Most of you reading this blog aren’t old enough to remember when getting on a plane to visit another country was one of the biggest thrills you could imagine. The whole process, from beginning to end, was an experience to be savored and replayed in your mind over and over again.
Traveling today is no big whoop. It’s as commonplace as getting into your car and driving to the local supermarket. Very little preparation is required and anyone can jump onto a plane at the very last minute if need be. And taking flight across the ocean to distant lands is only a fraction more exciting than staying local.
Still, there are plenty of people who do get excited about visiting other lands. Asia has become the choice vacation these days and can include anything from hiking up the mountains of Nepal to viewing the Great Wall of China in Beijing.
Years ago, one difficulty that had to be overcome when planning a trip abroad was the exchange of different currencies. You had to go to a local bank, stand on line and hand over your dollars in exchange for the currency of the country you planned to visit. If, by chance, you got caught needing more of the foreign currency, it wasn’t such an easy matter to go to the foreign bank and exchange more dollars. Remember ‘traveler’s checks?’ You had to purchase them at the bank and then you could use them as cash in any foreign country. The reason you bought them was they were safer than cash since you had to sign your name on each check as you used them. This prevented anyone else from cashing them.
The problem was that many small businesses and shops didn’t recognize them and you were left in a situation where you had to run to the bank to ‘cash’ the travelers checks and then dash back to the shop to make your purchase. What a pain!!
Today, there these difficulties no longer exist. Credit cards were really the first method of using different currencies with direct exchange rates. You use a dollar Visa or MasterCard to buy a product in British Pound Sterling. No problem. Present your card pay in whatever foreign currency you need, get charged at the end of the month in dollars. What a breeze.
In fact, as currencies became easier and easier to transfer, foreign currency exchanges started popping up and became another financial instrument for investors. From the comfort of their living room and using only a simple desktop computer, investors started making money by trading currency pairs on any of the several currency exchanges available around the world. And as things progressed, Forex trading (short for foreign currency exchanges) became more popular than equity trading because unlike most stock markets, Forex can be done almost 24/7.
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