If you’ve finally made a vacation a reality, it’s probably because you were a careful planner, saved enough money to do so, and of course, have a little wanderlust. But, what you don’t want to do is go on your trip and get too caught up in the moment and blow the rest of your life savings on thousand dollar dinners or Ferrari rentals. This post is about how to help manage your money for a trip which includes searching to select a basic bank account that can help you isolate your money and some other tips.

I travel for a living, so I’ve learned to be a bit more careful with my money than most on the road, but I have also been on recent trips like for my brother’s bachelor party where everyone else was throwing around cash like it was Monopoly money, so I felt I had to keep up a bit. My poor old brother even managed to sink a fat stack on the casino tables, and he probably would have benefited by “liquidating” a predetermined travel account rather than his personal savings.

You can set up a basic checking account at any bank, and most still do it for free, People in the UK refer to these as current bank accounts, one good example are LTSB current accounts options as well as a few others.

The benefit of setting up a new account for traveling is you know exactly how much you can spend. God forbid you need to add money to your travel account, you can do so over the computer, but any impulsive (and most likely inebriated) purchasing decisions will be thwarted if you try to spend more than you have. Also, if you travel to some random-ass places like me (currently in Bosnia), you run a much less risk of having someone stealing all of your money if there is only a bit in the account (i.e. card fraud).

If you’re traveling overseas, it is important to keep up with exchange rates and there are many apps for your smart phone that can make this easier (or even an good ole’ calculator which every phone has). Sometimes people get caught up in split-second decisions without calculating exchange rates and later realized they shelled out way more than they planned to. This is especially true in countries with already inflated currencies so every number seems high to begin with.

Moral of the story, set up a second layer of protection for travel funds (i.e. a separate checking card), be mindful of what your paying (currency knowledge)…and don’t get too drunk. Bon voyage!