You may have planned your flights, hotels and sightseeing down to the last rupee, only to lose money by exchanging cash at an airport, converting leftover Thai baht into Vietnamese dong, or accepting an INR conversion on a card machine.
And if your itinerary covers Thailand, Bali and Vietnam, there is another complication: you are dealing with three different currencies, different levels of cash acceptance and different digital-payment ecosystems.
For Indian travellers increasingly stitching together multiple Southeast Asian destinations in one holiday, forex planning needs to become part of the travel budget — not an afterthought.
“Multi-destination Southeast Asia itineraries are only going to get more popular with Indian travellers. A little forex planning before departure, currency by currency, is a small effort that protects a meaningful part of the travel budget,” said Amit Talwar, CEO, Niyoforex.
Don’t think of your trip budget as one big forex amount
Suppose you are planning a 10-day holiday covering Bangkok, Bali and Ho Chi Minh City, with a total spending budget of ₹1.5 lakh, excluding flights and hotels.
It may be tempting to simply convert the entire amount into US dollars or one foreign currency before leaving India.
That can be an expensive approach.
Thailand uses the Thai baht, Indonesia uses the Indonesian rupiah, while Vietnam uses the Vietnamese dong. Converting your rupees into dollars and then dollars into local currency can mean paying a spread more than once.
Talwar recommends thinking about the trip country by country and day by day.
For example, instead of saying:
“I need ₹1.5 lakh worth of forex.”
Break it down into:
- Bangkok: ₹50,000
- Bali: ₹50,000
- Ho Chi Minh City: ₹50,000
You can then decide how much of each country’s spending should be in cash and how much should remain on a forex card.
“Start with a day-wise itinerary broken down by country, since each destination has its own currency and cost pattern: Thailand (Thai Baht), Vietnam (Vietnamese Dong), Bali/Indonesia (Indonesian Rupiah), Cambodia (Cambodian Riel, though US Dollars are widely accepted for larger spends), and Sri Lanka (Sri Lankan Rupee).
On a 10-day trip split across Bangkok, Bali and Ho Chi Minh City, for instance, I’d recommend converting roughly a third of the budget into each destination’s local currency in advance and buying each currency directly rather than routing through US Dollars first, since every extra conversion adds another spread. The easier way to solve this in practice, though, is to carry a multi-currency forex card,” Talwar told Business Standard.
For travellers visiting multiple countries, a multi-currency forex card can also reduce the need to physically carry several currencies.
How much cash should you actually carry?
Carrying a wallet stuffed with foreign currency isn’t necessarily safer — or cheaper.
The right cash-card mix depends on the destination.
“The right cash-to-card split depends heavily on which countries are on the itinerary, since Southeast Asia’s digital-payment maturity varies a lot from one to the next. A good starting discipline is to simply ask, for each destination, whether it leans card-heavy or cash-heavy, and plan your split around that before you land, rather than figuring it out on the ground,” said Talwar.
Thailand and Bali: More card and digital-payment friendly, particularly in hotels, malls, restaurants and tourist areas.
Vietnam and Cambodia: Cash remains important for street food, local markets, small vendors, tuk-tuks and homestays.
Sri Lanka: Travellers need to be particularly careful about currency rules; direct retail payments in foreign currency are not permitted.
A practical starting point suggested by Talwar is to keep around 25-30% of your daily spending budget in local cash, with the balance on a forex card.
“As a rule of thumb, I’d suggest keeping 25–30% of the daily budget in local cash for markets, transport and small vendors, and the rest on a forex card for hotels, bigger purchases and safety. On a ₹1,50,000 trip covering Thailand and Bali, that’s roughly ₹37,500–45,000 in local cash split across Baht and Rupiah, with the remainder loaded on a card. And regardless of how you split cash and cards day to day, it’s worth keeping a portion of funds parked digitally on the forex card as an emergency reserve – it’s there even if your cash gets lost, stolen, or simply runs low at the wrong moment,” explained Talwar.
Example: ₹1.5 lakh Thailand-Bali trip
If you have budgeted ₹1.5 lakh for spending:
25-30% in cash = ₹37,500-₹45,000
The remaining ₹1.05 lakh-₹1.125 lakh can be kept on a forex card, depending on your itinerary and payment needs.
Don’t treat the cash figure as a rigid rule, though. If your itinerary is mostly shopping malls and hotels, you may need less cash. If you plan to spend several days exploring markets, street-food areas or smaller towns, you may need more.
Talwar also recommends keeping part of the money loaded on the forex card as an emergency reserve rather than carrying all of it in your wallet.
That way, if your cash is lost or stolen, you still have access to funds.
Don’t assume your Indian UPI will work everywhere
Digital payments have transformed travel across Southeast Asia, but there is an important catch for Indian travellers: a payment system being widely accepted locally does not necessarily mean an Indian payment app can use it.
For example, Indonesia’s QRIS cross-border system is connected with several countries, including Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Japan, South Korea and China.
That does not mean an Indian traveller can automatically use every QRIS merchant with an Indian UPI app.So if you are travelling to Bali, don’t arrive assuming that you can leave your cash and forex card at home because “everything works on QR”.
Carry a backup.
Airport exchange counter can be an expensive mistake
One of the easiest ways to blow your forex budget is to wait until you reach the airport.
According to Talwar, airport forex counters can charge mark-ups of around 3-5% for major currencies, with the spread potentially rising to 6-10% for less commonly stocked currencies or during peak travel periods.
Consider a traveller exchanging ₹1 lakh.
At a 3% mark-up, that is effectively:
₹3,000 lost
At 5%:
₹5,000 lost
At 10%:
₹10,000 lost
That’s money you could have spent on a nice dinner, airport transfer or an additional activity — before the holiday has even started.
