Money Exchange + Flight ticket cost QUESTIONS

And my mistake: I somehow put the OP heading to Japan not Korea. Sorry.

Ok one more question.

Lets say my spending money is $2500 AUD.
Whats the best way to handle this money in terms of exchanging currency?

1. Keep all in a debit card and withdraw from Bank ATM's when needed?
2. Exchange maybe $1000 of it at airport, then leave the rest in the bank. Withdraw money from ATM's when needed?
3. Get to Korea, exchange the whole $2500 from my debit card at airport / bank / exchange company?
4. Withdraw $2500 cash in Australia --> Get to Korea and exchange the whole $2500 cash from airport / bank / exchange company?

Keep in mind that if I take options 3 or 4, I obviously wont be bringing $2500 in my pocket every day :)

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated!!

If I were you I would take option 4, i.e, I will bring $2500 cash to Korea then change just a few hundred dollars at a time either at a bank or a money-changer (whichever one gives me a better rate for the day), but not at the airport as they will always give me the worst exchange rate - everybody knows that! The reason I don't want to change the whole amount of $2500 in one go is just to avoid having to change some of them back to AU$ in case I don't spend them all.

I will take with me 2 ATM/CC for back up just in case all my money got stolen. How do I keep my money safe? Easy! While many other people use money belts, I keep my money in secret pockets handsewn to the inside of my jeans' pockets (will need to unzip my jeans to be able to access to them) or in secret pockets handsewn inside those baggy pockets of my army style pants, when wearing these pants nobody knows what I 've got in there and the only way crooks can take/steal my money is when I am out of my gourd or dead! So my money is quite safe really and as usual I never leave them out of sight - even when I am in the shower of my locked hotel room.

I have traveled around N&S EA 4 times for a total of ~ 10 months during the last 3,5 years, I only used my CC to withdraw cash ONCE - US$600 for my Myanmar trip in Aug 2012 (not Jul 2012 as I mistakenly said so in one of my other post in another thread), all the rest paid by cash, Each time I went I brought with me at least 3K - have never had a single problem so far and always came back with lots of unspent money as I am a frugal traveler really. Just like last Oct - Dec, I traveled to S Korea (2.5 weeks), Japan (3 weeks) and Thailand (1.5 weeks), brought with me 4.2K and when I came back to OZ after 7 weeks I still got around 2,4K in my pocket, never had to use my ATM/CC to withdraw any cash in any one of those 3 countries, except for using my CC to pay 10% deposits for booking all my hostel beds in Korea and Japan on hostelworld.com - a total of about $60 altogether (14-day JR Pass already paid for before leaving Australia). Because I 've always traveled with loads of cash and rarely used ATM/CC for cash advances from banks, I have practically paid very little or next to nothing for ATM/CC fees & charges so far.

Hope that gives you some tips.

Cheers,

Edited by: het_tien

You mate are a legend ^

Edited by: iYOSHII