Travel insurance
This is essential because things can and do go wrong.
Policies often have many useful inclusions, such as insurance for hire cars.
Credit cards sometimes provide free cover for travel paid by the card. Check eligibility.
Agents and airlines often provide cover options.
Travel Money
Cash, cards or travellers cheques? They all have pros and cons, and these vary in different countries too.
I travelled to Japan in 2014 and received a 10% better exchange rate for travellers cheques than cash.
Using your credit card and savings account card overseas is convenient, but fees can be high and sometimes unknown until you are at the automatic teller machine.
Banks and other institutions have been promoting travel cards which you load before travel, sometimes in different currencies. Again, fees can be high.
28 Degrees credit card has no currency conversion fee, which is great for travelling. The exchange rates are competitive too.
With other credit cards, you are usually given two options:
paying in your currency, with the vendor doing the exchange (usually a poor exchange rate), plus a fee of 2.0% (a recent example of mine)
paying in the foreign currency, with the credit card company doing the exchange (usually a good exchange rate), plus a fee of 2.95% (a recent example of mine.
The second option is usually better. If I do not want to calculate the difference, I just choose the second option.
Currency conversion
Google has a built-in currency converter, simply enter the conversion into the Google search box and the answer will be displayed directly on the results page:
enter 100 EUR in USD
output 100 Euro equals 131.39 US Dollar