Accessing money during 5 month trip

I use a debit card to withdraw from ATMs in South Africa....easy,and less expensive than using a cash passport.

It is impossible to answer your question without your telling us how much your debit card charges for foreign transactions but I think you would be much better to forget about both the Debit Card and the Cash Passport and get a Credit Card that does not charge any foreign transaction fees, see http://www.moneysupermarket.com/credit-cards/overseas-spending/ for several choices. Halifax Clarity is one that I use and I pay nothing extra for foreign transactions, including ATMs, no foreign exchange loading, no transaction fees, no interest, nothing extra..

Doesn't a credit card start charging you interest on the loan from the moment you withdraw cash with it?

#3 Yes but you just use on-line banking to pay off any cash advance, which does not usually clear and appear in your account until 24 to 48 hours later, hence no interest.

I see, I guess you could also 'pre-load' your credit card with funds to cover cash withdrawals before leaving home to save yourself the trouble. I would not be keen to do any on-line banking in an internet caff anywhere in Africa!

I think the Halifax Clarity is the only one that doesn't charge now, so if the OP doesn't already have one of these - or have time to open an account with them before the trip - then they might as well just use their debit card.

Do they give these Halifax Clarity cards out to anyone? (we don't have anything like that in Italy...it is hard to get a credit card,and in particular one with all these advantages)

Do you need to have a particular credit rating? Or pay a salary into it?

#5 If you read your T&C's you will find that the bank reserves the right to reject a pre-load, because they obviously want to make money from charging you interest, if you make the on-line payment after you have taken the cash advance then they cannot reject your payment. There is no easy way to 'save yourself the trouble', the only reason the banks allow this loophole is that they know that 99% of their customers are too disorganized to take advantage of it. On-line banking is perfectly safe from an internet cafe in Africa if you follow one important rule, only do it once from any one internet cafe. Most on-line banking system uses password fragments with dropdown lists, like characters 1, 3 and 5 of your password and you have to enter them using the mouse, so even if the PC you use has keyboard logging or a video camera looking over your shoulder, it is not going to be much use when next time it needs characters 2, 4 and 6 of your password. Even if anyone did get into your on-line banking it is not going to do them any good as the banks have figured out that setting up a new payment is the most dangerous thing you can do in on-line banking, from their point of view and they all require additional authentication to do so, like a chip-and-PIN device or texts or phone calls to your mobile; so you have to set up and test all your on-line card payments before you leave on your trip, you definitely do not want to be trying to set up a new on-line payment from Africa, but making a payment to an existing payee is not a problem, another reason that 99% of their customers are too disorganized to take advantage. The link in #2 shows at least 4 cards that have no extra charges for foreign transactions.

#6 I imagine that you have to be UK resident to get a Halifax Clarity, a credit card in the UK does not come attached to a bank account, that is a debit card, so you could not pay your salary into it even if you wanted to and as for what credit rating it requires the banks never say, but it is not particularly high. Some countries have more competition in banking than others and Italy offers much less competition than the UK.