Taking Dollars on a longish trip
 

You hear a lot of people saying Dollars are the universal currency for paying miscellaneous charges/bribes at borders and for incidentals, black market petrol etc on the road. But how many do people take? Not necessarily talking about paying for your hotels in $ (unless people have done that as well) but running costs/incidental cash (the sort of thing you squirrel round the bike and riding gear). And what denominations/proportions? Obviously there's not many situations where you'll be able to ask for change but using $1 bills for everything is gonna get bulky.

The journey I'm thinking of is Europe across to Mongolia and back through the Stans. Experience and advice from those who've been there/done that appreciated!

It depends a lot on the countrys you want to visit for example Cambodia juses the US Dollar as a normal currency. Also in Jordan and at the boarder to Egypt i payed in Dollars before i had local currency and the Visa for Kenia were 50 Euro or Dollars...dollars are cheaper. Dollars can be changed everywere exept may be in russia. Bigger bills get better rates then 1 Dollar bills. Russian people historicly dont like the US and their currency. To bribe stelcy officials, zigarretes are better (and cheaper). In peru i could enter with a bike not registered in my name for just 10US$...

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I carry from 300 to 800 US dollars on any trip. The exact amount depends on anticipated uses as well as whether there are countries along the way which use dollars as their currency, in which case supplies are easily replenished via cash machines. Some people bring far, far more.

I've sometimes returned home without using any of my stash, which is fine. On other trips, I've bought visas, paid fees, tips or (very unwillingly) bribes, changed money in situations where there are no cash machines, given presents to genuine friends, etc.

Don't forget the need for clean, smooth, new, totally unsullied bills, and definitely take a variety of denominations, e.g., ones, fives, tens, twenties, fifties and hundreds. You don't want to pay for a $20 exit fee with a $100 bill and get your change in local currency at a poor exchange rate.

Hope that's helpful.

Mark

What Mark said, I think $500 in mixed notes is a good amount, many visas and other fees can be paid for in Dollars.

For the trip you're doing, if you have a visa credit card with a PIN, you can use it just about everywhere to withdraw from the many cashpoint machines.

The only place you'll need cash is Uzbekistan (and plan enough for your whole stay there: accomm, food, fuel, entry fees to sights etc)
and maybe entering Mongolia, though I seem to recall we found an ATM quite quickly.
Even in a village in the middle of nowhere, as they are in Mongolia, we found a bank where we could withdraw inside the bank, not at a machine, when we had run out of local currency and they couldn't exchange dollars for some reason, or we didn't have any left: I can't quite remember!

In addition to that, it's useful to have the dollars for when you cross any small borders and there are no machines until the next major town and you may need to buy fuel or whatever beforehand.

I would go along with mark's range, you might feel more comfortable with more because of Uzbekistan.
My personal minimum is probably 500$ as the other mark said.

I also remember being able to withdraw dollars from some ATMs in Gerogia, which was very helpful.

Check caravanistan to calculate how much you'll need for visas, plus Uzbekistan, plus your personal emergency stash.
Hopefully you won't need to pay any bribes...we were lucky on that route and only had one case at the tajik border, based on our lack of prep and thinking the disinfection fee he wanted was a real one.

Have fun!

We carry a lot of US dollars and less in Euros because we have been several times in places that don't accept credit cards and all the ATMs in the town are out of action for the day. We also have a travel card loaded with dollars and euro plus a couple of debit cards and a couple of credit cards plus we withdraw maximum amounts out of ATMs in local currency and pay cash for almost everything except very major purchases. If necessary some big items have been paid for in Dollars if we can't get enough local currency out because of silly low daily limits

make sure when you get your dollar notes, they are pristine with no folds, tears, pen marks etc, I found some money changers refusing a couple of my notes.

sounds quaint or strange but a small amount of gold in 1 gram lumps works very well too... accepted at almost any jewellers for local currency. Works very well in Asia. I can't think of a country where you can not sell gold.

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Charlie

Something that I find the best from my own experience is an undershirt wallet. It's probably the safest way because there is no access to your money and passport for anyone else unless they literally undress you. Here's a review of those: http://www.travelwalletexpert.com/20...ets-for-travel

Certainly the case when I went to Southeast Asia.

Yeah but who does that? Sometimes it may be necessary, but you usually bring dollars (or Euro) to change to local currency because there might not be an ATM.

In my case it was just when I ran out with smaller denominations and didn't stop by the money changer until much later. This was in Cambodia.

Perhaps not the wisest decision but oh well.