Money

When traveling, it may be a good idea to bring along some pounds with you. Traveler's checks
are a popular (and particularly secure) way to carry currency, but they probably won't get you
the most pounds for your dollar. If you want to carry hard cash, you'll need to make an
exchange somewhere, but exchanging money at money exchange agencies (e.g. Thomson Cook,
American Express, exchanges at the airport, etc.) will usually give you a pretty bad exchange
rate. You can typically get a better exchange rate by ordering British pounds through your
American bank ahead of time. However, in general, the way to get the best exchange rate is to
directly use your credit/debit card to make a purchase (as opposed to exchanging cash before
making a purchase), so you might want to avoid exchanging cash altogether. For a more indepth
discussion of monetary issues, see section 2.3.