Chapter Sixteen

OVERSEAS

Thousands of women, of all ages and incomes, travel overseas every day. Some just jet off to an island in the sun for a few weeks' holiday. Others go from concrete city to concrete city as part of their job or to extend their education.

Still others disembark in the most inhospitable trouble-spots where they may work for years. We will look here at travelling abroad for recreation or for short-term working visits.

FOREIGN CURRENCY

As holiday-maker or working visitor, you need to buy and use foreign currency - that is, the notes and coins used in the country you are visiting. You can buy them in Britain in a bank, travel agent or some building societies. Sometimes, in Britain or abroad, the office where you can change currency is called a 'bureau de change'.

How many pounds you have to pay for your foreign currency depends on the exchange rate. So does the number of pounds you receive when you change back what you did not spend. These rates change every day. Why? Supply and demand. The more British sun-seekers want Spanish Euros (or Maltese Lira) the more they will have to pay for them - just like at an auction. It is easy to get muddled with exchange rates. Here is a quick way to decide if the rate offered is good or bad for you.

Perhaps the bank will offer you 210 to the pound and the travel agent 200. Which is better for you? It depends whether you are buying or selling x. Call the x 'apples'.

Suppose you are buying. Which would you rather get 210 apples for your pound or 200? Easy. You want 210. So that is the better rate for you.

If you are selling your apples, would you rather part with 210 for a pound or 200? Easy. You want to past with as few as possible. So 200 is the better rate for you.

Carry some foreign cash for immediate use, like a taxi or a phone call from the airport or a tip to a porter. But take the bulk of your money in another form, like traveller's cheques. You buy these before you leave Britain and can cash them in when you return if you don't spend them.

Each traveller's cheque is for a fixed amount. You sign it in advance. Then you sign it again when you cash the cheque - that is, exchange it for local currency in the foreign bank or bureau de change or your hotel. Cashing traveller's cheques at your hotel or a local shop always works out more expensive. You pay for the convenience.

If you lose your traveller's cheques or they are stolen, you can claim your money back from the organization (like Thomas Cook or American Express) that issued them. So traveller's cheques are safer than cash. The book they come with normally contains a page for you to note their numbers and tear out to keep separately from the cheques themselves. You quote the numbers in order to report their loss or theft immediately. A good idea is to put the cheques in your handbag and the list in your luggage; or split cheques and numbers between husband and wife.

Some traveller's cheques are valued in sterling (British pounds and pence). Each one will state on it the value, e.g. £10 or £1,000. This means that you don't know how much local currency you will get for each until the day you decide to cash it.

If you prefer, you can choose cheques valued in the currency of your destination. Your cheques might specify Euro 20 or Euro 2,000. You have already done the currency exchange on the day you bought your cheques. Depending on how the exchange rate changes between the day you buy traveller's cheques and the day you cash them, you may do better or worse than if you had bought pound traveller's cheques.

One advantage of using local currency traveller's cheques is that not just banks but hotels and restaurants will accept them. If you are touring from country to country, perhaps in and out of the Eurozone*, you will find it easier to take sterling cheques rather than cheques in a succession of other currencies. You do not want to end your holiday with lots of small amounts in many currencies to be changed back at a cost.

When you return home, you will find that the bank offers two different rates to change your surplus X back into useful pounds. The better rate is the one at which they will change back foreign currency traveller's cheques.  The other is the rate at which they will change banknotes; this will always be the lower of the two because foreign banknotes are a nuisance to the bank.

You don't need to buy traveller's cheques in either pounds or the currency of your favourite sun-spot. You could buy US dollar cheques or even cheques in Swiss francs. Here you change twice: once from pounds to dollars/francs when you buy the cheques: then from dollars/francs to X when you cash them at your destination. If the pound is strong against the dollar when you buy, you get a lot of dollars for your pound. If the dollar is strong against the X when you exchange, you get a lot of X for your dollars. So it is a gamble.

Wise adventurers watch how the currencies are changing (printed in the newspapers or posted up in the banks - or look on the internet) for a few weeks before they decide, if the amount is large enough to matter. Never buy your traveller's cheques before you need to, despite what the travel agent says. They are 'dead money' as far as you are concerned. I have never found any problems getting cheques in a hurry. Travel companies make a tidy pile out of travellers who pay for cheques months before they intend to use them.

Normally, you must pay 1 per cent commission to the organization that sells you your traveller's cheques. Some organizations supply them without commission, like a building society selling to its members. So it can be worth your while to ask around.

