[Bavarian]

Originally Posted by CFrance

Since you own a condo in Europe, you might check into checking accounts that have debit cards that charge no foreign transaction fees and reimburse any banks' charge for using their atm.

But perhaps you have a foreign bank account. We don't. The only one available to us was HSBC, and they wanted you to invest many thousands of dollars with them to qualify for an account.

We've been doing this with our Schwab checking account since 2006 and have saved a lot of money down through the years.

We do save euros from the previous trip to tide us over, but maybe the OP doesn't travel to Europe frequently.

It was bad when the Euro came out and we had to turn in our DM before we left last time since they would be unchangeable before we returned. Kept coins as collectors items, relatives, gave us some to start, since banks were closed on the weekend. If you want a foreign account, try a Sparkasse over there, Check when you are there and leave some money there when you leave, can always transfer more from here over there once account started.