Importance Of Currency Awareness When Planning A Trip – 4 Reasons You Need to Know

The importance of currency knowledge is something most people don’t think about when they’re planning a trip. When you don’t understand the currency of the country you are traveling to it could lead to some mistakes. I’m going to give you four reasons why you should know the importance of the currency for the countries you’re going to before you leave.

Exchange Rate

The first one is you want to know the exchange rate. The obvious reason is to know how much things cost in your money terms while away. Determine how much that exchange rate is so you can figure it out easily when you go to pay for something in your destination. Round the exchange up or down to the easiest multiplier to be able to exchange that in your head.

Exchange Rate Scams

The second one is you want to make sure you’re not getting scammed with the exchange rate. The importance of currency knowledge and being able to figure it out easily to determine quickly if the person is trying to scam you with a terrible exchange rate. It’s very easy to get scammed in different countries with regards to currency. Not only for the rate of exchange, but knowing the denominations of the currency you are using. When you go to some countries, you become an instant millionaire because they’re dealing with really large bills like $10,000 or 100,000+ denominations. We are not usually accustomed to dealing with these large bills, plus when they are all different colours and some colours are very similar it is hard to tell one bill from another.

The scam can be a very easy one, one which has happened to me. I was dealing with very large denominations of bills and in some places they’re going to “help you out” while you’re trying to figure out which bills to give them. If you’re not counting your zeros correctly they will help you out of the larger bill and say “oh it’s this one” you’ll say oh thank you and be on your way. But instead of the larger bill, it should have been the smaller bill. This will also happen when you are given change…they will short you on the change you should have received back. So when you are planning your trip, it’s better to be prepared and take a look online at what the bills look like and the denominations are to avoid this scam.

Another area to be aware of is when you go to bank machines. Bank machines are going to charge you a certain amount of money to take out money so you want to understand what that exchange rate is. I have noticed every bank charges a different rate so you want to go to one that’s not going to charge you a lot more than the rest of the bank machines, which is where knowing the exchange rate comes in. This way you’re gonna save more money on taking cash out and be able to spend that on drink or food instead of fees.

Closed Currency

The third one is one that I had no idea about and I got stuck in it twice. I obviously didn’t learn my lesson the first time. It is a closed currency. Closed currencies are currencies in countries where you’re not able to buy it outside of that country or sell it outside of that country. You’ll only be able to get your money for that country that you’re going to when you get there.

This happened to me in Laos and in Mongolia. Luckily for me I was able to sell off most of my Laos money to other travelers because where I was in Southeast Asia, a lot of people travel there. The Mongolian currency is definitely a lot harder to resell, since not a lot of people go here so I have a lot more Mongolian money left over. Good thing I’m wanting to go back there since there’s nothing I can do with it, currently it is just an expensive piece of paper. So determine if the currency is open or closed before you leave on your trip. If you are in a closed currency country you want to ensure you spend the money before you leave or exchange it back to american dollars prior to leaving.

Weird Exchange Rules

The fourth one is a little bit of an anomaly, but it happens in certain countries. It is those weird exchange rules.This one I knew about when I was traveling to Myanmar but still I didn’t realize how strict they were going to be with it. Sometimes you go into a country and you just plan to use the bank machines there but you carry some American dollars with you to exchange as well. Well in Myanmar I brought some American money with me but I was concerned if they would accept the bills I had. The exchange rule is they only accept American dollars, or any currency, if it is in pristine condition. If you have a little tear in it, if it got crumpled, if it had any marks on it, anything wrong with the bill they will not exchange it for you.

I had arrived here but I didn’t exchange any money prior to my trip. I knew I had American dollars and I was just going to use the bank machine when I got to the airport. When I got there I went up to the exchange place to exchange my money. I was only able to exchange maybe $10 to $20 because they were like nope that’s not good, no that’s not good, nope, nope and nope. Probably about 60% of the bills that I had were excluded. With these unusual rules, take them seriously because they will.

My time at this airport also became a bit of a sweat fest for me too because my whole plan of taking money out of the bank machines didn’t work out as smoothly as I thought it would. There were rows of bank machines, all different companies so I just chose one. I ended up trying every single one, while trying two different bank cards and two different credit cards on each machine. It took me six different bank machines to find one where I could take money out. This was the first time I learned that not all bank machines will accept cards from your home country even if it has the symbol on it. I was starting to sweat a lot that I wasn’t going to be able to get any money out in this country.

I also learned to continue to try every single machine with every card, and there should be one that will work for you. When you finally do find that bank machine make sure you take a picture of it, so you know which bank machine and which bank will take your card. This way you’ll be able to just look on your phone with that picture and be able to find that bank machine when you need to.

So I hope these give you some insight into the importance of currency knowledge and why you should understand what the exchange rate and what those currencies are before you go on your next trip.