We will be in Austria,Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia on an upcoming trip and wonder how everyone handles the different currencies. Do you get a ;minimum amount from the ATM in each country and then get more as you need it? I do wish they had a commoncurrency. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I usually only get enough cash for about 3 to 4 days at a time and then, as you say, get more when/if I need it. If you have any left over use it to pay part of the hotel bill or buy lunch before you leave the country. I never really thought much about the different currencies and never found it to be a problem. I might have some change left over but that's about all. I don't think that you will find this a big deal during your trip. If, for some reason, you have a lot of money left from one of the countries you can always exchange it in the next country. This isn't the ideal situation because you'll lose something on the exchange rate and the change bureaus don't usually give the best rates but it's better than not spending it.

The idea is to minimize the number of times you hit the ATM, as usually you have to pay a bank fee each time. Rather depends on how many days in country, and how much you can charge. If you can't get it exactly right, you'll just have to change to the next currency in the next country, or consider the notes either a souvenir or a down-payment on the next trip. Save the coins for the UNICEF collection on the flight home.

thursdayd - where do you find the UNICEF collections? I've never seen them. Are they on the planes?

<Do you get a ;minimum amount from the ATM in each country and then get more as you need it?>

That's exactly what we do. We visited Prague, Vienna and Budapest several years ago and had no problem with the money (except that Vienna was more expensive than the other two cities).LOL We went by train from city to city and used ATMs as we needed to. It really wasn't that complicated for us. I have files on each city that I compiled as I planned our trip. If you would like any/all of them just e-mail me.

Yes, the UNICEF collections are standard on planes, at least on certain airlines (I tend to travel on United and Air France, and usually have the option to make a donation on those, which I always do).

I usually fly AA, and there's almost always an announcement about the UNICEF collection. If not, you could ask one of the flight attendants.

It occurs to me that I only hear UNICEF announcements flying TO the US, not FROM the US. That seems a bit odd, presumably people who've been visiting the US also have coins left over.

Thank you for your thoughts. We usually use our credit cards but thought we might use cash more on this trip. We will only be in Bratislava for an afternoon en route to Vienna. Will merchants also accept euros there?
We have flown to/from Europe many times and have never been on a flight where UNICEF has been mentioned.