A group of us are backpacking for three months through Central America, and we are looking at options for currency.
A group of us a backpacking for three months through Central America, and we are looking at options for currency. Has anyone used a Travelex CashPassport? We want to lock in the USD when it gets to a good rate but am unsure if this will work to our advantage in places like Guatemala, Belize and so on.
should i just use my atm card and hope the exchange rate is half decent?
Anyones thoughts/ideas would be appreciated!
Reply to this Chanel,
Last year, I traveled in Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua. Here is my experience, take from it what you will:
Panama's official currency is the US Dollar. They mint their own coins, but all correspond to US coins (i.e. a 1 cent piece, 5 cent piece, 10 cent, 25 cent). Furthermore, if you pay with a US coin, it will be accepted. It's sort of like Canadian coins in the US, not preferred but generally accepted (I live in MN, so we see them a bit more).
Costa Rica and Nicaragua have their own currencies and most places will prefer you pay in the local currency. However, in Nicaragua there were plenty of places to change currency. That said, every ATM I used offered money in US Dollars and the local currency in both countries. I frankly don't remember the machine charging a fee, though your bank probably will charge a fee (my bank charged a 1% fee, I've heard some banks charge up to 3%). I simply went to the machine, took out some local currency and some US Dollars. There were times people would accept and liked US Dollars for payment. I tried to use local currency as I 1) didn't have to try doing the conversion math as much and 2) didn't have to risk leaving the country with currency I couldn't easily convert to Dollars.
My personal advice is to simply use ATM's. I don't think the exchange rate will change that dramatically to offer you much advantage. You should talk with your bank, however, on their fees and also to ask if there's anything special they need to do to activate your card in other countries. For example, my bank had to "activate" the region I was going to be in in order to use the card so I gave them a general itinerary of my travels. Had I not done this, it would've declined the transaction as a fraud protection.
Please let me know if you have more questions.
Reply to this Thanks Gary,
I normally use my ATM card when travelling but was just a little unsure how widely used USD is.
I think i may just lock in the exchange rate now while its still half decent for us Aussies and then use my ATM card while on the road.
Its just with these special card you can lock in the Exchange rate... we have gone from 1AUD=.95USD down to 1AUD=.60USD and it is starting to climb again.
Thanks so much for your thoughts 😊
Reply to this You know, Chanel, I did think about the question of whether you are an American or from another nationality. There I go being an arrogant American assuming it's all about America, right? ;-)
In Central America, the USD is accepted enough I suspect you'll be okay if you happen to only have them. I'd also suspect there will be exchange places in the airports (though I didn't use airports a whole lot).
Have a great time in Central America. I really did like most of it, even towards the end when I was starting to get a little homesick.
Reply to this One other thought...I'm not absolutely familiar with the Travelex card, but I can tell you it is somewhat hit and miss on credit cards being accepted in businesses in the places I went to. If you're in Panama City or San Jose, you should have no trouble. However, outside this big city, many businesses do cash only. It's too expensive for small businesses to pay credit card commissions (which I've heard are a larger percentage than say in the States). If your Travelex card is connected to Visa or Mastercard, keep that thought in mind and inquire ahead of time where you'll be able to get cash on the card.
Reply to this Hey Gary,
I thought i should just clarify that im Aussie so unfortunatley for us we just dont have the best exchange rates compared with the USD! But ill keep it all in mind and think ill just carry small amounts of cash and use my ATM card - just seems the easiest solution. I wasnt aware that they dont take credit cards in regional areas - makes sense though although even all the 3rd world places i have been to accept my credit card for large purchases like art etc..
Lets just hope this flu settles down shortly otherwise all my effort will be in vein!
Reply to this Hey chanel, im in a similar pickle to you and was going to ask a similar question that you did
im traveling central america between october and december and ill already have a travelex cash passport as ill be in america before hand and since the dollar is going so up and down i loaded my card up when the dollar was at .70, its at around .74 which is frustrating lol but i was also wondering if you could withdraw US dollars out of ATM's as i may load abit more on the card since who knows when it will fall down again
after central america we are doing south america and have found a really good debit card which doesnt charge you any withdraw fees from anywhere around the world! no catches! a friend has used it and swears by it so it may be something that may help you, its with NAB
here is the link
http://www.nab.com.au/wps/wcm/connect/nab/nab/home/personal_finance/5/1/3
thanks gary for your advice
Reply to this Ah really?! Thats awesome .... i had no idea westpac charges me around $5 a withdrawl plus god knows how many fees and conversion rates etc. Definately waiting on the USD to climb a bit.... they forecast it should hit around .80 but im waiting for .75 now.... not that it really matters in the grand scheme of things but for some reason it makes more sense then ill take a debit card to withdraw local currencies in the countries that dont use the USD.
