Travel question of the day: Simon Calder on where to exchange sterling for Norwegian kroner

Have a travel question that needs answering? Ask our expert Simon Calder

Simon Calder
Friday 06 January 2017 21:38 GMT
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Exchange a small amount of money before arriving in Oslo
Exchange a small amount of money before arriving in Oslo

Q I'm going to Norway to visit my girlfriend in a couple of weeks and I was wondering where is the best place to get kroner. The bureau de change I usually use is quoting over NKR10 to £1. Or do I get it in Norway?

Jonathan Rodney-Jones

A Good question. I lump currencies into different groups for the purposes of changing money. Euros and US dollars are easy: you find the best rate you can in the UK, and exchange what you think you will need. I also try to source Australian dollars, South African rand, Swiss francs and Canadian dollars here.

For most other currencies for destinations that are primarily holiday locations (e.g. Croatian kuna, Turkish lire, Egyptian pounds…) you tend to get significantly better value in the destination, so I just take sterling cash.

Nordic currencies are trickier. As “minority currencies”, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland don’t have a very competitive market either here or there. So in those locations I try to use my (loading-fee-free) Halifax Clarity credit card wherever possible, which is almost everywhere these days. The only place that really annoys me is Denmark, where they have an extra fee on foreign credit cards.

So the optimum is to get a small amount of Norwegian currency (which you might as well obtain here) but rely on fee-free plastic for most of your other spending.

For anyone heading for Norway, I have two more words of money-saving advice: duty free. As it is outside the EU, you can take limited quantities of alcohol: 1 litre of spirits, 3 litres of wine (4 bottles) and 2 litres of beer. You can even buy them at the airport on arrival, at reasonable prices.

Every day, our travel correspondent Simon Calder tackles a reader’s question. Just email yours to s@hols.tv or tweet @simoncalder

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