More and more globetrotters are abandoning traveller's cheques in favour of credit cards like Barclaycard or charge cards like Amex (American Express). You don't need to tie up lots of cash in advance to protect yourself against running out of money.

Most banks issue and accept these cards, and with luck you can use them in 'holes in the wall' in your ideal ski resort with computers that 'speak' English. Careful though: if you forget your number or the machine swallows your card and this was your only source of money, your holiday may be ruined.

Credit cards should be safer than plain cash because of the security number, although frauds are still so rife that people sometimes have to produce two cards to prove their identity, not just one.

Credit card currency changes are calculated at the inter-bank rate. This is a rate private to the banks. It is usually more favourable than you will be offered elsewhere. The transfers used to take a while to appear on your statement. Any delay was effectively an interest-free loan to you so organizations now react with speed.

There is commission to pay on credit card transactions and also interest starts running immediately. If you use your debit card, you avoid the interest. Credit cards vary in the commission they charge from Barclaycard 2.75% to Saga 0% for Euros and 1% for other currencies.

If you plan to travel to the USA, you must use either dollars or credit cards. American banks are so local that they will sometimes refuse to change even traveller's cheques issued in the USA by another branch of the same bank!  Similarly, Barclays' New York branch has refused to change Barclays' own sterling traveller's cheques before now. A trip almost anywhere abroad will make you appreciate your British bank, however much you complained about it in the past.

BARGAINS ABROAD

For many women, one of the pleasures of a holiday is to hunt for foreign bargains. Forget duty-free shops at airports and harbours. They are a worldwide swizz. You just get panicked or bored into buying a bit more cheaply than you could at home. You will probably find a wider choice of wines, perfumes, etc. and at better prices in your seaside supermarket.

So where do you find the bargains? At the risk of sounding a killjoy, I must say that they are few and far between. There are novelties by the million, but not so many bargains, especially if you include customs duty.

When the holiday mood has worn off, you will put that cute native blouse in a drawer, grimace at its shoddy quality and admit that it looks wrong with everything else you own. It will find its way to the next jumble sale.

Some staple items are genuinely far cheaper and nicer abroad - coffee beans and drinking chocolate in France for instance.  If you are taking your car you can bring back this sort of thing easily. But it is not exactly thrilling. Remember, experts scour the world all year round for novelties to sell  in your local gift shop.

To get something worthwhile, be prepared to pay a good price in the country of origin. Sorrento in Italy produces beautiful inlaid furniture and jewel caskets. If you buy one in Sorrento, you will spot its twin in a top British department store for five times the price.

Jewellery (real jewellery, not costume) can be a bargain or a con. The rules to protect the customer, and how well they are enforced vary from country to country. Your best safeguard is where you find dozens of sellers together. I could cite the sapphire brooch I fell for in Istanbul in Turkey which was immediately valued in Britain at three times the price I had paid. But people tell me that too many tourists visit it these days, with no idea  how to bargain, and insufficient time. Then there is the beautiful nine-diamond ring I picked up in a Macao pawnshop. (Pawnshops abroad are fascinating and can be rewarding because on no tourist's official itinerary. Find out where they are from Yellow Pages.) Asked for a current recommendation, I would say Singapore. Even then, neither fashionable Orchard Road, nor trendy Mustafa's store, but back-street Chinatown. You are perfectly safe, day and night and the Tourist Board will prosecute any fraudulent trader and reimburse you!

By contrast, a relative brought me back a 'silver' necklace and bracelet from Africa. It turned out to be a thin film of silver over copper, which vanished as soon as I tried to polish it.

Bargaining is hard work and slow. We Westerners stand at a disadvantage because we hate it. Besides, the locals are easily insulted if we try to bargain in the wrong place.  Of they despise us as suckers if we assume that the 'guide' price is fixed and pay up without haggling.

If the seller allows you to walk away then you really have hit their bottom price.   Sometimes it works if you take out your money (only show the amount you want to pay) and proffer it. Sellers can rarely resist the lure of real cash.

Shoppers' paradises? If you want a purely personal recommendation from the 40 countries I have visited, it is Singapore, followed by Hong Kong and Bangkok (Thailand).

Some people enjoy their foreign holidays so much, they want to prolong the experience. This may mean either they seek to buy a villa in their special Shangri-La or they apply for a post abroad. Advice on living and working overseas demands a book to itself. So I have written one. Free.* In the meantime, back home with a bump, we look at that old bogy - inflation.

*The countries whose currency is the Euro - currently there are 12 of them - Austria, Belgium, Finland, mainland France and Corsica, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain with many more wanting to join.

** Download Going For Gold - available free on this site.

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