We will be backpacking around from August to November and around october we will be somewhere in Guatemala heading down through to Honduras etc... maybe we will run into eachother on the way!
Reply to this yeah im with commonwealth and when i back packed around europe last yr i had lost my cashpassport card so used my commonwealth card a few times and it charged me between $5-$12, it all adds up so by having a card that doesn't charge you at all will make the world of difference
your trip sounds very similar to mine, we intend to bounce around each of the countries until the end of december then getting a yacht from panama to colombia for new yrs eve so we may just bump in to you 😊
if your heading in to south america check out this
http://www.sailseeadler.com/photos.html
its what we intend on doing
i dont know many australians at all that have traveled central america so will be going in very blind in what to expect but looking forward to it 😊
where in oz are you from? i work in a travel store in melbourne and all i get is travelers going to europe lol
cheers
Reply to this Ah thats so funny im a Travel Agent and work for Flight Centre up in Brisbane!
All i seem to get is Thailand, Bali and the USA!! I dont really know anyone who has done this sort of thing before either... i have some friends who have done South America but not Central. At first i was concerned for safety becuase it was just my friend and I and neither of us have backpacked before but now the groups grown to 6 so im less worried!
Which travel store do you work for? I have a couple of friends down in Melbourne who are agents?
Im going to check out that website now 😊
Reply to this haha no shit, yeah the aussie thing to do is either thailand or europe! which is good because there wont be many in central america when we are there! we have been taking spanish classes for the last 3 months so hopefully itll come in to good use! group of 6 is solid, im sure you will be right, ill just be with my mate but i imagine we will pick people up along the way like usual
i work at snowgum which is part travel part outdoor store, we have an STA, student flights and flight centre all around the store so we bounce off each other abit..we got a pretty good deal with flights (well i like to think so) melbourne-new zealand-LA then coming from beunis aires-sydney-melbourne for $2000! the US dollar keeps climbing woot! but yeah check the NAB card if your still hunting around because its a debit credit card with no withdrawl fees at all 😊
cheers
Reply to this Wow yeah that is pretty damn cheap - sounds like you have an awesome itinerary planned. We are hopefully going to make it to Panama within 3 months but our flight departs out of LA so we still need to purchase a flight back but i figured if we got a bit tired of things i wouldnt mind catching up with a friend in the States before i leave which is why i havent yet secured a return journey from CA to USA... plus im loving the fly by the seat of your pants kinda deal we got going at the moment just looking forward to getting into it and meeting heaps of great people...
Well who knows maybe we will run into eachother on the road!
Thanks for the info on the card - its sounds fantastic!
Reply to this Chanel, I don't think I'd worry about safety any more than normal common sense and generally keep your wits about you, especially if you travel in a group. Obviously there's crime everywhere, but I traveled solo and rarely had worries. You'll get approached to buy things or give money as handouts, but you won't be the only "white" people.
Michael, keep practicing your Spanish. If you have at least a rudimentary handle on Spanish you'll be okay. You learn to use lots of "sign-language".
Is the NAB card only an Aussie thing, or something us in the States could get? A debit credit card with no fees would be great for my next travels (which I'd like to think would take me down your way). I suppose I could do something like check out the website.
Have great travels!
Reply to this Hey Gary,
I assume the card is an australian thing - it is linked to your bank account so unless you have an australian bank account with NAB Bank then i dont think you would have any luck. They may have a partner in the states though that offers the same kind of thing - it might be worth your while to check out a few banks over there to see if they provide cards that waive any fees for international transactions.
Cheers
Reply to this Yeah, I could see it being particular to Australia too. Thanks for the update!
Reply to this if your coming down here i dont see why you couldnt set it up here whilst you down here and whilst travel, in saying that i have absolute no idea on banks and what your allowed to do, you may need a visa to set up a bank account but worth looking in to as itll save a fair bit of money in the long run
chanel, unsure if your hitting nicaragua but check this out
http://www.bigfootnicaragua.com/adventure.html
im so going to break some bones doing this but looks too cool to pass up
Reply to this Yeah that looks absolutely spectacular...
this is what we want to do too - hiking up it at night http://www.quetzaltrekkers.com/
I missed out on doing this in Vanuatu the other week so im looking forward to doing it here too...
Reply to this that looks awesome, will def be down for that, if you have any more cool stuff you have stumbled across send it our way lol
havnt done enough research on central america yet..
although i found this in mexico, apparently its fairly unknown to tourists (i may be wrong and its swarmed by them) but worth a look
http://www.eyeconart.net/mexico/pozas.htm
its on our to-do list for sure..looks amazing
Reply to this
Hey that look wonderful - where are you finding all these bits and pieces? I cant seem to find anything "off the beaten track?"
Ill keep you updated - seems like diving the blue hole in belize seems to be the way to go...
Reply to this 
