I was standing in Bali when the ATM literally swallowed my card.
No metaphor. The machine made a greedy little clunk, sucked it in, and that was the last I saw of it. I waited a full minute like an idiot, staring at the screen, willing it to spit it back out. It didn't.
TD Bank was perfect for Tampa. It was useless in Bali.
The replacement card took a month. Thirty days of borrowing money, stressing, and learning an expensive lesson about what "works worldwide" actually means when you're on the other side of the planet.
I will never do that again.
So before I leave for Thailand this time, I set up two simple things in one afternoon. Here's exactly what I did.
1. Schwab High Yield Investor Checking
This is now my main travel account.
- Zero foreign transaction fees
- Unlimited ATM fee reimbursements everywhere in the world
- No minimums, no nonsense
If you only take one thing from this post, make it this. Schwab is the account that actually travels with you.
2. Wise
Thailand is going cashless. Starbucks, IKEA, even some KFCs and Subways in Bangkok are card-or-QR only. Without a Thai bank account, you can't join the local payment apps. Wise fixes that. Load Thai Baht onto your Wise debit card at the real exchange rate and you're good to go anywhere cards are accepted. Clean, cheap, and shockingly easy.
The card in the ATM cost me a month of pain. This setup cost me an afternoon. Worth it.
Ready to take the leap?
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