K&H: vacation is knocking, let’s go to the big world!

By: Trademagazin Date: 2025. 05. 28. 11:10

Summer trips abroad are the first real independent adventure for many high school students – which is why it doesn’t hurt to take some important financial and safety advice. A charged mobile phone and valid travel insurance are also essential. Together, these help to ensure that the long-awaited vacation does not turn into a series of unexpected inconveniences.

High school students at the age of 17-18 inevitably feel the urge to go on foreign trips with their friends and classmates. They want to explore parts of the world outside their home country, which is not a big challenge in the world of online travel planning.

Young people often don’t ask for help in figuring out and planning their summer abroad program. They choose the cities they want to go to, find good accommodation and transportation options, and off they go! Financing the adventure is another matter, because not all young people are comfortable with this anymore. Safe handling of cash and bank cards is not a miracle, but you still need to pay attention to them.

Precautionary measures should be taken before traveling!

There are several pieces of advice and suggestions that young people should heed. Although in most countries you can pay by card almost everywhere, it is not necessarily a problem if you have some cash on hand as an emergency reserve in case you cannot pay by card somewhere. However, it is an important detail to know what fees each bank charges for using ATMs.

Card purchases are free in most countries, but if the bank card is assigned to a forint-based account, you should know that when making a foreign currency payment in the given country, the bank converts the purchase amount at its own exchange rate. Although the transaction is deducted from the account in forint, the card company calculates in euros or dollars, Mastercard, for example, in euros. If the local currency is different, an extra currency exchange will also be made upon purchase, thus increasing the total amount. In such cases, the purchase amount is first converted from the local currency to euros or dollars, and then the bank converts this into the currency of the account, most often forint. It is therefore worth clarifying the exchange rate at which the card used for foreign purchases converts currencies. This can be an important factor for both physical bank card and smart device payments.

It is also advisable to check the limits set for bank card purchases, because larger amounts of expenditure may also occur abroad.

Similarly, a key issue when traveling abroad is travel insurance, which can save the young person and of course the family from very significant expenses in the event of an accident. The cost of an accident or an urgent medical examination can be many times the insurance premium.