Money Matters

Having lived year-round in Mexico for the past 10 years and during the 10 winters before that, I was delighted to read Marvin Delavan’s appreciation of Mexico City (officially, Mexico, D.F.) in his article (April ’14, pg. 46). I regard it as one of the grandest of the 49 capital cities I’ve visited around the world.

Mr. and Mrs. Delavan paid $18 for a taxi from the airport into the city and $160 per night for their hotel, but travelers on a tighter budget can also enjoy the city. 

A travel buddy and I spent a full month in spring 2013 traveling from Bishkek to Tbilisi in the “five ’Stans” and the Caucasus, and we did it for a whole lot less than the “approximately $10,000 per person” plus international air for a 16-day trip that a traveler wrote about in the article “A Silk Road Journey, 25 Years in the Making” (April ’14, pg. 6).

While we were in Bodrum/Milas, Turkey, in March 2014, I visited bank after bank in an effort to find one that would exchange American Express Travelers’ Cheques. Nobody would change them.

In the past, this was never a problem; even the hotels would cash them. But this time everyone said ‘No.’

IRMA HESS

Mt. Vernon, NY

The tour books we read seemed to discourage the use of ATMs in Luang Prabang, Laos, especially by folks like us who would be traveling for six months and couldn’t afford to have their card chewed up at the beginning of their trip. 

In November 2013 we found few ATMs in that city, but there were money changers on every block, so we approached the one closest to the lodging where we would be staying for the next 30 days. 

My husband and I have used ITN advertisers on several occasions and have never been disappointed with the excellent service we’ve received. But none could surpass the experience we had with Scott Jones of Chilean Special Journeys (Palacio Concha, Av. Concha y Toro 46, Santiago, Chile; phone +56 2 699 3633 or, in the US, 888/345-6077).

My husband, Ed, and I stayed in Dubai for four days in April 2013 before embarking on a cruise.

With a population of 400,000, Dubai is one of seven emirates that comprise the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The official language there is Arabic, with English as the secondary language. The signage throughout the city of Dubai was in both Arabic and English.

Some banks in the US are beginning to issue credit cards with antifraud security chips embedded in them. The chips hold account information that is encrypted.

In the US, most of these cards are “chip-and-signature” cards with which you usually must provide a signature (and an ID) to complete a transaction. However, what are being used in a great many countries outside of the US are “chip-and-PIN” cards, each of which has a personal identification number (PIN) assigned to it that you punch into the credit card terminal’s keypad when asked for it. 

Dear Globetrotter:

Welcome to the 457th issue of your monthly foreign-travel magazine. We’re now into our 38th year of publishing ITN, the first travel publication based on articles and letters written by its subscribers, travelers like you, people who pay their own way on trips and wish to share their discoveries.

This is in response to the request for lodging information from those of us who travel “on a shoestring.”

I traveled independently in Turkey in May of 2012. I left my wheeled suitcase at the Coşkun Pension in Istanbul and traveled for three weeks with only a backpack.

The transportation was delightfully simple. I took dolmuses (minibuses) for cheap regional travel, two 5-hour coach rides and two in-country flights on Turkish Airlines.