For my first (and only....so far) trip to Africa, I went through a U.S. booking agent. Paid half for a down payment and then the other half about a month before leaving for S.A. I took traveler's checks to pay the remaining payments (I was planning on taking a blue wildebeest, which wasn't in my package), as well as any side trips my wife wished to go on. I check prior to going, and the outfitter said he would take travelers checks, so there was no problem. Put a few things on the credit card, like our stay at Afton house, but like ActionBob said, international fees bring the price up, and you don't see it until it's after the fact. I did convert a small amount of U.S. dollars to Rand prior to going over.....wasn't extremely impressed with the rate I got, but I'm glad I did it, as there was no time to use the services at the airport when we arrived, and a couple of the other hunters had some issues (not sure what they were) when they went to one of the local banks (I'm not sure if they tried to get funds transfered, or exchange, or what they did....they were just in the bank a
really long time, and said they had some problems when they came out. They didn't elaborate, and I didn't ask).
I do like the idea of a U.S. bank account for outfitters.....that would make it extremely convenient for me, but I think that the outfitters sometimes have problems (although I'm not sure of what they are). Would be nice to be able to use a debit card system.....outfitters could carry a "swiper" in the hunting vehicle, and then every time you see an animal you want to take, they just swipe your debit card, and if you have enough dough, you pull the trigger!!!
When you run out of money,
then the safari is over!
Interesting story about travelers checks: About 6-7 years ago, we went to California for a family vacation, and we took travelers checks as we have always done in the past. We were members of AAA at the time, and so that's where we got them from. Almost from the minute we landed in San Francisco, we had trouble......none of the restaraunts would take them, and a lot of the shops refused them as well (the bigger, tourist attraction places, such as the Monterey aquarium, would take them).....I was concerned about maxing out the credit card, as everything was going on that, and then one day we saw a AAA office and decided to cash out a couple of checks and get some spending money.......and the folks at the AAA office (you've probably guessed it by now) REFUSED to cash THEIR OWN CHECKS!!!.....citing (and this one was hard to believe) the
possibility of fraud!!!. We managed to find enough places on the trip to cash the checks and get a little extra to spend hear and there, but it was an extremely frustrating trip. Needless to say, I don't do business with AAA anymore.