Well, my next Japan trip is coming up in a few weeks, and I'm wondering if I should bring my money in US travellers checks,half checks and half on an ATM card, or something different. Last trip I got travellers checks in yen. My brother went with USD checks, and he got a much better conversion rate than I did. I've never used an ATM in Japan but I hear they aren't foreigner-friendly.

This trip was 4 years ago, when we were getting 127 yen (easily) for a US dollar. Thoughts?

Use the ATM and your credit card. Forget travelers checks. You can change money even at the airport. Do check and see what fees are involved with your credit card and debit card before you go though

Bonjour Amachen,

Forget about traveller checks, most hotels refuse them, and it takes forever to exchange them at bank counters.

Use ATMs in airports and post offices (foreigner friendly), and credit card.

I would also stick with the ATM.

I will expand on "foreigner-friendly" part of ATM.

You are correct about your understanding.

For example, in entire Kyoto station complex, there was not one ATM that accepted CIRRUS/PLUS card (Each ATM has an impressive decals of ATM cards accepted, US cards are usually not one of them...). There happened to be a post office next to the Kyoto station.

I survived by getting money from post office ATM and airport ATM (don't walk out of the airport without getting YENs!)

The degree of the challenge certainly depends on what you plan to do and where you plan to go. If you are paying only for yourself, it is less of a problem.

Thanks for the responses.

We really didn't have the hard time a few of you seemed to have had w/ US checks. We were staying at above-average hotels, though. I guess we'll probably do half-checks, half-ATM, and we'll exchange our checks at the airport.