Money, It's a gas!

"Money, it's a crime
Share it fairly but don't take a slice of my pie
Money, so they say
Is the root of all evil today
But if you ask for a rise it's no surprise that they're giving none away"
Roger Waters, Pink Floyd, Money. Dark Side of the Moon.

I was prompted to write this post by a comment on Mastodon by @debby@hear-me.social who travels with travellers cheques.
Debby's post states that travellers cheques have stood the test of time and they've been using them in Switzerland, Thailand, India, Kenya & Japan.
Debby admits to being a traditionalist and not using smartphones, and takes a principled stance against payments through Google & Apple.
They state that when businesses are given the option of "check or cash ... most places favor cash but sometimes having an alternative method like a check comes in quite useful" (USA spelling retained in the quote).

I found this an absolutely fascinating window into aspects of travelling I hadn't considered, and began to ask myself all sorts of questions.

My travel focus for this blog is Europe - although as readers may see, I do occasionally recount journeys elsewhere. So, when looking at this l'm going to look at it restricted to geographical Europe and from a late 2025 perspective.

I also threw the question out to Mastodon generally to get a snapshot of what other people use on their travels around the European continent. (And, yes, I know that Europe is not one country!)

Let's start by looking at England today, and the use of cheques.
We have a small number of bank accounts for daily spending and bills, none of them routinely issue cheques, and I'm fairly sure that some of them do not issue cheques at all.
It's possible to spend cheques in supermarkets and for larger purchases, but I've never seen anyone do it in recent years, and I've no idea when I last wrote a cheque.

Now - travellers cheques (or is it traveller's cheques?) - I know I used them in 1972 for my cycling trip in France (covered in these pages), but I'm certain I've not used them since.
Straightforward searches reveal that it is still possible to buy travellers cheques in the UK from a small number of outlets including Post Offices and Travel Money counters, but as far as I can tell banks no longer issue them.
There are a number of forum posts (forums.moneysavingexpert.com) recounting the difficulties people have had with refunding unused travellers cheques.
It is not possible to spend a travellers cheque in a retail outlet in the UK, they must be changed in a bank (if you can find one)
The general consensus is that travellers cheques are a very expensive way of spending money abroad.
The method of exchanging (or spending) with a travellers cheque hasn't changed over the years and requires double signatures, and is clearly less convenient than other methods.

So, what are the other methods.
Cash - it's been around a very long time, and in the UK at least it shows no sign of going away. There are a number of shops that do not accept cash, accepting card or digital payments only. I've seen this a lot with smaller coffee & food places.
Cards - effectively in the UK debit (bank) and credit cards are interchangeable. Cards are very widely accepted, although there are a few small places that do not accept cards or digital payments, these seem to be becoming fewer by the day. Card payments upto £100 can be made by contactless payments, other payments require a PIN entry (swipe & sign seems to have gone away).
Digital Payments by phone / watch / ring through Google Pay, Apple Pay, and Samsung Pay are available - as far as I know - everywhere card payments are accepted, and the £100 limit doesn't apply.
Bank Transfer is not uncommon for larger payments, for example to a tradesman. I've never known it in a retail setting.
QR Payments (see below) are unknown in the UK

So - let's consider travelling beyond these sceptered isles.
First - I'll talk about our recent trips and look at a bit of our history.
Most of geographical Europe uses the Euro as its common currency - except the UK, Switzerland, Czechia, Poland, Denmark, Hungary, Romania and Sweden. (We were able to spend Euro quite happily in Cuba!).
Euro notes and larger denomination coins are widely accepted for most purposes in the Eurozone.
You cannot spend Euro cash in England, Wales or Scotland - it may be possible to spend it in parts of Northern Ireland.
While Euros were accepted on our recent trip to Czechia, the exchange rate was punitive.
We generally take about €100 in cash with us on our European holidays, and top this up from ATMs as needed using a debit card. Most of our cash spending is on low value purchases such as souvenirs, ice cream, public toilet access and tips (but I did have a cash tip very rudely returned to me in The Netherlands a couple of years ago!).

In recent years the vast majority of our spending has been by a mixture of contactless card and digital (phone - Google) payments.
There are some transactions which cannot easily be made by cash / cheque - a good example is the Rotterdam Metro which uses a tap-in/tap-out access system. This is similar to London, but here it is possible here to buy an Oyster card to link to your bank account.
I have seen occasional (rare) examples of card only shops in France.
On our travels to Czechia and North-eastern Germany we were warned that we would need cash as card payment was unusual. This advice was completely wrong. We did eat at a 'hole in the wall' pizza place in Stralsund which said that cards weren't accepted, but that was a real exception, and a bit off the tourist trail. Everywhere used contactless card payments.

