The festive holiday season starts in earnest at 3pm today when public school students sign off on the 2025 school year.

Our road network becomes busier as families load up for camping holidays, and some pack suitcases for overseas travel.

A new local business is targeting those hopping on planes or boats and looking for some foreign cash to take with them.

Money2Travel has its base in Dunoon, but is an online business. It has teamed up with Asia Pacific Currency Services to offer competitive rates and fast delivery.

Marcus Hammond is the Head of Currency Services for Money2Travel. He says there is a huge opportunity in the travel money space.

"The sort of major players have dwindled quite dramatically, and people are looking for more of an online solution, so we don't have any sort of shop frontages. This is all an online 24/7 platform that we were looking at working with different verticals, whether it be banks, whether it be the travel industry, whether it be universities and anybody who travels, whether it be for personal or business use."

Marcus explained that a mixed wallet is still the preferred option when Aussies travel overseas, taking cash and a prepaid travel card. This gives people the opportunity to set their exchange rate. However, the cash component has been increasing. Last year, Australians travelling overseas took over $6 billion with them.

"What we've seen, probably, over the last maybe 10 years or so, is a significant increase in the average transaction value of people taking cash overseas. Obviously, there's a number of cash-centric countries, especially Asia, the Middle East and obviously Africa, where cash really is the main source of your spend.

"Another reason why people are taking more money, especially the older generation, is it gives them a little bit more surety rather than using a prepaid card or a credit or a debit card, because of security as well. The older generation are very dubious around using cards over the internet, or in an overseas ATM machine or in an EFTPOS machine overseas because of the fear of being scammed. With physical cash, you don't have that. So, there's that to think about as well.

"It's probably horses for courses. I speak to people who say I only ever take cash when I'm travelling on holiday. Some people say to me, I'd never take cash, I just take the Travel Card. But it's always advisable that you do take a mix.

"I'm 55, and I've been travelling since I was 10 months old, when I went to Spain with my parents. Domestically, I very rarely have cash on me, but internationally, I feel naked if I don't actually have physical cash. If I'm in a country, I'd say, probably 30% to 40% of my holiday spend is in cash."

How does Money2Travel work?

"Basically, you place the order online, and you can select one of 4,163 Australia Post outlets as your pickup point. You put in the postcode for the area that you live in, and it will give you a drop-down box over a particular radius of the post offices that you can go and collect those monies from.

"So you complete your order, you pay for the order, and then that order will be dispatched. It will be picked and packed, and it will be dispatched to that nominated post office for you to collect in about two to three days.

"I did one myself about three weeks ago. Through Money2Travel, I placed the order on Tuesday lunchtime, and I actually picked it up on Thursday afternoon.

"I got a text message in the morning, because it's fully trackable as well through Australia Post, I got a text message on the Thursday morning to say that it was available at my local post office. So, from ordering to getting the notification that it was ready to pick up with that text message, it was actually less than 48 hours, which I think is pretty impressive."

Exchange Rates

"We offer very competitive exchange rates. The main sort of competition that we see in this spot is CBA, obviously, being the only big four bank that does provide cash to its customers. And then you've got the big players like Travelex and Travel Money Oz. We do a price comparison on a monthly basis, just to make sure that we're right up there as far as being competitive is concerned.

How much cash should people take on holiday?

"It depends on where you're travelling to, and it always depends on the type of holiday that you like to undertake yourself.

"If you're somebody that likes to travel overseas, and you like to eat out every single day for breakfast, lunch and dinner, then obviously you're going to need a hell of a lot more money than somebody who's happy to do their own breakfast or even stay in at night.

"Everybody's different in relation to what amount of money they need. Some people just want to go and lie on a beach, and probably don't spend an awful great deal if you're going all-inclusive. You don't need a great deal of money unless you're paying for trips or whatever."

Marcus's advice is to still take a prepaid travel card along with some cash to make sure you have every situation covered.

"You've got to think about an ATM being down, or what if the EFTPOS machine is down when you go into a cafe, restaurant or a shop. So again, that is why cash is such an important commodity to have as part of that overall travel money. A mixed wallet because you don't want to be using your credit card or your debit card. That is an absolute last resort, because then you are converting Aussie dollars into that particular currency, and then that's where the bank's absolutely slug you with international transaction fees."

If you are lucky enough to be travelling overseas in 2026, check out Money2Travel.