and in some parts of the world that means Cash Only.
Your average modern American can for nearly all purposes give up the use of cash. Unless you are like my mother, who only recently got her first debit card, you likely use plastic (debit or credit) for most of your purchases. Besides, since when did cash give you those handy frequent flyer miles?
I certainly make an effort to keep some cash on hand for various needs, like splitting the check or going to my favorite kebab place. Most of the time that doesn’t mean for large purchases…
Unless, of course, I’m traveling for work in areas that don’t take visa or american express. Sometimes cold hard cash is the way to go. Back in January I had my highest figure ever on hand, at a whopping $26k in USD in the hard of darkness, aka the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Currently I’m in Ukraine and am having to deal with the joys of cash. Luckily my hotel in Lviv takes a credit card, but I’ll be headed to more remote locals and paying for a week’s worth of training expenses. This includes salaries, hotel, meals, and transportation for eight folks. Thus I now have around $6k to shell out over the next week.
Given that the exchange rate is better in the city (I was out in the village yesterday and they tried to jack me on the exchange rate) I’ve changed over my cash to local currency. These days with the USD as it is, I’m not likely to loose money on the deal. The most annoying part is that the cashier didn’t have any larger bank notes and give me a thousand USD in notes worth two bucks each. Talk about a wad. At least the ATM was more gracious in giving me more manageable chunks of cash.
Walking around with a wad full of cash don’t necessarily make you any more of a target for theft than Carrie Brandshaw when she was held up for her Minalo Blahniks on Sex and The City. If anything, it makes you more cautious, which isn’t a bad thing.
At of this makes me consider how much cash I’ll have to be carrying for the training activities for my new job in Afghanistan. Plastic might work for some things, but I imagine that my practice in carrying large chunks of cash will likely pay off. The big stuff is yet to come.
Wish me luck!
Miel
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