Gap year travel money - tips and advice

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Travel money on your gap year

Accessing your money

Before you go, you need to make a decision about how you will access your money while you’re away. When trying to decide what form to take your money in, there’s a difficult trade-off to make between security and convenience. Travellers cheques are much more secure than cash, but a lot less convenient. Cards are convenient if there are plenty of ATM’s around. Don’t expect to find an ATM or a bank in a small village though.


You should also check if the country you will be travelling to has any restrictions. For example, Burma has no ATM’s, and you can’t cash travellers cheques, which really limits your options.


Read on for more advice about your options…


Taking cash with you

It’s a good idea to arrive in the country with a small amount of the local currency. This will require you to arrange to purchase some local currency in advance from a bank, building society, post office or travel agent. Shop around to get a good rate – they are all competing for your custom and there will be differences in the commission charged and the exchange rate offered. If the currency you require is obscure, you will need to order a while in advance because they will have to order it in for you. Some countries, such as India, will not let currency in or out of the country, so you will need to exchange money when you arrive.


Keep an emergency reserve of some US dollars for your trip. This currency is accepted in almost any country, and could serve to get you out of a scrape.


Travellers cheques

Travellers cheques are considered to be a very safe means of taking money with you. However, they are not very convenient – you need to find a bank that is open to cash them. Banks are rarely open on Saturdays outside of Britain, opening times in the afternoon vary widely and remember that many countries take a 2 hour lunch break to accommodate a siesta. We recommend that you get your travellers cheques in US dollars, as this is a much more widely accepted currency. Get a range of denominations ($5, $10 etc) so that you don’t have to cash more than you need to. Make a note of the serial number on your travellers cheques, and keep this separate from the cheques themselves. If they get stolen, you can phone up and cancel them and get issued with replacements. This is a great way to foil a thief and is the biggest benefit of using cheques. If you will be travelling off the beaten path, or in small rural areas, don’t expect to find a bank. Make sure you have enough money to see you through to reaching ‘civilisation’ again.


Get yourself a pre-paid Mastercard

Fancy being able to manage your travel money in a hassle free way? The APS CashPlus pre-paid Mastercard lets you access your money securely and conveniently whilst abroad, and is safer than carrying cash, and you can pay your wages straight onto it (for no charge). This is an internationally accepted MasterCard that acts like a debit card. You pay your money into the card in advance of spending it. This means that you can't go into debt on the card, but you get all the benefits of an internationally recognised credit card.


Benefits of the pre-paid Mastercard include:
- your money is fraud protected, which means if your card is lost or stolen your money is still safe and protected by insurance
- can be used at over 25 million retail outlets and over 1 million ATMs worldwide, over the phone, online or in store
- 24/7 telephone service
- secure online account management
- Cashplus offer 100% acceptance for over 18's and don't perform a credit check.

Credit cards

We recommend that you get yourself a credit card (or the above pre-paid credit card) before you set off on your travels. They are excellent to have in emergency situations – such as requiring medical treatment. Flash a credit card on top of a snowy mountain when you require a lift from the ‘blood wagon’ and there won’t be any questions asked about payment.


Search for a credit card with the lowest interest rate and a lengthy 0% interest introductory period. You could get as long as 15 months with no interest applied to your credit card debt (but don't let that tempt you to rack up a debt!).
Check out the Virgin Atlantic American Express® Credit Card


Do keep your credit card as a back up only – this shouldn’t be seen as an extra fund for your gap year. Interest on credit cards is usually very high (over 16%), and it is very easy to run up debts that you may have trouble paying off. You can set up a direct debit from your normal bank account to cover the minimum monthly payment required. This means you won’t have to worry about organising this when you are away, and you won’t get stung with late payment charges.


Debit cards

With a debit card, you can withdraw money straight from your account using an ATM machine. You will be restricted to the currency exchange rate that your bank is offering, and you may be charged for this service – it is worth checking and seriously consider moving account if you will be. You won’t always find an ATM when you need one, but this is an extremely convenient method of accessing your money when you do. You can only withdraw the money that you have, so you won’t risk running up debts.


Tips for travel money

Keep secure while you're away by following this advice:

  • Don’t flash lots of money – you’ll make yourself a target for robbery
  • Invest in a money belt and wear it under your clothing – great for concealing cheques and money when you’re travelling. Make sure you take out enough to cover your spending for the day, so you don’t need to dip into the money belt in public.
  • Always use a safe to store your valuables when possible – many hostels offer this facility
  • Don’t keep all your valuables together – split up cards, money and cheques
  • Keep card details and 24 hour emergency phone numbers at home so you can cancel them if they are stolen
  • Keep a note of the serial number on your travellers cheques numbers so you can cancel them if stolen. Make sure you keep this separate from the cheques themselves, and with the emergency phone number for cancelling them.
  • Email yourself details of travellers cheques, 24-hour emergency numbers etc so you can access this anytime
  • Make sure you check the exchange rate and the approximate cost of living before you go. You don’t want to cash £100 when you arrive and find out this would feed a family of five for a year!
  • Ask for enough to keep you going until you will be near an ATM or bank again. Remember that smaller villages are unlikely to have these facilities.
  • Make sure you get some smaller bills/coins so you can tip/pay for cheap things without having to break into a large note.
  • Add your parents as a signatory to your bank account before you go. Banks will only deal with the signatories of the account, so this means they can deal with anything for you if there is an emergency while you’re away.
  • Always remember to keep your cards separate from your travellers cheques. This will minimise the impact if you are unlucky enough to be robbed.