In a transition hastened by the pandemic's preference for contactless payment, increasingly you can travel abroad and barely ever handle a physical bill or coin, whether pounds, kroner or euros
For American vacationers, traveling overseas used to involve the ritual of obtaining local currency, whether from a bank at home before heading off, or from an A.T.M. or currency exchange at their destination. But in a transition hastened by the pandemic’s preference for contactless payment, increasingly you can travel abroad and barely ever handle a physical bill or coin, whether pounds, kroner or euros. (Jinhwa Jang/The New York Times)
On a recent trip to England, Andrew Dodson, 35, and his wife, Erin, 32, who live in Traverse City, Michigan, had an unexpected problem: No matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t spend the 700 British pounds they’d brought along.
“We traveled all around the country, including many small towns in the Lake District and the Cotswolds, and even the tiniest of pubs took cards,” said Dodson, a content marketing manager for TentCraft, a manufacturer of customized tents and accessories. “Many wouldn’t even accept cash. As we approached the end of our trip, we went to a nice dinner at this Indian restaurant where we hoped to spend off some of the cash we converted, only to be told they don’t accept cash anymore.”
Finally, their London hotel let them pay their balance with cash so they wouldn’t have to bring the pounds home and reconvert them to dollars.
For American vacationers, traveling overseas used to involve the ritual of obtaining local currency, whether from a bank at home before heading off, or from an ATM or currency exchange at their destination. But in a transition hastened by the pandemic’s preference for contactless payment, increasingly you can travel abroad and barely ever handle a physical bill or coin, whether pounds, kroner or euros.
“I’ve had the same 10 euro in my purse for weeks,” said Julene English, 62, a Fairfax, California, retiree on her first international trip since the pandemic, a three-month sojourn with her husband in Italy, France and Britain.
©2019 New York Times News Service