There is an app widely used in Switzerland which allows the use of QR codes for payment (Twint)

Going back into the remembered past - I did use prepaid currency cards at one time. These are still widely available, and are a popular choice, but becoming less so I feel, as the market for travel money changes.
I fell out of love with prepaid cards due to problems with acceptance, and one memorable occasion in Brussels where I couldn't find an ATM that would accept the card! Careful choice of debit / credit cards today give a near-perfect exchange rate without fees, so the exchange advantages of prepaid cards are negated.
I still have an HSBC Global Money card - maybe I'll use it one day!

I have never been robbed, scammed or lost money through any cash, card, or digital transaction while on a trip. I consider myself extremely fortunate, but I am also paranoid about personal security.
There are security advantages for travellers cheques in that they can be refunded if lost or stolen (as long as the serial numbers are recorded). Bank cards can be stopped, often in an app, or by a long-winded phone call, and fraudulent transactions will generally be refunded by UK issuers. Digital transactions are slightly more problematic, but the use of mobile security goes a long way to secure the devices, and again, reported fraud seems to be handled well in the UK.
Cash has the highest security risk - lose it and it's gone!

The ethical objections to using Google & Apple pay are interesting, but I have to accept - even though I hate it - that we live in a surveillance society, if the tech companies aren't watching me, then the banks are. And, how many ethical banks are there? (not many). And they'll readily share your spending patterns with law enforcement anyway if that worries you.
Giving your money to a travellers cheque issuer is no different to giving my money to a card issuer in my book.

Personally, I have recently done as much of my overseas spending using a Visa Barclaycard Rewards card which gives me a 'near perfect' exchange rate and a tiny amount of cashback. Where possible (hotels mostly) I use an American Express card for the exchange rate and the slightly better cashback (I hate points!). I have these in my Google Wallet, and generally use contactless payments. My Google wallet has a couple of debit cards as backups.

In the past I used a specific bank account - with Kroo - which I used like a prepaid Visa card - loading it by bank transfer weekly with enough for the coming week. The changes to the Barclaycard exchange rate has negated this approach.

I tend to bring most of my Euro Cash back home with me which I save for my future trips. On our two European trips in 2025 totalling just under 5 weeks we spent €170 in cash - about €4 / day.
Most of the Czech Koruna I bought for our short visit got refunded on our return.

So what do people on Mastodon do?
The subject of Revolut cards came up, as did a Wise card account. These have both been popular options for card (& digital) payments in recent years. They give excellent exchange rates and are convenient (the subject of Revolut fees was discussed). In a way, they feel like a better alternative to the pre-paid Currency Cards discussed above, much better acceptability and with the protection of Visa / Mastercard behind them.
The vast majority of respondents used cards - either for card payments or as digital payments by phone. The point was well made that using Google Pay (& presumably Apple) obviates any issues with American cards not being directly accepted in areas where cards without contactless chips face issues.
Most people who replied said that they had experienced places that they needed to pay in cash - taxis, private rental places for tourist tax, coffee shops & small cafes, public toilets and as a backup when a rural remote ticket machine wasn't working properly.
One well travelled reply stated that they hadn't used cash for a full week in Finland, yet the same person had been yelled at in Switzerland for trying to buy a beer by card in Switzerland.
One curious outlier was a report that Iceland required particular prepaid cards for car fuel pumps!
Talking of the Nordic countries - one respondent stated that the majority of places there only take card / phone payments.
No one mentioned QR Code payments which are common in parts of Africa and are claimed to be the 'next big thing' in Europe - these will of course require a smartphone.
I'm certainly not including the collecting habit of siegeavecvue@rail.chat who's on a mission to collect the various €2 coins! Nor am I commenting on the mention by @tml@mementomori.social who somehow knows that cash is required for drugs & sex!

A good summary was made by morfil@climatejustice.social "...some countries will look at you like you are trying to pay with dubloons if you pay cash and other countries will look at you like you are trying to scam them with magic if you want to pay by card"

In essence, I get the strong impression that most people - assuming Mastodon is representative(!) - routinely use bank cards, debit being more widely used above credit cards when travelling in Europe.
Carrying a buffer of cash - with €80 being mentioned - was extremely common.

No one in my small survey mentioned travellers cheques, or prepaid currency cards.

In summary:
Our approach of recent years of paying by card - using the card or by phone - and carrying a moderate amount of cash, seems to be the most common way of spending when on trips when in geographical Europe.

---

Thanks are due to the following masotdon / frendica users
@bovine3dom @CatherineFlick
@partim @tobiaswatzi
@kajer @interrailinfosvenska
@simonbp @tpuddle
@gmc @siegeavecvue
@slothrop @neonbubble
@tml @tml
and of course to @debby@hear-me.social who kicked this all off