The Travel Independently Blog

So, how do you plan to pay for things once you are at your destination?  We are so accustomed to using credit and debit cards that we often don’t even think about it.  But as you head off to a foreign country, you do need to think about it.

There are a number of things to think about as you consider using plastic in foreign countries:  fraud risks and protections, the cost of foreign exchange premiums, any miles or rebates you earn from your cards, and whether the merchant will give you a discount for paying in cash.

You will be able to use your Visa and MasterCard credit cards in many places in Asia.  In most countries, credit cards are accepted by hotels, many restaurants and many stores.  Street sellers typically don’t accept credit cards, nor do food stalls and such.  American Express cards are typically accepted at international hotels, but few other places.

Fraud protections and risks

First of all, there are differences between credit and debit cards.  A debit card subtracts your purchases from your checking account immediately.  A credit card bills you once a month.  But there are other differences as well.  If you pay with a credit card and there is a problem with your purchase, your credit card company can help you with it.  Not so for a debit card.

Also, if your card is lost or stolen a credit card company does not hold you liable for fraudulent use if you notify them promptly.  You do not need to pay any disputed amounts on your credit card. With a debit card, the money is subtracted from your account immediately, and if the use was fraudulent, you can dispute it, but the bank will take time before they re-deposit your funds in your account.  If your card is used fraudulently, the thief can empty your account and it may be some time before you get your money back.

Foreign Exchange premiums

Consider the foreign exchange premium on your cards.  Generally, the premium ranges from 1% – 3% of the amount charged.  Compare the foreign exchange premium with the premium you pay on ATM withdrawals.  This can help you make the most economical decisions about how to pay for things.  But the foreign exchange premium isn’t the only factor to consider as you choose how to pay for things.

Frequent flier miles, hotel points and rebates

Does your credit card earn you miles?  If so, that can change your computation about how to pay.  Generally frequent flier miles are considered to be worth 2 cents a mile. The miles may be worth more or less, depending on how you use your frequent flier miles.  Figure out how much each mile or hotel point is worth to you.

If you use your frequent flier miles for short domestic flight they are worth less than 2 cents a mile.  If you use your miles for premium tickets on international flights or upgrades on international flights, they are worth substantially more than 2 cents a mile.

Do you have a cash rebate card?  Consider that in your calculations as well.  My American Express card pays 1% on most purchases, but 2% on travel-related expenses such as hotels and 3% on restaurant meals.  Since the foreign exchange premium is currently 2.5%, it is worthwhile for me to use my card for hotels and restaurant meals.

Discounts for cash

You will find that many merchants will give you a discount for not using your credit card.  Such discounts are often in the 2% – 5% range.  Not all merchants will offer discounts and generally hotels and restaurants do not offer discounts.  If you are willing and able to pay cash for a purchase, it never hurts to ask for a discount.  Begin by presenting your credit card.  Sometimes the merchant will volunteer a discount if you pay cash, but if not, do ask.

Inform your financial institutions of your travel plans

For all cards – debit, credit and ATM cards – you must inform the issuer of when and where you are traveling so your card is not “turned off” for suspicion of fraud.  You should also have a phone number for every card issuer that you can call collect 24 hours a day from anywhere in the world in case there is a problem.

On occasion, you may find that a financial institution will not allow their cards to be used in a country that consider to be high risk for fraud.  Make sure you check on this long before your trip so you have the time to obtain a card you can use in your destination country.

What to do if your cards are lost or stolen

You want to inform the issuer of a lost or stolen card as soon as your realize the card is gone.  The 24-hour phone number mentioned above is the way to do this.  One way to make sure you have the 24-hour phone number as well as all of your card numbers is to email yourself an image for the front and back of each of the credit, debit and ATM cards you use.

Where you cannot use credit cards
No credit/debit cards can be used in Burma (Myanmar) and there are no ATMs.  If you are traveling to Burma, you may want to pre-pay any hotels that you can, often by using a booking service, as you generally cannot use credit/debit cards within the country.

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I’m amazed at how places don’t match up with our expectations.  To me that is always more interesting than a place that was exactly how one imagines it.

Back in the 1993, I took a trip to Greece and Egypt.  As an archaeology buff, it seemed to me to be the perfect combination – seeing two ancient cultures.