Talwar recommends buying forex five to seven days before departure, giving travellers time to compare rates between authorised providers rather than accepting whatever rate is available at the airport.
And make sure you use an RBI-authorised dealer or money changer.
One card-machine mistake can also cost you
You are at a restaurant in Bangkok. The bill comes to 4,000 baht.
The card machine asks:
“Pay in THB or INR?”
It may look convenient to choose INR because you know exactly what you are paying.
But this is where Dynamic Currency Conversion (DCC) can become expensive.
Talwar says travellers should generally choose to be charged in the local currency, rather than accepting conversion into INR at the merchant terminal.
Why?
Because the merchant or payment provider sets the conversion rate, which can include an additional mark-up.
So in Bangkok, choose THB.
In Bali, choose IDR.
In Vietnam, choose VND.
Your card issuer then handles the currency conversion.
Don’t buy dollars just because you are going to Southeast Asia
Another common mistake is buying US dollars because they are perceived as a “universal travel currency” and then converting them into local currencies after reaching the destination.
That means potentially paying for two currency conversions:
INR → USD → THB
instead of:
INR → THB
The same issue can arise when travelling across several countries and repeatedly exchanging leftover currency.
Suppose you finish your Thailand leg with ₹5,000 worth of baht.
You convert it into dollars.
Then, in Vietnam, you convert those dollars into dong.
Each conversion involves a spread.
Do that repeatedly across three countries and small leakages can add up.
The better approach is to estimate your spending for each destination and buy the relevant currency or use a multi-currency card.
Don’t over-carry cash either
There is another side to the equation.
Trying to be “extra safe” by carrying ₹1 lakh worth of foreign currency can also backfire.
You risk:
- Theft or loss
- Having too much leftover currency
- Paying another spread when converting it back
- Getting stuck with a currency you won’t use again
-
For travellers who frequently travel abroad, a forex card can therefore act as a useful middle ground: keep the cash you actually need physically and retain an emergency amount digitally.
Some providers also offer buy-back facilities for unused foreign currency, although travellers should check the applicable rate and terms before relying on this.
What about the ₹10 lakh TCS rule?
This becomes relevant mainly for larger international spending and remittances, rather than a typical ₹1.5 lakh holiday.
From April 1, 2026, the TCS rules provide a ₹10 lakh annual threshold for LRS remittances, with 20% TCS on the amount above ₹10 lakh for purposes other than education or medical treatment. The Income Tax Department lists 20% as the applicable rate for other LRS purposes.
For example, if an eligible LRS transaction amounts to ₹13 lakh, TCS at 20% would apply to the ₹3 lakh above the threshold — resulting in ₹60,000 of TCS. The tax collected can subsequently be claimed as credit while filing the income-tax return, subject to the usual rules.
For a normal family holiday costing ₹2-3 lakh, this is unlikely to be an issue.
But it can become relevant for high-value international travel or when a person’s other LRS transactions during the same financial year push the cumulative amount beyond ₹10 lakh.
Also, the ₹10 lakh threshold is per individual per financial year, rather than a single threshold for the entire family. So families undertaking larger overseas spending should plan transactions with the applicable LRS rules in mind.
Talwar lays down some of the most common and avoidable mistakes on multi-destination SE Asia trips:
Buying only one currency, usually US Dollars, for a trip spanning multiple countries, and reconverting leftover cash at each border – a little value is lost on the spread every time you convert.
Defaulting to airport or hotel-desk exchange out of habit, which sit at the expensive end of the mark-up range.
Overcarrying cash ‘to be safe’ – leftover foreign currency losing value on reconversion is one of the most common sources of quiet trip-budget leakage, and it’s also a theft risk.
At card machines, agreeing to pay in INR instead of the local currency — this Dynamic Currency Conversion option typically adds a hidden 5–7% versus billing in Baht, Dong or Rupiah.
Not informing the card issuer of travel dates and destinations before departure, which can get cards blocked mid-trip.
Relying only on cards in cash-heavy markets — Vietnam, Cambodia and Sri Lanka in particular still have plenty of everyday vendors who simply don’t accept cards.
Practical tips to plan spending, currency exchange and emergency funds before travelling
Talwar further lays down a simple pre-trip framework for multi-destination SE Asia trips:
Before you travel
Break the total budget down by destination and by day rather than as one number, and map how much cash versus card is needed at each stop – cash-heavy in Vietnam, Cambodia and Sri Lanka; more card-friendly in urban Thailand and tourist Bali.
Buy forex at least 5–7 days ahead rather than at the airport. RBI rules allow only $ 3,000 in cash per trip – the rest goes on a forex card anyway, so there’s no reason to wait.
Currency exchange
Compare rates across two or three providers before booking.
At card machines, always choose to be billed in the local currency, not INR, to avoid Dynamic Currency Conversion mark-ups of 5–7%.
Tax planning
If you’re travelling as a family or group, split your forex purchases across individual travellers rather than routing everything through one person. Income Tax rules apply a 20% TCS (tax collected at source) on forex purchases above ₹10 lakh per traveller per financial year — splitting the purchase means each person uses their own threshold instead of exhausting one person’s limit for the whole group’s trip. It’s fully reclaimable against your tax return, but avoiding it upfront is simpler on cash flow, especially for larger family trips.
Emergency funds
Set aside roughly 10% of the total trip budget as a buffer on a forex card, since it’s accessible across every destination on a multi-country itinerary without carrying more cash.
Inform the bank or card issuer of travel dates and destinations before departure, carry a backup card, and keep a small cash reserve in the next destination’s currency if crossing a land border where ATMs may be scarce.
“Southeast Asia’s multi-destination itineraries are only going to get more popular with Indian travellers – the numbers already show it. A little forex planning before departure, currency by currency, is a small effort that protects a meaningful part of the travel budget.”