Almost no one can predict exactly how much money they are going to need on holiday and how much of that should be cash or on a card. All of us end up with either left over notes (that are easy to turn back in to sterling) or a pocket full of coins. I personally hate it when on the last day of a trip I need to break a large denomination note or get more cash out of an ATM. I presume it is the fact that I know I have been charged for taking the money out, I probably won’t spend it all and I will be charged to turn it back into pounds, or maybe I am just careful [tight] with my money.

Create a Budget

Budgeting is something that ‘older’ people seem to do naturally and the younger generation of first time travellers and 20-somethings have not been brought up with. Budgeting is the word of the moment right now with the launch of the new government Money Advice Service website. Budgeting should have two roles in your holiday.

Firstly, in the planning, can you actually afford to go to that destination? I would rather go to a cheaper destination and have more spending money than go to somewhere more expensive and sit there with one glass of coke and four straws.

The second role of the budget is when you are actually on holiday. It is pretty easy to just spend because you want to have a good time but it all has to be paid for. If you spend most of your holiday money in the first three days then do you have a austere second half of the week or start to spend money you cannot really afford for the rest of your holiday. Budgeting down to the day level is not difficult. If there are particular places you want to go to on particular days then put the money aside for that at the beginning. If you can afford to spend £50 a day on food and drink then balance cheap days when you sat on the beach and spent little with days when you can treat yourself. It’s not rocket science after all.

With the best budget in the world you are likely to have something left over and you have several options mostly depending on the amount, how often you travel and which currency it is.

Keep it – If there is any chance you may be returning to the same destination keep the left over travel money for the next time you go. This normally fairly good advice but there are a number of countries that are preparing to enter the Euro. These plans are on hold now because of the ongoing Euro crisis and the weakness of the Euro but that is still the intention. You do not want to be holding on to a lot of useless currency once it goes out of circulation (see the charity section below).

Buy Back Schemes – You quite literally put your currency in an envelope and send it off and they pay the cash equivalent into your bank account. The buy back providers normally only accept notes/bills so you cannot change coins back this way. We have teamed up with Covent Garden Foreign Exchange who at the moment we believe give the best value for money to offer this option.

Give it to Charity – This is where UNICEF come in. UNICEF are accepting donations or both old out of circulation currencies and current ones via a website called euromoney24. This is probably the best option in my opinion unless there is a local charity to you that is appealing for old and left over foreign currency. There are so many scams these days involving charity appeals that I would be happier giving to something as established as UNICEF. There is a page on the UNICEF site highlighting their involvement in this scheme here .

Give it as a Gift – If someone you know is going abroad give your left over travel money as a gift. I have done this when I had quite a few Euros left over and a friend was getting married and honeymooning in Portugal. I gave the Euros as a wedding present so they could have a meal on us while they were away.

It is easy to think that all foreign currency exchange providers will offer the same exchange rates but this isn’t the case and in order to get the best currency exchange rate, most people now realise that you need to head to the specialist currency experts found online.

To find the best currency exchange rates, it is important not to leave things until the last minute and not simply opt for your bank or high street supplier of foreign currency. It is almost always the case that the very best currency exchange rates will be unearthed from online suppliers of holiday money because they will frequently update their exchange rates in order to be more competitive and offer their clients the very best deal for their money.

Get The Best Currency Exchange Rates For Your Next Trip Abroad

Brits will head on trips overseas all through the year and not just during the summer and it is essential to really shop around in order to make sure that you secure the best currency exchange rate for your trip. It is increasingly becoming the case that online suppliers of holiday money will offer a much more favourable exchange rates to their clients and this is something that is clearly highly attractive to those heading abroad.

For those looking for the best currency exchange rates on US Dollars, Euros and any other foreign currency exchange favourite, it is always prudent to make sure you check online to see what sort of travel money exchange rates are on offer because those who leave their transactions until the airport will almost certainly live to regret this decision from a financial point of view.

We all want to make the most of our trips overseas and in order to do this it is important to unearth the best currency exchanges rate long before we depart. If we have our holiday money done and dusted long before we reach our holiday destination, it is much easier to simply sit back and enjoy the journey. Speaking to online foreign currency exchange professionals is the best method of achieving the sort of exchange rates that you are looking for.

If you live in a tourist area it is really easy to have some really great stuff (attractions, parks and gardens etc.) on your doorstep and then never visit any of them. We live and work in St Ives in Cornwall and have some of the best beaches in the UK just 10 minutes from our front door. Although we do get to the beach over the summer we end up hardly going at all because if the weather isn’t glorious then you end up putting the beach off until you have a perfect summers day.

In the last three years at least there have been very few perfect summers days and lots of overcast ones. During the winter we go to the beach almost every day, we enjoy the emptiness and storm sweptedness (a word made up by me for purposes of this blog) of the beach during the winter. Very occasionally we decide we are going to be a tourist for a day and we go to all those places that normally, as a local, you avoid like the plague. Places that are full of bloody tourists parking their cars everywhere and clogging up the pavements with their push chairs and walking down the middle of the road and suddenly stopping to look in shop windows.

