Rick Steves Urges Travelers To Avoid This Common Money Mistake In Europe

With a wallet full of fresh crisp Euro bills, the possibilities are endless: Hitting up countries like France, Malta, and Slovenia are a breeze because they use the same currency. While each Euro has specific details indicating where it was minted, they can be used in any country accepting the Euro, making it the best way to country-hop throughout Europe. But what happens when your travels take you over to Poland, where the local currency is the Polish złoty and not the Euro? Travel expert Rick Steves urges travelers to spend their coins before entering a new currency zone, because, as he writes, "Exporting a pocketful of change can be an expensive mistake." 

Avid travelers have all been there at least once while exploring Europe. By the end of your visit through the Euro currency zone, you're left with oodles of coins in every denomination, only to be stuck unable to convert them. Now what? In a blog post titled "Cash and Currency Tips for Europe," Steves offers sound advice for avoiding this expensive money mistake when it comes to coins. "Spend them (on knickknacks or snacks), change them into bills, or give them away before you head into a country where they're worthless," he writes. "Otherwise, you've just bought a bunch of round, flat souvenirs."

In another blog post titled "The Dirty 30 – More Cheap Tricks," Steves touches on the fact that while it's easy to exchange paper currency, "coins are generally worthless outside their domain." With the current market value (at the time of writing), a €2 coin is worth almost $2.50 and with a few Euro coins floating around in your wallet or purse, that amount can skyrocket pretty quickly.

Before you throw away all your coins as you move on to another currency zone, we've got some helpful ways to use up your coins and get the bang for your buck (or Euro). While it may seem like an annoying additional cost many tourists don't prepare for on a European trip, using those extra coins to pay for a tourist city tax may come in handy. Some cities in Europe have now implemented a tourist tax and paying the tax could be the perfect opportunity to offload some of those pesky coins.

Purchasing some snacks, souvenirs, or an afternoon coffee with some loose change is the perfect way to lighten the load in your purse. If you don't have the opportunity to spend your change, you can always donate the coins at a donation drop box, which are quite common to see at airports. You can also gift or trade the coins with friends who may be traveling soon, or better yet, keep it for your next trip abroad.

Creative and crafty types may want to turn leftover coins into jewelry, magnets, or add them to a Euro Trip scrapbook, but Redditor u/coach_curmudgeon shared what might be the sweetest, most creative use of all: "Use them for the Tooth Fairy," they wrote. "Our kids are fascinated to see where the TF has been that night. We make sure to ask any friends who go out of country to save us any spare change in addition to our own trips." It's a simple way to spark a child's curiosity, letting them imagine the Tooth Fairy fluttering in from a charming Medieval town in the Italian Alps to leave them a token for a tooth.