[slavik81]

It's a good idea to carry a couple cards.

About a decade ago, I took a sudden flight to a small airport in Colorado due to an emergency at work. When I arrived, I had nothing but a Visa, and a few dollars Canadian.

I was frustrated to find that I couldn't get food or call my work, because Visa wasn't accepted anywhere. The highlight was trying to make a call on a payphone and talking to the operator. When I asked if I could use my credit card to make a call, she listed off MasterCard and a half-dozen credit cards I'd never heard of. "How about Visa?" "No, sorry."

I will forever remember the janitor for lending me his cell phone and getting me out of that mess. After that, I made sure I carried multiple cards.

[bigiain]

This. I ride not-particularly-reliable motorcycles. My personal philosophy is to always have access via at least two different financial institutions and their computer networks to sufficient debit/credit funds to get myself and a possibly broken bike home from the most remote place I could possibly end up on a trip.

(I did once end up having a tremendously fun weekend in Melbourne thanks to a broken down bike and a weekend long outage of my then only bank's ATM network - but it would have been even more fun with more than the cash in my pocket and relying on friends for somewhere to sleep until a branch opened on Monday morning...)