It's all about the money, honey :)

So what about the money?  Will my credit card work when I want to charge a beer at a mountain hut among the Himalayas?  When I find an ATM in the middle of Vietnam will there be an English button so I know whether I am taking out $10 or $1000 worth of dong? (Dong=Viatnemese currency for those who are unaware).......

All questions I have asked myself over the past couple months.  Before I started worrying about what would actually happen when we were in each random country, I realized I needed to figure out HOW I was going to utilize money around the world without incurring a significant amount of currency conversion charges and ATM fees. After significant RTW forum research, I decided on two key things that I would need for this trip:
                   1. A Chase Sapphire Preferred Card
                   2. A Charles Schwabb checking account
My Chase card has amazing rewards (especially geared towards travel) and no foreign conversion fees.  My Schwabb account (still in the making) will refund all of my foreign (all) ATM fees monthly, and has no currency conversion fees (most banks charge around 3%).  These will be my two primary methods of financing on the road, with an emphasis on the checking account (I don't really plan to carry any significant amounts of money; just to visit ATMs frequently).
As a back up, I will keep my current credit card and checking account/ATM card...you never know when you card(s) may be stolen, lost, break in half, or simply not work!

So that's the short version of the smart way to travel round the world without spending 100s...or 1000s in fees! (At least that's what I'm hoping....I guess we'll see as the trip progresses....)

As a fun game, here is the list of currencies we will most likely encounter along the way....see if you can figure out where we are going :)

                     Shilling

                     Dong (thats a freebie....)

                     Baht
                     Pound

                     Rupee (this one has TWO answers!!)

                     Krona

                     Euro (okay, now you would just be stupid)....

                     Riel

                     Canadian dollar (also a freebie.....)

                     Kip

                     Lira

Happy Googling :)