I found Greece shocking.  The ruins there were, well, ruined.  The Acropolis was mostly rubble.  Archaeological sites were overrun with school children on field trips, clamoring over fallen stones, causing them to shift.  They kicked at delicate carvings and chipped stones, all under the disinterested eyes of their teachers.  At the Acropolis Museum, the caryatids looked like they were dissolving before my eyes, they had spent so many years in the polluted air and acid rain before their move to the museum.  While I support repatriation of cultural materials, in spite of my belief, I found myself thinking that it was a good thing one caryatid and the Elgin marbles are in the British Museum!

Egypt, on the other hand was truly larger than life.  I’d been reading about Egypt since I was a child.  I feared that my first glimpses of the pyramids or of the Temple of  Karnak or Abu Simbel would be a disappointment.  Instead, I found the monuments stunning in their size and in their preservation.  To see the original polychrome on the temples like Abydos – 3000 year old colors – was amazing.  To step inside Tut’s tomb and see that the colors of the frescoes were “as fresh as if they were painted yesterday” just as Carter recounted!

I was surprised at how my reactions to Greece and Egypt, places we all know so well from our history books could be so different from each other.  People often say that places we know well from photos never live up to the photographer’s art and yet here were two places I seen thousands of photos of and one was so much less than the photos for me, one was so much more.

Technorati Tags: Abu Simbel, Acropolis, Acropolis Museum, Archaeology, British Museum, Elgin Marbles, Greece, Independent Travel, Parthenon

Photos are a wonderful reminder of the places I’ve been, the people I’ve met, the exotic experiences of travel.  But I find that there are a number of photos I didn’t take that stick with me as vividly as any I have in a photo album or on a CD.

Some photos are not taken because of technical issues, others because the camera was not available, still others because taking a photo would be intrusive.

On my second trip to Thailand, back in the late 1980s, we made a stop in Chiang Mai.  On the drive back to the hotel from the night market, we drove down a dark street. There were no streetlights, and the only illumination came from an old-fashioned phone booth – the kind where a light comes on when you close the door.  In the lighted phone booth were four novice monks, their saffron robes aglow.  Still adolescents, laughing together making a group phone call, they were the bridge between the secular world and the spiritual world.

In 1994, during my first trip to Nepal, we visited Changu Narayan, the oldest temple in Nepal, perched atop a ridge.  To get there, you must walk though a village on a stepped walkway.  When we visited, we were the only visitors there.  We arrived before mid-morning, and there was a meeting taking place outside the school – nearly everyone in the village was there.  We walked quietly up the stairs, and encountered a toddler playing on the steps… in a pair of his mother’s high heels.  The universality of the child trying on the parent’s clothing and the contrast of the high heels with the small, traditional rural village encapsulated the changing face of Nepal for me.

Technorati Tags: independent travel experiences, nepal, thailand, travel photos

It’s irresistible, isn’t it?  A new place to visit, so many things to see and do – I want to do it all!

Most people planning a trip have ideas about many more things they want to do than are possible in the allotted time.  Having more things I want to do in a place than I can do is an indicator to me that I’ve chosen well.  Frankly, I wouldn’t want to go somewhere I truly could “see it all” in a week or two or three.  That would mean there isn’t much “there” there.

One of the most important tricks in good travel planning is “editing.”  I remember when I first started researching my trip to Sri Lanka.  I listed the places I’d like to go, then immediately cut out half.  I did more research, more reading, calculated driving times, and cut out a few more.  I ended up with an itinerary that we really enjoyed.  We had enough time to explore new places, to absorb some of the atmosphere and enough time to relax – it was a vacation after all!

It takes time to get from one place to another – especially in Asia.  People forget how huge the continent is.  Flying time from Tokyo to Bangkok or Singapore is longer than flying time from New York to LA, for instance.  And driving times are long with winding roads, crowded with not just cars and trucks and buses, but also with motorbikes, bicycles, rickshaws, livestock, and agricultural equipment – either of the mechanical or animal variety.

While I can almost always fit in some activity or excursion on a transit day, I consider the things I do on transit days to be a bonus.  I don’t count transit days as days I spend in a place.  So if I want three days in a place, that means I need to spend four nights there.  Three nights means I only have two full days.

I’m currently in the process of planning our Burma trip.  This is a trip I’ve planned before but have never gotten to take.  I was recently looking at the original itinerary for a Burma trip from the early 1990s.  At that time you could only go as part of a tour group, and the maximum time you could stay was 7 days.  The itinerary put together by Thai Air  had 3 or 4 stops in that time!  My current itinerary has 10 or 11 days, and I plan to make three stops.  Still, I have to edit the things I want to do at each stop.  But the things I edit out this time will be the start for a new itinerary for the next time I visit.

Technorati Tags: independent travel itinerary, independent travel planning