I'm going to be heading to Hawaii sometime next year and am planning on buying some US dollars now while our dollar is high. Should I just get greenbacks in my hand, travelers checks or do something else?
I don't think it makes a huge difference as they'll have similar exchange rates. The potential problem with travellers cheques is that they can expire after some length of time. But I could easily be wrong on that - if you call say American Express (or check their website), they'll tell you whether that's is so.
Of course, the potential problem with hard cash is that if you lose it, you can kiss it goodbye whereas you can cancel cheques and get the money back.
Twelve to 18 months is a long time to buy ahead. I guess you're concerned that the aussie dollar will go down again. What if it goes up? You could be better off just watching and waiting - after all, the exchange rates used by the money changers is often based on an average exchange rate over some period of days. So you'd have a little bit of time to act if the dollar starts to take a dive.
I'm off to Hawaii this year, have been buying $US in cash to hedge against the exchange rate dropping and as they say about the aussie dollar it goes up by the stairs and comes down by the elevator. I havn't used travelers cheques in 20 years. Last time I was over there the $AU got stronger so I just used the credit card hung on to my $US and cashed them in when It got weaker at home.
Why not go to an American bank operating in Australia and open an account where you can have two currencies? My wife works for such a bank and plenty of people do this.
However by all accounts the Australian dollar is going to keep going up so I wouldn't be in that much of a hurry to buy US dollars. BTW I have no idea if the Australian dollar is going to tank and drop down to 50 cents US next month or not. Just that all talk in Australia is that interest rates are rising while there is no talk of raising American interest rates. Seems like the American financial system has some big problems.
