My husband and I have recently begun to travel more extensively. We have always taken vacations, but we usually stuck close to home, but we have begun to be a bit more adventuresome in our travels. We have decided that we need to see more of the world that we live in. We started our travel abroad by going with a tour group so we could learn some things. It was a great way to travel in foreign countries for the first time, but we have decided that we want to try going on our own for our next trip. We did not care for the ridge schedules and time frames that need to be followed when traveling with a group. We wanted to be able to stay longer at some sights and skip others; this is not possible when going with a tour group.
We did learn many things through the tour we went on. We learned about money currency exchange and where the best places are to do this. If it had not been for the tour guide we would have been shorted quite a bit in the money currency exchange. The tour guide explained that not every place that does the money currency exchange gives the going rate of exchange. Most of the shops and hotels will give a much lower rate of exchange for the convenience of being able to do the exchange on site. The very best rate of exchange is going to be at a bank. The problem with this is that many banks are opened rather limited hours and days of the week. If you arrive to your destination on a Friday afternoon the first opportunity to go to the bank is going to be Monday morning. Many of the airports will exchange currency. This can be done for extended our and most days of the week. The rate of exchange is not quite as good as at a bank, but it is much better than at a hotel, restaurant or shop. The tour guide suggested that we exchange some money at the airport so that we would have cash available until we could get to a bank.
Other tips that were helpful were looking for restaurants that have menus that are printed in English, or at least some signs that are printed in English. This is a sure bet that someone inside the establishment will be able to understand what you want to order. Carrying a foreign language dictionary is another helpful tool. Many times when people see the dictionary they know you cannot speak the language and they will go out of their way to find someone that can help in the communications. The best advice we received is to be respectful of the culture that you are visiting.
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