Portland, Oregon...another great thing about it, lol!

Don't forget - you can also use your credit card for a lot of things in Europe, so you wont need cash for everything.

We paid for meals and incidentals with cash - hotel rooms, cars, and train tickets with a CC. It would have taken us the better part of 2 weeks to go through the 1500 euros :)

We also have rented an apartment (in Venice) that requires cash on arrival. I am going to get the Euro for the apartment before I leave. Even with a charge for the Euro, our apartment price is the best I could find for a nice place, so I'm not too worry. But it happens that people need to exchange money and have cash upon arrival.

Raydotman,

Do you have a credit union in your area? Mine charges the .7% previously mentioned. Yours might be just as good. If you cannot use the credit union during the year, just set up an account for your traveling days and pre-deposit what you think you'll need to withdraw abroad.

Annej,
Your bank's rate of the day is $1.44 for a euro not the 1.36 interbank rate.

Raydotman,
See http://www.bankrate.com/brm/news/cc/20050624b1.asp for some of the different charges by different banks.

mms,
would really like to know what bank you use.

Henry

I like to have 100E to take with me. I get it at the departure airport and bite the bullet for the poor exchange. After that we charge on a CC all we can and get cash from ATMs.

I would also like to know which bank mms uses.

I admit I'm in the minority in bringing lots of euros from home, but I don't understand why this is such a crazy idea. My husband and I split the cash in half before we leave home. If hotel rooms have a safe, we leave some there, and the rest we carry in a secure manner. To get the money, a thief would have to cause bodily harm in which case the loss of any money would be the least of our problems.

So, on Day One of a 2-week trip, we each are holding about 350-400 euros. Not exactly a "wad," and obviously/sadly it gets smaller every day. We use credit cards for most meals, purchases and train tickets. If we run out of cash towards the end of the trip, we hit an ATM.

Annej, however much you buy in euros, get at least 100 of it in smaller denominations. Italians have an aversion to giving change from large bills. They want you to present a note that is as close as possible to the amount owed, so it's sometimes difficult to get rid of 50- and 100-euro notes.

Jean, I think the objection most of us have to your plan is not just that it is inconvenient to carry, store, and protect that much cash, but that it costs you MORE to buy it to begin with. It would be different if you could buy the euros cheaper at home, but unless you have some unknown secret, people are getting them considerably cheaper by using ATMs in Europe and not have to deal with the "protection issues".

If you lived in California where gas is $3 a gallon but you were taking a long trip to Tennessee where it is cheaper, would you stock up on expensive gas at home and take it in containers with you so you wouldn't have to deal with buying gas there?

Well, NeoPatrick, I do happen to get a very favorable rate at the currency exchange near my office because, as I mentioned in a previous post, I'm a frequent customer.

I don't find it "inconvenient" to carry/store/protect the cash, at least no more inconvenient than carrying/storing/protecting my passport/tickets/confirmations/Blackberry. I've been traveling this way for at least 15 years and never had a problem. (BTW, I think the gas analogy is a bit silly. Volatile liquids, difficult to transport, not useful for anything but powering the car v. a few pieces of paper, easily carried and secured, useful for purchasing anything, including gas.)

But to each his own. I'm not trying to convert anyone. Just trying to point out there is another way to travel other than being tied to ATMs, working pin numbers and bank fees.

I would get at least enough Euro to cover you for a snack in the airport if you have to connect through a European city, a cab to your hotel and spending money for the day if you don't make it to an ATM. For us US$200 is usually enough but these days that doesn't go quite as far.

Is "favorable exchange rate" less than 1%? What bank is this, may I ask?

Funny that you use phrases like "tied to ATMS" whatever that means, and "bank fees" when you clearly pay a fee to get your money too. But I do understand that it is a terrible burden to have to remember an entire 4 digit working pin number that you keep for years and years -- it must be mind boggling to have to remember those four digits, so never mind. Now I understand. Have fun.

Geez. I give up. You go your way, and I'll go mine.

Forgive me for trying to explain. I thought when you posted this:
"I admit I'm in the minority in bringing lots of euros from home, but I don't understand why this is such a crazy idea."
That it was basically asking why some of us think it is a crazy idea. So I told you. Sorry you didn't want to hear the explanation. If you hadn't asked, I wouldn't have tried to explain.

But come on now, you have to admit that dealing with "a pin number" is a real stretch of a reason for not wanting to do do ATMs.

Didn't you have an ATM problem (or two?) on your recent trip to Rome?

Over and out.

Yes. But it all worked out. So?

Another reason for getting smaller denominations is to be sure not to get the 100E and 1000E bills mixed up. This may not be as much a problem with Euros but back in the lira days, I gave a cashier a 1000Lira (or maybe 10,000) and got change for the bill 1/10th of it--and being unfamiliar with what the currency looked like, didn't catch it in time.
And we have travelled with wads and wads of cash many times (China, Russia, etc) and it isn't fun trying to keep up with it.

I don't understand the "convenience" factor of getting euros from home. There are ATMs literally everywhere in Europe. We have never had a problem finding one even in the smallest of towns. I would think it would be more inconvenient, and probabably take longer, to drive to my local bank and exchange the money then it would to simply stop by one of the many ATM's in Rome as I am walking about every day. I've been to Rome several times and trust me, the ATMs are plentiful.

I think a lot of people heading to Europe for the first time get a little freaked out about the exchanging money thing. I admit that on my first trip to Europe we exchanged dollars for pounds from my local bank. We were young, naive, and hadn't yet discovered fodors. But after we got there we realized two things: the charges we paid were a lot higher than if we would have waited and it was unnecessary because exchanging money is a nonissue.

Tracy

Why do people find it more "convenient" to get euro or any other currency in advance also escapes me...and the one argument I just don't comprehend is that I've always done it that way and I'm not about to change something that has worked for me in the past.

Times change, technologies evolve. It used to be a big event to call home from say London...$3 or $4 a minute...now I can carry around a mobile phone and call home for 3p/minute (6¢/minute) and have people reach me by just dialing my home phone number...yet I listen to people say well I never needed a cell phone before and don't even carry one at home....duh....I can't believe anybody in this day and age would even think of getting into a car without a cell phone at home...yet people brag they don't need one.

This is the 21st century...technology works very well 99.9% of the time and there are things not to worry about if it doesn't....when I travel to Europe I always bring $200 in nice crisp 20's....in the very very very unlikely event there is a problem with the ATM's on arrival (and it has never happened to me), a few steps over to the foreign exchange window and exchange $20 or $40 for local currency; rarely need more. In many European airports, Heathrow and DeGaulle come to mind immediately, you can purchase public transportation into town with a credit card...many many carservice companies take credit cards, a snack at the airport? Almost all places at the airports take credit cards.

And oftentimes I find the most adamant people once they've been exposed to the technology and its value sheepishly said I never knew.

I was thinking. If I had gotten all euros in advance for my four cash apartment rentals this summer, I'd have been carrying around over $3000 in cash worth of Euros for 6 weeks, since that's how long I had been gone from home by the time I reached Rome. No one will convince me to carry around that much cash for that long, and PAY MORE for the privilege of doing it. If some want to do that-- that's fine, but they should be ready to hear how "silly" they are being, especially when they openly ask "why is my idea so crazy?"