Hello, I'm Simon Calder, welcoming you to my independent travel podcast, bringing you the latest news on

travelling. Well, today I'm also going to bring you the latest news on currency, because I'm afraid

it's not a good look. On Thursday, the 16th of June, well, a couple of points this morning, I saw the

pound, because I was watching the foreign exchanges very closely, sink to $1.20 against the pound.

So, given that within a few decades, the value of sterling has halved, and indeed just within the past year, it has fallen by 15%.

It's all the more important to look after your holiday money.

When you've got volatile exchange rates, a good way to do that

is to lock into currency cash. And whenever I'm heading abroad, whether that's for US dollars or for

euros, I will shop around and try and get the best deal.

There's a street in London called Queensway.

It's over slightly to the west,

between Queensway Underground Station and Bayswater Underground Station.

And it's about a quarter of a mile long,

and there must be 20 Bureau de Changes along there there and I just literally walk into each one and say, how much will you charge me for

500 US dollars? And I pick the best one. And the range of quotes is generally very, very

significant. Um, now that's really handy if you're in London,

but also it's increasingly less handy

because during the coronavirus pandemic,

many enterprises, of course, have moved to contactless payments only.

And that makes it essential to have a payment method generally, a credit card, which might

also work with your phone, that has no foreign transaction fee.

Otherwise, you could lose 3% on credit card purchases, even more on some debit cards.

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