Fore Street, St Ives

If you are a local living in Cornwall, being called a tourist is not normally a compliment but having said that to be called local you need to be able to trace your family back ten generations or more to the same small village and have a surname starting with Tre- like Tevorrow or Treguna although you may get away with a Stevens or Symons if you are lucky.

The inspiration for this post is actually the word ‘Tourist’. Years ago the well to do would go on a grand tour around Europe to round out their education and often the architecture and art would stay with them throughout their life and be reflected in the buildings they designed, the art they commissioned and the books they read and wrote.

Today a tourist is lucky if they get a week in Benidorm.

Then the Tourist would travel by coach, train and yacht, now it is easyJet.

Those days are to some extent gone, but a friend has just come back from just such a trip in South America and is planning a trip to Vietnam and Cambodia. I think the destinations are different but the principle is the same. Another friends son has an old Ambulance/converted camper van and is doing the whole European tour thing right now, although I personally would prefer the Orient Express to St Johns Ambulance.

Chances are that two months in an old St Johns Ambulance ambulance and touring all the capitals of Europe will cost you less than that week in Benidorm but which ever appeals to you we hopefully can still help you out with your travel money. Unless that is you are coming to Cornwall and clogging up our streets and taking all our parking spaces!

We compare a whole raft of suppliers from the biggest right down to those with just a kiosk sized booth on a corner of Covent Garden in London so you can get that bit extra but also be happy with the purchase you are making. The idea that ‘this isn’t just any Euro, it’s a M&S Euro’ just doesn’t work with currency, they are all just the same.

The answer to the question at the top is where ever you are happiest to spend your money just don’t do it on the high street where they are going to rip you off.

With more and more Americans planning their summer holidays, it is imperative that they know how to find the best deals on currency exchange. A recent survey revealed that some 35 per cent of US travellers have at some point found themselves overseas without cash. Only 4 per cent of respondents said that they made sure that they had access to foreign currency while abroad a top priority.

Far too many travellers, business and leisure alike, leave organising their foreign currency needs until literally the last minute, picking up what they think they will need at the airport just prior to embarkation on their flight. In fact, obtaining money at an airport or railway station almost guarantees that you will get a bad deal, with high rates of commission and the least generous exchange rates.

If a trip is being booked well ahead, then in many cases it pays to wait and see what direction the foreign currency exchange rates are headed, in the case of the Euro, the dollar appears to be gaining, so a little caution could pay off. However, the pound is not currently gaining any ground against the dollar and travellers to the UK should pick up their UK pounds as soon as possible.

Either way, foreign currency should be obtained well before the day of travel itself, from specialists who seek out and trade on the most competitive rates. Business travellers can get even better deals by buying in bulk and forming an ongoing relationship with such organisations.

Another way of obtaining foreign currency that should be avoided unless absolutely necessary is buying currency through credit and debit cards. Almost all of these cards levy a conversion charge on their foreign currency transactions, which usually stands at around 2.75 per cent. Some cards even charge as much as 2.99 per cent and deliberately employ the least competitive exchange rates to further reduce the value of the money obtained.

All in all, a reliable currency exchange service remains the best place to buy any foreign currency needed for visits overseas. The convenience of foreign ATMs and bureaux de change facilities can be easily outweighed by the money that a traveller can lose.

It goes without saying that any holidaymaker will be desperate to secure the best euro currency exchange rates for their trip abroad and, in order to do this, it is important to be prepared and checked the exchange rates long in advance of when you are setting off.

With exchange rates exceptionally susceptible to fluctuations, it is abundantly clear that if travel money is left until the last minute, it is distinctly unlikely that the best euro exchange rate will be achieved. The Euro is performing fairly strongly in the foreign currency exchange markets at present and it is a good idea to monitor the ups and downs of your chosen currency a good few weeks or even months before you go because then you are more likely to get a good notion of what would be a good time to complete a foreign currency exchange.

Best Euro Exchange Rates Deals Often Found Online

More and more savvy holidaymakers are now beginning to realise that they need to gravitate away from the high street and head online if they want to achieve the best euro exchange rates for their trip abroad or overseas investment. The process of foreign currency exchange is, of course, fairly straightforward but if you don’t make sure that you are fully up to speed with the latest exchange rates, there is a much greater possibility that you will receive less euros to the pound.

To get the best euro exchange rate, you will invariably need to speak to specialist foreign currency exchange professionals because they are much more likely to consistently update their exchange rates and will ordinarily be in the position to offer you the sort of exchange rates that simply won’t be available in high street currency exchange outlets.

Once the best euro exchange rates have been discovered, it is likely that you will have been impressed with the supplier of these exchange rates – and many people will give repeat business to travel money suppliers who have shown their dedication to their customers in relation to giving them the best possible exchange rates on the market.

Originally the single currency was intended to be a great leveller across the entire Eurozone. This never happened and you will still pay more for Diet Coke in Paris than you will in Athens. The turmoil we have had recently right up to this weekend’s (9th/10th of June 2012) €100Billion bailout of Spain’s banking sector has depressed the value of the Euro meaning that you now get more Euros for your pound.

