[lca2018-chat] Just a couple of weeks to go!

[Ewen McNeill]

On 9/01/18 18:38, Alison Chaiken wrote:
> 0. Where should foreign visitors change money upon arrival?   Perhaps at 
> the airpoort?

While you definitely can change money at any international airport, 
usually the rates will be even less favourable there than at downtown 
banks or downtown bureau de change.

Typically what I do when going to a country with different currency is 
get a small amount ($100-$200) of cash in that country's currency at my 
local bank before leaving home, and then get the rest by taking money 
out of an ATM when I'm in the country (usually again a few hundred 
dollars, to spread out the transaction fees).  These days you might even 
be fine just planning on getting money out in an ATM at the first 
airport in the country you reach.

You'll also find that you can use a Visa/Mastercard (and often 
Amex/Diners, perhaps with an extra fee) most places, so you may not need 
that much cash (eg, unlike the USA there's much less need to have cash 
on hand to give "random" cash tips to people in NZ/Australia).

> 1. What should those of us whose phones have incompatible bands do?   
> Get a 'burner' phone?   If so, any suggestions?

There are usually phone stores at the airport too.  They can be a 
reasonable option if you want a "tourist SIM" card (ie, local number, 
etc) as those are sometimes harder to track down when downtown.  But the 
phones themselves are probably also marked up a fair bit.

I'd suggest double checking how incompatible your phone is before 
deciding if you need another one.  A lot of higher end phones are at 
least tri-band or quad-band, and often that combination will cover at 
least one of the "foreign" bands.  (I have, eg, travelling with my 
Australiasian-model phone to the USA multiple times and just used that 
phone -- it worked well enough for the trip.)

If it's only tri-band then it might only cover one of the frequencies in 
Australia which will reduce coverage and/or networks it can roam to. 
But in the middle of a big city like Sydney even one frequency in common 
might be sufficient.

This page of someone's notes on frequencies used in Australia:

http://whirlpool.net.au/wiki/mobile_phone_frequencies

might help cross check against what your phone model supports for 
2G/3G/4G (LTE) on which frequencies.

Ewen