Best Way to Bring Money to Colombia?

LandanLad

Hi All,

Complete newbie here, with what's the best option to bring travel money abroad.

I am travelling to Colombia next month and I will be bringing a credit card, and 2 debit cards with me. The biggest issue is of course getting hit with fees.

What would the travel pros recommend I do? :huh:

Voyager2002

You could start by reading the guide to travel money, and get yourself the best plastic: Halifax Clarity and/or N and P Classic.

Check on a travel forum (Lonely Planet Thorntree for instance) whether there are still any special issues with Colombia. When I lived there, rules around money-laundering meant that exchanging currency was incredibly difficult and I opened a local bank account and used Fidelity Investments to transfer money to it.

InsideInsurance

http://www.lonelyplanet.com/colombia/practical-information/money-costs

For travel money levels there shouldnt be many problems. Do need to be a bit careful about fake currency.

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/cheap-travel-money

The above gives more detail on the better/worse cards for fees overseas

db21111

I've travelled there twice, spent 5 months in total.

I just took the maximum out each time while I was there. Fees were minimal especially with what you may save on rent/food in a lot of areas.

My card was just a basic halifax debit, one of the worst and it was fine. Except I found I could only use machines that had "Servibanca" on them, that were green. This didn't cause me much headache, in fact I found in the malls that had Falabella, they also had a machine I could use and Servibanca was everywhere I went, including the small village I stayed the longest in (population 6000 including rural areas). They since opened a second cash point but the servibanca is still the best because it has a lockable door with a metal gate.

Other machines let you take larger sums out but it didn't stop being going back the second time at all.

You probably know by now that you can't take currency there, at least you can't draw it out here. Maybe there's some company that'll let you do a special order but I didn't see one and IIRC it's not legal, or it wasn't the two times I went.

Either way drawing it out isn't a problem, probably cost me 5000/6000 Pesos (£1.53 / £1.83) each time. I was pretty frugal but in certain places eating well for very little cash.

I'm going back this december.