1) Never use credit cards if you are a frequent traveler because you can’t afford the time and hassle involved with disputing charges.
2) Optionally, bring along one debit card but keep it in your money belt and only use it for emergencies with business you can absolutely trust (such as airlines).
3) Notify the issuer of this debit card that you will be traveling overseas.
4) Bring along two or three plain vanilla ATM cards from banks which do not charge high fees for using overseas ATMs. The basic currency conversion fee is always 1%, regardless of whether you are using credit cards, debit cards or ATM cards. Some banks add their own fees on top of this basic fee. If your bank does this, get another bank. (BankOfInternet, CapitalOne and Everbank do NOT charge extra fees.)
5) Extract the equivalent of $300 to $500 at a time to minimize the effect of the foreign bank’s ATM fee, which is never more than $5.
6) Pay for everything in cash, other than possibly buying replacement airline tickets direct from a major airline using the debit card. If buying through a travel agency, pay cash. Don’t even think of using the debit card for hotels and restaurants.
7) Keep no more than $2000 in the bank accounts for which you have debit or ATM cards. Refill these bank accounts as needed by making a voice telephone call to a separate brokerage account, using telephone which is unlikely to be bugged.
8) Forget traveler’s checks, which are obsolete.
9) The only time you convert money is when leaving a country and converting excess foreign currency back into dollars. The conversion should cost at most $20, which is enormous as a percentage, if the amount to be converted is say $21, but that is the wrong way of looking at things. Rather, think of it as simple a one-time fee per trip or leg of a trip.