The Eurozone crisis has lead to mass unemployment in Greece, Spain, Portugal and Ireland and unless something changes where is the growth going to come from? One of the reasons that dropping out of the Euro is so attractive to Greece is that any ‘New Drachma’ would be worth a lot less than the Euro and Greece would become very cheap for people to visit. What the Greek people are pinning their future on is that with a devalued currency their products become significantly cheaper as is Greece as a destination. Greece could literally become ‘Europe’s beach resort’ where everyone can afford to go.

Leaving the Euro is not a realistic proposition for Spain, Portugal or Ireland or even for Italy if you want to include the most pessimistic of pessimists’ predictions. This means that they cannot devalue their currency to make their goods and services cheaper. With austerity still the fashion across Europe, even in French President François Hollande’s spending plans are still very much in the austerity mold it is hard to see how economies are going to grow.

For the next twelve months at least it appears that these crisis afflicted countries are going to represent excellent value for money for the UK traveler. In all of these countries ,where high unemployment is a dominant factor, wages are going to be falling and throughout the tourist industry it is staff costs that contribute most to the fees passed on to the tourist. In the longer term whatever happens to Greece they are almost certainly going to be one of the best alue for money destinations in Europe rivaling Turkey.

What about the US?

Right now the US Dollar is seen as a safe haven currency like the Pound and Swiss Franc. For the most part as the Dollar has risen against the Euro, the Pound has risen with it. It is only in the last month to six weeks that the Dollar has increased in value against the pound. This time last year £100 would buy $180, right now £100 will only get you $153.This is more to do with the trading figures from the US and UK than with the Euro crisis itself. It is hard to say what will happen but as the number of visitors to the US from Europe fall it is likely that you will see some really good deals on US holidays even if the exchange rate is nothing to sing and dance about.

All around the world

The other most popular destinations tell a very similar story, the Thai Baht is worth slightly more than this time last year as is the Australia Dollar and New Zealand Dollar. One currency that is making holidays more attractive is the Mexican Peso.

Last year you would have got $18 to the pound and right now it is nearer $21. Mexico is not that expensive to get to with flights from a little over £500, flying with Virgin Atlantic to Cancun, and if everything is nearly 20% cheaper than it was 12 months ago because of the exchange rate it may be worth considering. Out of curiosity you will notice that the Mexican Peso uses the same currency symbol as the US Dollar. This is because they [the symbols] are both derived from the Spanish dollar symbol of the 15th to 19th century.

The conclusion is that you can find some bargains right now but they are unlikely to be in the most popular destinations outside of Europe. If you are prepared to go further afield then Mexico does represent good value for money right now. If you want to stay nearer to home then look at Greece, Portugal and Spain where it is not only the exchange rate that helps but cheap prices on accommodation and food make holidays more attractive.
In the future we are looking at producing country specific guides. Is there any specific countries you would like us to cover?

Do you need to understand foreign currency exchange rates? If you travel on a regular basis, either for business or for pleasure, it’s important to have at least a basic grasp of how foreign currency works. Unsurprisingly, few of us even understand the meaning of an exchange rate!

Back to Basics with Overseas Currency

In finance, the ‘exchange-rate’ can also be known as the Forex-rate or the FX-rate. In simple terms, exchange rates help us work out the difference between two currencies, one against the other. FX rates are used when companies trade with other countries, when consumers purchase goods from overseas, and when holiday makers want to visit other countries. The ‘spot’ exchange rate is known as the most current, as FX rates will fluctuate from day to day, hour to hour, and sometimes minute to minute. Although the differences are always minor, when you exchange a large amount of cash, it can add up.

Over time, a better understanding of currency in other countries can help you save money. The foreign exchange market is one of the largest in the entire world and roughly 3.2 trillion US dollars change hands across the world on a daily basis.

Exchange Rates and Quotations

Exchange rates can come in a direct quotation, indirect quotation or a cross exchange-rate

•Direct quotations will take the price of each foreign currency unit, expressing it in terms of the home currency. e.g. €1 = 87p
•Indirect quotations are a product of direct exchange rates, so each home currency unit is expressed in the foreign unit. e.g. £1 = €1.23
•Cross exchange rates deliver the value of one foreign unit within another, so this does not include home currency. €1 = $1.29

Is It Important to Understand the Market?

Nothing ever stays the same in the foreign-exchange market, and market based rates will change with demand, availability and supply. For instance, when demand is high, this can increase exchange rates or increase the speculative demand for money. This all affects the end user – the consumer, the business, the holiday maker and the shopper. Whether you use overseas transactions through your bank or you are a keen traveller, understanding exchange rates and the money market can help you cut back on unnecessary spending.

You do not need to undertand the market. The market is always changing and there is nothing you or we can do about it. What we can do is try and make all this as simple as we can. Each currency supplier sets their own price that they want to sell you any particular currency. They call this the exchange rate but in truth it is just an offer to sell you currency you want to buy. Suppliers either set a really competitive price to attract more sales or a poor price to make more money per order. Every business has it’s own overheads and the expenses and this means that some of the smaller and online suppliers can afford to offer far better deals than some of the international suppliers.

Have a look at our comparison tables and have an open mind. Almost all the providers have reviews left by real customers. Have a read and make up your own mind.