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Take credit card(s) - M/C and Visa - as well as your bank card(s). Having more than one credit card and more than one bank card can come in handy. A bank card from one institution may not work at an ATM while a card with the same compatibility from another institution will work. In our travels we have found that the bank cards from Royal Bank work the highest amount of time. Unfortunately, they also have the highest transaction fee of $5.00CDN per transaction. If you have multiple cards, be sure to store them in separate places!
We have found in our travels that you can withdraw money from most ATM machines with your bank cards providing they are Interac or Plus compatible. Should the bank cards not work, try your credit card in the ATM machine. If your credit card does not work, you can almost always get a cash advance on your credit card within a bank branch. Remember to get your credit card pin before you leave if you do not already have it or have forgotten it. To avoid interest charges on our credit cards when we have to make cash advances, we carry a positive cash balance on our credit cards. Seeing that the interest rates for savings accounts are so low, there is not a big loss by carry your available cash as a positive balance on your credit card.
Make sure your bank or credit card pin numbers are only four digits as many bank machines we have come across abroad do not accept six digit pins!
We have not found a need to carry traveler’s cheques for any of our recent travels.