stashed away. If all else fails they usually do the trick and have got me out of situations.
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Old 2 Nov 2020
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Hello

To the original post of Louiz (Join Date: 14 Aug 2020, Last Activity: 17 Aug 2020, Total Posts: 1) postet in "Horizons Unlimited - The HUBB > Regional Forums > Europe"
Quote:
Originally Posted by Louiz View Post
Hey there! Do you prefer walking around with cash or card while travelling? I use a card most of the time. Cash is just a security issue.
Always have more than one card and some euros in case the cards don't work.
I tried 2019 in Sweden to go without cash, worked fine for a few days until I was at a gastation, gas allready in the tank, trying to pay by card at the counter but none of my cards worked.
IT-problems of the gas station company in Sweden at the moment, no international cards worked.
Across the street was a bank with a working ATM, so back to cash in Sweden 2019.



In generell:
2018 in Hokkaido, earthquake no power for several days in some areas of Hokkaido.
Stores were open and used $5 calculators and cash to sell food.
Would have been a few hungry days if I relyed only on cards, but I didn't and never will.

sushi
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Old 2 Nov 2020
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it's easy to slide by with "cash machines are just about everywhere these days," or "every town's got one." But the fact is (leaving aside issues of technological failures, holiday runs on cash, and other similar stuff) if you're traveling remote places there are a LOT of places without cash machines. Little squalid towns; empty expanses of wilderness or undeveloped forests, grasslands and ranches; even here within a hundred miles of my home city

It's easy to get stuck if you're not carrying cash. Throw in a minor natural disaster or two--hurricane, tsunami, earthquake--or an un-natural disaster, e.g., presidential election or civil unrest, and sooner or later you may find yourself in trouble.

The upside to carrying at least some cash is pretty obvious, even if the need is rare, and I'm not seeing a downside. Hell, anytime I leave my house I've got at least a credit card, ID, and a hundred dollars or so. On the road I carry a lot more than that.

Mark
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  #10  
Old 8 Nov 2020
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Originally Posted by sushi2831 View Post
Hello
I tried 2019 in Sweden to go without cash, worked fine for a few days until I was at a gastation, gas allready in the tank, trying to pay by card at the counter but none of my cards worked.
IT-problems of the gas station company in Sweden at the moment, no international cards worked.
Across the street was a bank with a working ATM, so back to cash in Sweden 2019.
It is getting more and more common here in Sweden that you have to pre-pay the gasoline if you choose to pay at the register instead of at the pump.

As a Swede, I do prefer to use my card, since that is what I am used to. I have not carried cash when at home here in Sweden for the past 10-20 years. And the times it has caused "some" problems, i can count on one hand.
You more likely will have problems paying with cash, then paying with cards in Sweden, since more and more stores/shops stops accepting cash as payment.

However, when travelling, I do follow the norm in the country that I am in. A mix of cash, card and a dummy wallet is not un-common.
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