What the Fees Actually Cost
A regular bank card from home, used for a year abroad, produced £500 in fees. That was 2015 into 2016, before the newer card options existed. At 1.08 dollars to the pound, that is $540. The traveller’s own estimate of what it cost them: an extra month of travel, given up to bank charges.
That is the whole argument in one number. Not a coffee. Not a museum ticket. The fees.
A single foreign ATM withdrawal can cost up to $5 if your bank is outside the Global ATM Alliance and charges for the privilege. Five dollars per withdrawal does not sound like much until you count the withdrawals. Two a week for a year is 104 withdrawals. That is $520, which is very close to the £500 figure above. The two numbers are describing the same problem from different angles.
If you can find an account that does not charge for foreign ATM withdrawals, the saving is that $5, every time, for as long as you hold the account. Banks inside the Global ATM Alliance are one route to that.
The Bill That Surprises People
Money leaves your account from random places. You call your bank. You are abroad, so you call from a Thai SIM card, and the call itself costs £50. At 1.08, that is $54, spent to report a theft, on top of whatever was taken.
This is the part that does not appear in the fee schedules. The emergency call. The replacement card couriered somewhere. The hours on hold. The £50 call is the smallest line in that column.
What You Bring and What You Withdraw
One traveller took about 500 euros in cash and still withdrew from ATMs at the end of the trip. That is $540 in cash, carried, plus ATM withdrawals on top. Cash did not remove the need for the ATM. It just delayed it.
A SIM card plus credit cost €13.03. That is $14.07.
For daily budgeting, a rough working figure is $60 to $70 per person per day. The breakdown behind it: $20 on food, $20 on dinner, $25 on entry fees, $7 on transport. Those four items total $72, so the range is honest rather than precise. It is a starting point for deciding how much cash to carry, not a prediction.
Cards, Points and When the Fee Is Worth It
If you use a credit card heavily, moving points into airline mileage programs can beat redeeming them for products. One example: Berlin for 50,000 Latam miles plus taxes, on specific dates. Whether that is a good deal depends on the taxes and the dates, but the valuation tends to come out well above what the same points buy in the rewards catalogue.
For frequent travel, a premium card can make sense. The American Express Platinum annual fee rose to $895 in 2025. For that you get Centurion lounge access, airline credits, and reimbursement for Global Entry or TSA PreCheck. If you fly five or more times a year, the lounge access and the credits can add up. If you fly twice, they will not, and the $895 is just $895. Do the arithmetic on your own trips before applying.
For everyday spending abroad, two German accounts come up repeatedly: DKB, which issues Visa, and C24-Bank, which issues Mastercard. The reason they come up is the same reason the Global ATM Alliance comes up: the withdrawal fee.
The Small Kit
Some hostels provide a towel. Some charge extra for one. Some have no towel option at all. A small travel towel solves it either way. A lightweight one that dries quickly does the job without much weight.
An iPhone 11 case with an integrated card slot is useful for hotel room keys and a transit card, so you are not digging through a bag at the door. A screen protector is worth having if your phone has already been dropped more than once.
The bag material worth knowing: 30D nylon tarpaulin, waterproof, 120g. That is genuinely light, and it holds up.
None of this is the expensive part. The expensive part is the $5 withdrawals, the $54 phone call, and the $540 in fees that could have been another month.
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