After you buy foreign currency and complete your travels you’ll often be left with extra foreign currency. There is a lot that you can do with leftover foreign currency, and there’s no point in just letting it sit there or go to waste when there are plenty of uses for it. Here’s what to do after you buy foreign currency and have some extra left over after your trip.
Convert it back to your original currency
You can always convert foreign currency back to your original currency at a currency exchange, even after you buy foreign currency. The exchange rate will be based on the rate for that particular day, and although there may be a fee to convert it back, at least you will be able to use the currency in your home country. Even if you decide to travel back to the same country in the future you can always buy foreign currency for that country prior to your trip. You should definitely consider doing this if you buy a large quantity of foreign currency and find that you have more than what you expected left. You can convert foreign currency back to U.S. dollars and other currencies at Xchange of America.
Keep it as a souvenir
Foreign currency makes a great souvenir and you can keep a bill or coin of every denomination from your travels. Even if you buy foreign currency and then convert it back to your home country’s currency, you might still consider doing this. If you travel often, you can make a souvenir scrapbook with all of the different foreign currencies that you purchase included. Often times foreign currency will change some time after you buy foreign currency and the currency that you keep might end up being somewhat rare.
Don’t sell them at an airport currency exchange
An airport currency exchange will normally buy back any time of foreign currency that you bring back from your trip, but they generally offer very poor exchange rates. You are better off finding another purpose for the money you have left after you buy foreign currency. There are also plenty of local stores like Xchange of America that will offer you far better rates than most airport currency exchanges. If you aren’t sure, you should simply save your foreign currency so you don’t have to decide what you want to do with after you get back as long as you don’t have a large quantity of it.