A lot of good advice. Forgot about supermarkets, which I've used the past couple trips.

Not much good if you don't smoke.

Hotel front desk.

It is my experience that many ATMs in Europe provide an assortment of bill denominations for a withdrawal, rather than using solely large bills as appears to be common in the U.S. Thus, the premise for the post may not exist in some areas.

Not my experience at all.

Most US ATMs give only 20s. I would prefer some 10s, but $20 does not count as a large bill these days. Ten years ago, yes, but not today. Breaking a $20 bill for a small purchase is no longer a problem. I would say only 5% of ATMs in my region would be stocked with any 50s, 10s, or 5s.

In Europe, I have found around half of ATMs will default to only 50s. Another 40% will let you select the denomination you receive. And the remaining 10% will give you a variety of bills even if you ask for an amount divisible by 50.

I often take out money two or three times with manually input "other" amount, e.g. when 20 and 50 EUR notes are available, I ask for 80 each time to get 20s.

This works in other countries too, you can ask the ATM for suitable amounts that force the ATM to deal out some or all smaller bills, often something like e.g. 80, 180, 1800, 18000 etc, i.e. one small bill less than the too big bill amount.

Although I prefer to pay for everything with a card to get the almightly miles ;-) and to avoid carrying those super heavy coins around. The best thing about the US: The 1 dollar note. We want a 1 EUR note!

A few years ago in Vienna I requested EUR 200 from the ATM. It gave me a one 200-euro note!! Had never seen such thing before, I even took a picture

Ha, try to get rid of a 500� note! Those monstrosities don't even fit in most wallets.

(In case you have never seen one - you propably haven't: Link)

Did that come out of an ATM? Should have asked for 490 Euros. At least you would ONLY have received 2 �200, 1 �50 and 2 �20 notes as worse case scenario.

One of my constant pet peeves during my time in Singapore was that ATMs dispense S$50 notes, but you get a lot of complaints when you use them to pay for a S$5 taxi ride. (Singapore has a S$10 note, but no S$20 note -- a gap that needs filling, in my opinion.)

My first stop after hitting the ATM was generally to a grocery store to buy something small. Starbucks worked well for this, too.

In countries where the bills get really tattered and dirty, flip through your change. Shopkeepers understandably will try to bury a bill that's on the verge of disintegration in your change.

I've never had pushback when I wordlessly hand the dodgy bill back for a replacement.

My (US) ATM switched a couple years ago. Now I choose between all 20's or 100's + 20's.

I can get any denomination I want from my local bank, provided I'm willing to pay a 10CDN fee and wait a few weeks.

I'll go in and say, "Mary Beth, I'd like some Euros. Fifty dollars in coinage, five hundred in 50 euro notes and a thousand in hundreds.". No problem, but it does cost a couple bucks and it is a longer wait than going somewhere with a banknote and trying to cash it in local currency.

My local bank doesn't normally carry Euros (there must be 20 different branches) but they do carry USD in addition to CDN. My parents before their last cruise and also before their road trips will go into the bank and say, "Give me two thousand dollars in small American bills.". Not a problem. They can even get 1's and 5's.

Of note, for domestic travel, I like to have some high number bills on my money belt and some buried in my backpack. Simply if I lose my wallet and need to take a cab or pay for documentation.

In my experience, the best option to get small bills, if not a bank is at a liquor store. Even if you're buying a litre of Coke, they are used to people paying with 100s and 50s. They will definitely have the change. Some liquor stores are odd about this, and they will demand small bills for a small, non-liquor purchase, but that's a rarity.

Some even offer cash back. As does Walmart.

CK