For those traveling abroad

tonyb

Just alittle heads up, bring lots of currency, as in Euro's.

My in-laws just came back from a cruise and land trip in Italy and Greece. 3 weeks....they had a good time except for one thing, they couldn't use credit cards or convert currency. Apparently, because of austerity measures and a boat load of new taxes on buisnesses, nobody is taking credit cards. Ok, they thought, lets just go to a bank and get some Euro's or at least use an ATM machine. Every ATM machine they went to had no cash in it, and the banks were unwilling to convert the dollar to Euros. They had to borrow Euros from people they traveled with until they could find a bank to convert currency, which took many trips around Rome.

So if your traveling to these parts of the world, convert your curreny here, and don't expect to use credit cards too often. Most hotels still took credit cards, but shops,eateries, smaller buisnesses have dumped it. Talk about a whole country taking a stand. Seems to me though they are shooting themselves in the foot when you depend on tourism.

Just an FYI for you travelers.

decal

Those silly Europeans !!!!

obieone

I wonder what Nigel Farage has to say about this?

I'm off YT to find out

cnh

We found something similar when we went to Japan. But the ATMs would allow bank withdrawals into Yen but only at a quota rate of something like less than $300 USD per day? Try and survive on that if you're booking to other parts of Japan, you have your family in tow and you've got to pay for Bullet Trains in CASH!

To be fair, "some" places did accept Credit Cards but MOST did not. A real Eye-opener for an American! Even China accepted more CCs than Japan.

When I visit that area of Southern Europe, I usually don't run into that problem since I have a small account in Euros I can draw from? Benefits of possible dual citizenship and relatives!

Not surprised.

cnh

tonyb

Something to check out and be prepared for anyway when traveling outside the U.S. Caught my in-laws off guard as they go there every year and never had problems before. Times are a changin'.