Travel Advice #3

With so many options, it's difficult to know what to pick. A few of the options and their advantages and disadvantages:

Traveler's checks (American Express) - can be exchanged in any city or at the airport. Rates are better in $50 or $100 denominations. I learned that the hard way. Unfortunately, you pay a fee on both ends. TCs have worse rates than cash (USD$1 is 1200 Tsh in TCs, but is 1300 Tsh for cash - the difference of about $.10 cents adds up when you are exchanging $200 -> $20!), and they cost money to purchase. The huge advantage, though, is that if they are lost or stolen, you can get your money back. Security has a price.

Cash - since you are probably exchanging USD and Euros, and these are very common, you will be able to exchange them at any bank or exchange bureau. A good option. Better rates are available in $50 and $100 denominations than $20. Look around for the best rates. Often vastly different rates will be two doors down from eachother.

ATM - if you're in a large city, this is also a decent option. When withdrawing a large amount of money, this may be the most cost effective. You will pay a fee to your bank and to the ATM, so beware of that. (Usually a few dollars on each end) plus a currency conversion fee (2% at MIT FCU, 5% at Bank of America).

Credit Card - I haven't used this yet in Moshi, but it was very useful in the Amsterdam airport (buying internet time and insurance). If you absolutely don't want to carry around money, this is an option in cities. Visa is the most commonly accepted. Personally, I don't like the insecurity of handing over my card to someone else. It's much easier to make sure you're paying what you think when you are handling bills.

It's important to have a mix to accommodate different situations and try to anticipate which situations you will be in.

It comes down to how much money you want to carry with you, how secure you want it to be, how big your purchases are, and where you are. Big cities, you can get away with a credit card. I would recommend that for only large purchases. For small things, it is cheaper to exchange a larger sum of money and then siphon off how much you need in the local currency bills. That has served me very well in Moshi (a smallish city).

Many hotels will take cash. This has no exchange rate and is a good way to go. Watch out for different prices in the local currency and USD, though. Sometimes the USD amount is significantly more than the price in the local currency. A bit of that would be accounted for in exchange rates, but anything larger than 3% difference is they marking up the price for tourists.

So far my experience has only been in Moshi (large town - lots of small shops, many banks, few large/chain stores), so take the advice with a grain of salt. Once I have been to Kampala and Nairobi, I will update this with more info! =)