Originally Posted by
moondog
You can do better by buying euros in Europe instead of the US, but running an fx operation entails fixed costs that get passed on to customers, so it's almost never possible to get within 50 basis points of spot unless you are doing very large transactions. Countries where there is high demand for USD (think controlled and/or volatile currencies) are an exception to this rule.
Moondog, I had a terrible time trying to exchange U.S. currency for euros last summer. In fact, after a couple of days of trying in Colmar and Strasbourg I had to pay my hotel bill us USD, which they accepted as a courtesy.
For future trips I still plan to have a good bit of euros when I arrive, but I certainly won't both with carrying any American currency, as I have in the past. So I'm going to use an ATM card, but I still play to arrive with enough euros to get me started.