However, the following tips might be useful if you are pondering just what might be the best option in terms of paying for items.
1) Spread your money across different forms of payment, for reasons of both personal security and ease of paying for goods and services. It helps to always have a back-up option - 'greenbacks' (US dollars) for example are known to be popular in many parts of the world.
2) Investigate which means of payment is most used in countries payment before you leave (obvious, really). For instance we have been advised that ATMs/cashpoints in Japan are surprisingly scarce.
3) Take travellers cheques. For the parts of the world we are visiting we have been advised to purchase these in US Dollar travellers cheques rather than those in UK Pounds.
4) Try and take a little bit of the local currency if you can before you get there. Friends can give you any spare change they might have and this helps if you have to use public transport etc immediately upon your arrival.
A wee anecdote about procuring the requisite funds:I chose to support my local post office. Having left London and decamped to the country for a week I had the pleasant experience of catching up with old friends in that most glorious of institutions - the village post office.
The patience of our postmistress, the lovely Alice, was severely tested by the various obscure requests of yours truly combined with the confusing instructions from her colleagues at Post Office central. For some bizarre reason, at their insistence, the chip and PIN machine was eschewed in favour of an ancient old imprint machine - a museum piece which clearly hadn't seen action since Suez.
I was reaching for the quill and parchment when Alice finally managed to wipe all the dust off and produce an acceptable carbon copy. Still, it worked and it was alot more fun than the usual joyless visit to a miserable high street bank. If only Gordon B appreciated that.
Cashier number three please!
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