Originally Posted by
Barciur
In Poland I didn't carry a wallet for the 3 weeks I was there

And I ran into a situation where I needed cash twice throughout the whole stay, which was solved by going to an ATM that takes contactless transactions through Google Pay... different world.
Yes, in a recent trip to Europe, I also didn't have a plastic card or wallet on me for most of the trip. Just a small amount of Euros and my phone. I was able to tap (SPay) everywhere only using the physical card maybe three times in total and tapped maybe 50+ times. I would never try that in the US (not have a card backup).