Backpacking and Pre Paid Credit Cards
Backpacking is a great way of travelling that has opened up many areas of the world to people who couldn’t necessarily otherwise afford it. It can also be a fantastic way to meet new people and see things from a more ‘local’ view point than a holiday in a hotel offers.
This type of travel was for some time seen as the sort of thing that just individuals taking a gap year from study or work might indulge in, but today many families choose to backpack together, and more people choose it as an alternative to their annual holiday as well.
One issue that many people come up against when planning a back packing trip is ‘What form should I carry my money in? Are they safer carrying credit card, cash, or travellers cheques? Which will be easiest to use and how can they avoid the problems that can occur with each. For many, the answer has come in the form of the pre-paid credit card.
The pre-paid credit card can be loaded with cash in advance, and then used in the same way as a regular credit card can be. The biggest differences are:
* No credit checks – so anyone can have one.
* It’s not linked to a bank account – so if it’s stolen it is the ONLY thing stolen. You don’t need to worry about theft from your bank account or identity theft.
* You pre-load it with money – so there is absolutely no chance of you getting into debt with it.
Of course there are other advantages too particularly when you’re travelling abroad. For one thing, as many cards are designed specifically with travellers in mind, they offer really good rates of exchange, and can be loaded in one currency and spent in another with out any problems.
Another distinct advantage is that if you need or want to, you can just load it with how much you need for a week or two, and then you can get someone back at home to top the card up for you when required so that it’s never carrying too much money.
In some popular backpacking areas, pick-pockets can be pretty rife, so not carrying too much cash is a good idea. Pre-paid credit cards let you draw money from the card in cash when you want to, but because they are chip and pin like a regular credit card, they are less likely to be of interest to pick-pockets.
Like a regular credit card, you can phone ahead and use a pre-paid card to book a room in a boarding house or youth hostel, or to pay for dinner or a train ticket. Some cards are multi-currency meaning you can cross borders and not worry that the currency has changed too.
Being backed by big names like Visa and MasterCard they’re generally useable anywhere a regular credit card is, and are often protected by emergency card or cash replacement as well.
